Radical changes could be coming to the NFL’s postseason format.
Under a new proposal that, according to a report Wednesday from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, is likely to be approved as part of the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, NFL playoffs would expand from six participants per conference to seven in 2020, with only the two No. 1 seeds receiving first-round byes.
In the current system, the top two teams in each conference earn a free pass to the divisional round, with the remaining four squaring off on wild-card weekend. Landing one of those byes is massively important; the last team to even reach the Super Bowl without one was the 2012 Baltimore Ravens.
The New England Patriots have secured 13 first-round byes since 2001 and reached the Super Bowl in nine of those seasons, winning six titles. Each of their playoff runs that began with a wild-card game (2005, 2006, 2009, 2019) ended in the AFC Championship Game or earlier.
Had the proposed new format — which drastically increases the value of finishing with the best record in your conference — been in place throughout the Bill Belichick era, the Patriots would have earned just seven byes. (They also would have made the playoffs during the 11-5 Matt Cassel year in 2008 and would have played a total of four first-round games against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who’ve finished seventh in the AFC in three of the last eight seasons.)
Patriots first-round opponent under proposed new playoff system:
2001: vs. Seattle Seahawks
2002: miss playoffs
2003: bye
2004: vs. Jacksonville Jaguars
2005: vs. Jacksonville Jaguars
2006: vs. New York Jets
2007: bye
2008: at Pittsburgh Steelers
2009: vs. Baltimore Ravens
2010: bye
2011: bye
2012: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
2013: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
2014: bye
2015: vs. New York Jets
2016: bye
2017: bye
2018: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
2019: vs. Tennessee Titans
This CBA proposal also would expand the regular season to 17 games, per reports from Schefter and others, and shrink the preseason to three games, though those changes would not take hold until the 2021 season.
NFL owners will meet Thursday to discuss CBA negotiations, with members of the players’ union doing so Friday, according to reports from NFL Media’s Mike Silver and Tom Pelissero. A swift resolution would benefit the Patriots for the following reason: If a new CBA is not in place by the start of the NFL league year on March 18, teams would be unable to add voidable years to new player contracts and would be required to follow the “30 Percent Rule,” which prohibits a player’s projected salary from increasing by more than 30 percent from one season to the next.
Those financial restrictions would make re-signing quarterback Tom Brady — whose contract includes $13.5 million in dead money that will hit New England’s 2020 salary cap if he becomes a free agent — much more complicated.
