Over the last year or so, the NFL has been hinting that the league is interested in adding more teams to the mix during the playoffs which would most likely increase the number of postseason teams from 12, to 14. Last month, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell noted that playoff expansion will most likely happen as he noted via the Jags' official website.
"It will likely happen at some point," Goodell noted. "But we want to be really cautious because we really like the balance we have with the importance of the regular season and the postseason...It works so well right now [with 12 teams]," Goodell continued. "I think that what makes the NFL great is every game means so much. You don't ever want to lose that. You don't want to lose the fact that every regular-season game is important. Only having 12 teams qualify, which is the smallest of any of the professional leagues by far, that's a good thing for us."
Well, to be fair, MLB has 10 teams making the playoffs in a 30 team league but I digress. The momentum for a playoff expansion has been hot and cold quite a bit. We haven't heard a lot of talk about that in recent weeks and it has been a discussion that NFL owners seem to put on hold on more than one occasion . However, with the owners meetings expected to gear up this week, we might have an answer to the solution of this topic soon enough.
From what I have seen, it looks like the league and NFL owners, in general, are in favor of adding more playoff teams. From the NFL fan perspective, there are a lot of fans who want the league to keep the playoffs the way it is. Adding 14 teams to the playoffs in a 32 team league is bordering on excessive.
The NFL would really be at the tipping point of deluding the product when it relates to the playoffs. In recent years, we have seen 7-9 and 8-8 teams make the playoffs frequently and with the possibility of two more teams (One in each conference) could we see a team with a 6-10 record make the postseason? I hope not.
Everyone who is a fan of the NFL wants a good product. Whether you are an owner or a fan, you want to see a good game. If adding more playoff teams work out well, then fans will be happy. If it doesn't work out well, the topic will just go down as criticism from fans that all the NFL cares about is money.