NFL playoffs expansion will be good thing for fans, league

The NFL is going to be welcoming an extra two teams into the playoffs come January. It’s going to be great.

While fans are arguing about the merits of the league’s first playoff format expansion since 1990, there’s little argument how people will feel come the second weekend in January. Why? Because we’re going to be treated to a pair of tripleheaders on Saturday and Sunday, meaning football day and night.

And you know who complains about winner-take-all football day and night in January? Nobody.

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The league is also keenly ware of this fact. While there might be initial blowback from Tuesday’s proclamation of 14 teams entering the NFL playoffs compared to 12, there’s little doubt how this ultimately plays out. Once people get used to the idea, they’ll come around, and they’ll play their entire day out around the games. That’s the way this works.

The NFL owns September through the first weekend in February on the American sports calendar. There is the random interruption such as the NBA on Christmas Day, the National Championship Game in college football and the World Series, but few things truly get in the way of professional football. This is especially true come the postseason, when teams are fighting for their shot to get to the Super Bowl — the closest day we have in America to a national holiday for sports — in a single-elimination tournament.

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The other change that comes from the format expanding? The No. 1 seed becomes that much more important.

Instead of each conference seeing its top two seeds get a bye on Wild Card weekend, it is now only the top seed. Meanwhile, the second seed hosts the seventh seed, the third hosts the sixth and the fourth welcomes in the fifth.

However, there’s still an important advantage of being the No. 2 compared to the No. 3. A Divisional round home game is guaranteed provided you win Wild Card weekend. The third seed then goes on the road for the second seed, making it important to finish first, but still relevant to finish second.

For years, we’ve been used to the 12-team format across both conferences. Of course, baseball fans were up in arms when MLB expanded to the Championship Series format in 1969 and then again to include Wild Card teams in 1995.

Sports, like life, is a matter of adjusting to the new norm. Football fans will eventually come around on the idea of two extra playoff games, and they’ll love it.