Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I did some research just for fun on how the NFL playoffs might have looked if we had 6 teams per conference and 2 WC games in the seasons prior to 1990-91.

It's really interesting to note how many different teams would have gotten in and how a lot of good potential #6 teams got gypped.

1970-71
(1) Baltimore Colts, (2) Oakland Raiders- First-Round Byes
(1) Minnesota Vikings, (2) San Francisco 49ers- First-Round Byes

NFC Wild Card Games- (6) NY Giants at (3) Dallas, (5) LA Rams at (4) Detroit
AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Cleveland at (3) Cincinnati, (5) Kansas City at (4) Miami

1971-72
(1) Kansas City Chiefs, (2) Miami Dolphins- First-Round Byes
(1) Minnesota Vikings, (2) Dallas Cowboys- First-Round Byes

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) New England at (3) Cleveland, (5) Oakland at (4) Baltimore
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) Detroit at (3) San Francisco, (5) LA Rams at (4) Washington

1972-73
(1) Miami Dolphins, (2) Pittsburgh Steelers- First-Round Byes
(1) Washington Redskins, (2) Green Bay Packers- First-Round Byes

NFC Wild Card Games- (6) NY Giants at (3) San Francisco, (5) Detroit at (4) Dallas
AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Kansas City at (3) Oakland, (5) Cincinnati at (4) Cleveland

1973-74
(1) Miami Dolphins, (2) Cincinnati Bengals- First-Round Byes
(1) Minnesota Vikings, (2) Los Angeles Rams- First-Round Byes

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Denver at (3) Oakland, (5) Buffalo at (4) Pittsburgh
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) Detroit at (3) Dallas, (5) Atlanta at (4) Washington

1974-75
(1) Oakland Raiders, (2) Miami Dolphins- First-Round Byes
(1) Minnesota Vikings, (2) St. Louis Cardinals- First-Round Byes

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Houston at (3) Pittsburgh, (5) Denver at (4) Buffalo
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) Philadelphia at (3) LA Rams, (5) Dallas at (4) Washington

1975-76
(1) Pittsburgh and (2) Oakland would have first-round byes.
(1) Minnesota and (2) LA Rams would have first-round byes.

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Miami at (3) Baltimore, (5) Houston at (4) Cincinnati
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) Detroit at (3) St. Louis, (5) Washington at (4) Dallas

1976-77
(1) Oakland and (2) Baltimore would have first-round byes.
(1) Minnesota and (2) Dallas would have first-round byes.

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) Denver at (3) Pittsburgh, (5) Cincinnati at (4) New England
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) San Francisco at (3) LA Rams, (5) St. Louis at (4) Washington

1977-78
(1) Denver and (2) Baltimore would have first-round byes.
(1) Dallas and (2) LA Rams would have first-round byes.

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) New England at (3) Pittsburgh, (5) Miami at (4) Oakland
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) St. Louis at (3) Minnesota, (5) Washington at (4) Chicago

1978-79
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) Houston at (4) Miami
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Oakland at (3) Denver

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) Philadelphia at (4) Atlanta
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Green Bay at (3) Minnesota

1979-80
The real life AFC Wild Card Game-(5) Denver at (4) Houston
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) New England at (3) Miami

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) Chicago at (4) Philadelphia
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Washington at (3) LA Rams

1980-81
The real life AFC Wild Card Game-
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) New England at (3) Buffalo

The real life NFC Wild Card Game-
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Detroit at (3) Minnesota

1981-82
The real life AFC Wild Card Game-
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Denver at (3) San Diego

The real life NFC Wild Card Game-
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Washington at (3) Tampa Bay

1982-83: The strike/SB tournament format was too complicated to try and make work with 6 teams per conference, so I'm skipping this one

1983-84
The real life AFC Wild Card Game-
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Cleveland at (3) Pittsburgh

The real life NFC Wild Card Game-
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) St. Louis at (3) Detroit

1984-85
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- ((5) LA Raiders at (4) Seattle
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) New England at (3) Pittsburgh

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) NY Giants at (4) LA Rams
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) St. Louis at (3) Chicago

1985-86
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) New England at (4) NY Jets
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Denver at (3) Cleveland

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) San Francisco at (4) NY Giants
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Washington at (3) Dallas

1986-87
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) Kansas City at (4) NY Jets
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Cincinnati at (3) New England

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) LA Rams at (4) Washington
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Minnesota at (3) San Francisco

1987-88
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) Seattle at (4) Houston
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) New England at (3) Indianapolis

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) Minnesota at (4) New Orleans
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Dallas at (3) Washington

1988-89
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) Houston at (4) Cleveland
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Indianapolis at (3) Seattle

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) LA Rams at (4) Minnesota
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) NY Giants at (3) Philadelphia

1989-90
The real life AFC Wild Card Game- (5) Pittsburgh at (4) Houston
The second AFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Kansas City at (3) Buffalo

The real life NFC Wild Card Game- (5) LA Rams at (4) Philadelphia
The second NFC Wild Card Game would have been (6) Green Bay at (3) Minnesota

For damn near 20 years, the #3 seed always got screwed.

Nothing against the work you did, but I don't like the way you've phrased your premises (assuming that I'm reading them right). No #6 teams got GYPPED in those years -- neither did any #5 teams. Four teams made the playoffs back then, and everybody knew that going in. If you finished 6th, you didn't make it. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact, I think that playoff system was far better than what we have today, and what we've had since they added a fifth team in 1978.

In the same way -- and this goes back to your earlier post about the time when home field was not allotted according to won-lost record -- nobody got SCREWED because they had to play on the road despite having a better record than their opponents. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. OK, they do it differently now, but that doesn't mean the earlier system was unjust in any way. And for that matter, we still get teams with worse records hosting playoff games today, just not as often. Now it's a function of winning a weak division with a mediocre record; then it was a function of a system that didn't take won-lost records into account at all. No big deal, either way.

If I had the final decision on how to run the NFL playoffs, and my two choices were today's system or the system from 1970-74, I'd pick the latter without hesitation. And I wouldn't be SCREWING or GYPPING anybody.

P.S. I hope this doesn't sound accusatory, because I don't mean it that way. And if I misread your original post, then never mind.

CSKreager wrote:1971-72
(1) Kansas City Chiefs, (2) Miami Dolphins- First-Round Byes
(1) Minnesota Vikings, (2) Dallas Cowboys- First-Round Byes

AFC Wild Card Games- (6) New England at (3) Cleveland, (5) Oakland at (4) Baltimore
NFC Wild Card Games- (6) Detroit at (3) San Francisco, (5) LA Rams at (4) Washington

Which teams get stuck playing on Christmas Day?

Bob Gill wrote:Nothing against the work you did, but I don't like the way you've phrased your premises (assuming that I'm reading them right). No #6 teams got GYPPED in those years -- neither did any #5 teams. Four teams made the playoffs back then, and everybody knew that going in. If you finished 6th, you didn't make it. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact, I think that playoff system was far better than what we have today, and what we've had since they added a fifth team in 1978.

If I had the final decision on how to run the NFL playoffs, and my two choices were today's system or the system from 1970-74, I'd pick the latter without hesitation. And I wouldn't be SCREWING or GYPPING anybody.

I read it the same way that you did, Bob, and I agree 100% with you. I don't think the mythical #6 (or #5) seeds from back then were "gypped", at all. If anything, I look at it completely opposite and would say the wild card teams today have no business being in the playoffs. Said it plenty of times on these forums, it defies logic to have a team competing for a 'World Championship' that finished 2nd (or 3rd) in their little group of teams (divisions, today being ONLY 4 teams) ... If you're 2nd in your division then you've already finished 2nd to another team in a competition, the competition being the division championship. No one that finishes 2nd is or should be 'World Champion' of anything. Also defeats the purpose of "playoffs" and makes it more of a 'tournament', the former being something you earn the right to play for and the latter inviting more of a randomness to the winner.

Possibly is a competition v. entertainment point of view. At least I've found - over many years of complaining about wild cards and things like 3 teams in a district qualifying for the high school state playoffs - that those that PLAY(ED) sports and/or are competitive or enjoy competition almost unanimously agree that only Winners should move on while the other side is the more casual sports fan that just wants to be entertained and takes more of a "let them all in" view on things.

Bob Gill wrote:Nothing against the work you did, but I don't like the way you've phrased your premises (assuming that I'm reading them right). No #6 teams got GYPPED in those years -- neither did any #5 teams. Four teams made the playoffs back then, and everybody knew that going in. If you finished 6th, you didn't make it. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact, I think that playoff system was far better than what we have today, and what we've had since they added a fifth team in 1978.

In the same way -- and this goes back to your earlier post about the time when home field was not allotted according to won-lost record -- nobody got SCREWED because they had to play on the road despite having a better record than their opponents. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. OK, they do it differently now, but that doesn't mean the earlier system was unjust in any way. And for that matter, we still get teams with worse records hosting playoff games today, just not as often. Now it's a function of winning a weak division with a mediocre record; then it was a function of a system that didn't take won-lost records into account at all. No big deal, either way.

If I had the final decision on how to run the NFL playoffs, and my two choices were today's system or the system from 1970-74, I'd pick the latter without hesitation. And I wouldn't be SCREWING or GYPPING anybody.

P.S. I hope this doesn't sound accusatory, because I don't mean it that way. And if I misread your original post, then never mind.

By screwed/gypped, I was referring to how a #3 seed in the NFL never got to play a playoff game at home until 1990-91.

Nice work and time put into the original post, CS. And a nice way to enlighten us all on how lucky NFL fans were to not have 6 teams per conference at the time; especially '70 thru '75. Five teams would have been too much as well! Eagles make it in '74? I'm well aware of their 4-1 start that year while Dallas actually started 1-4 (and Eagles beating them at home MNF Week #2), but I just assumed they were well away from it all in the end.

I don't have anything against 6 teams in the post-season these days but, as I said before, I wish the three-division-per-conference format was still intact. It would definitely make it better. IMO as early as '76 (two new teams added in) would have been fine having two wild cards already but, to me, no 6th playoff team per-conf should have been added until '95, the next expansion.

3rd-seeds getting "screwed"? Frankly, I'd rather get the bye even if it means playing on the road in two weeks than to play right away; even if at home. Not that it ever seemed to help anyways from '78 thru '89. Only four 3rd-seed teams of a possible 24 made it to a CC in that span, two of them in the same season. Just one of the four made it to a SB - and lost. Can you name all four?

I'm not seeing many "good potential" #6 seeds on that list. The 1971 Patriots making the playoffs would have been a joke. In 1974, you have two 7-7 teams making the postseason (Oilers & Eagles), with the Eagles finishing fourth in their division. I am looking at your list and drawing the complete opposite conclusion...thank heavens we didn't have 6 playoff teams back in 1970.

Bryan wrote:I'm not seeing many "good potential" #6 seeds on that list. The 1971 Patriots making the playoffs would have been a joke. In 1974, you have two 7-7 teams making the postseason (Oilers & Eagles), with the Eagles finishing fourth in their division. I am looking at your list and drawing the complete opposite conclusion...thank heavens we didn't have 6 playoff teams back in 1970.

The 1970 Browns were an up and down team the second half of that season, winning one and then losing the following week. Meanwhile, the Bengals ran off six straight wins to close out the regular season. In the respective season finales, the Browns won on the road against a blah Denver team, while the Bengals destroyed the Pats. The playoff might have been interesting, considering the two teams split their divisional matchups, each coming back at home to win.

Having more teams in the playoffs means more games and more TV money. This, of course, was the NFL's idea all along.

If that format existed in 1971, I can see Baltimore winning that last game against NE and getting home field. That would have put the 6-8 Jets in the playoffs as the six seed over the Steelers and Chargers due to better conference record (the Jets played SD that year, but not the Steelers).

You would have had Baltimore and KC with the byes, and the Jets going to Cleveland (in a rematch of the first ever MNF game) in the Wild Card round with a healthy Namath, and on a two-game winning streak. Major upset potential, but with a fired-up Colt team looming in the next round (looking for postseason revenge for 1968), I think that the run ends there.