Play your division twice, then one opponent from each division from the other conference.

Win your division, you get a BYE.

Adds value to winning your division.

Playing seven teams twice means the games should be better as you're more familiar with your opponent.


Edit, I removed the divisions because that is not the focus of this post. The focus is going from 8 divisions to 4 divisions.

Don't make Carolina and Atlanta fly to the Left Coast twice another trip to AZ every year.

These would spark some heated debates.

NFC
Division

New York Giants

Philadelphia Eagles

Washington Redskins

Carolina Panthers

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Atlanta Falcons

Detroit Lions

Green Bay Packers

Division

Chicago Bears


St. Louis Rams

Minnesota Vikings

New Orleans Saints

Dallas Cowboys

Arizona Cardinals

San Francisco 49ers

Seattle Seahawks

AFC
Division

New England Patriots

New York Jets

Buffalo Bills

Miami Dolphins

Jacksonville Jaguars

Baltimore Ravens

Pittsburgh Steelers

Cleveland Browns

Division

Cincinnati Bengals

Indianapolis Colts

Tennessee Titans

Houston Texans

Kansas City Chiefs

Denver Broncos

Oakland Raiders

San Diego Chargers

Here is a little of the NBA look.

Northeast Division

New England Patriots

New York Giants

New York Jets

Philadelphia Eagles

Baltimore Ravens

Washington Redskins

Buffalo Bills

Pittsburgh Steelers

Southern Division

Carolina Panthers

Miami Dolphins

Jacksonville Jaguars

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Atlanta Falcons

New Orleans Saints

Indianapolis Colts

Tennessee Titans

Central Division

Cleveland Browns

Detroit Lions

Cincinnati Bengals

Chicago Bears


Green Bay Packers

Minnesota Vikings

St. Louis Rams

Kansas City Chiefs

Western Division

Houston Texans

Dallas Cowboys

Arizona Cardinals

Denver Broncos

San Diego Chargers

San Francisco 49ers

Oakland Raiders

Seattle Seahawks

Why get away from four team divisions? Why get away from what has worked pretty well?

Aside from those two questions, this looks like one NFC division pretty much clustered geographically, and the other comprising the leftovers. I could see a LOT of complaints from those leftovers.

If they did anything, they should throw away the whole AFC/NFC concept and really make it geographic - but really, they should do nothing at all.

wpr's "NBA look" comes close, except I would switch Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

I would guess the NFL won't touch these alignments until the day, if ever, they put a team in London...or a team like the Bills moves to Los Angeles, or somewhere nowhere near their current geography.


The way some of these are suggested always seems to leave some teams that don't make any sense together.
The way we have it right now makes perfect sense.
Green Bay is so close geographically to all these teams that you can literally drive from one city to another in a reasonable amount of time to see the games if you wished to do such a thing.
Throwing teams like New Orleans or any of the NFCE teams in makes that a different thing.

I like the way it is now, and hope they don't mess with it.
Getting Tampa out of our division made great geographic sense.
It wasn't fair to a warm weather team like Tampa having to come to Green Bay and Chicago every year.

texaspackerbacker;277175Why get away from four team divisions? Why get away from what has worked pretty well?

Aside from those two questions, this looks like one NFC division pretty much clustered geographically, and the other comprising the leftovers. I could see a LOT of complaints from those leftovers.

If they did anything, they should throw away the whole AFC/NFC concept and really make it geographic - but really, they should do nothing at all.

wpr's "NBA look" comes close, except I would switch Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Being the best out of four teams is moronic. What value is there? Oooh you were better than the Bears, Vikings and Lions!! Congrats!! Give me a cookie crumb break!!


The NFL loves divisional games. Why? Because they are often the better matched games. Why? Because they are a familiar opponent (NFL has stated that very point numerous times).

So, lets have SEVEN familiar opponents and add VALUE to actually winning your division!

The NFL won't do this because the NFL isn't intelligent enough to think this far through.


How many fans are ho-hum over winning the division? Quite a few. Remember last years discussion? If you have two divisions per conference, suddenly winning that division is something to be proud of, vastly more proud of than being the better of four teams.


One of 8, or one of 4?

Zero2Cool;277179Being the best out of four teams is moronic. What value is there? Oooh you were better than the Bears, Vikings and Lions!! Congrats!! Give me a cookie crumb break!!


The NFL loves divisional games. Why? Because they are often the better matched games. Why? Because they are a familiar opponent (NFL has stated that very point numerous times).

So, lets have SEVEN familiar opponents and add VALUE to actually winning your division!

The NFL won't do this because the NFL isn't intelligent enough to think this far through.


How many fans are ho-hum over winning the division? Quite a few. Remember last years discussion? If you have two divisions per conference, suddenly winning that division is something to be proud of, vastly more proud of than being the better of four teams.


One of 8, or one of 4?

While winning a divisional title with 8 teams is certainly a greater accomplishment than winning a division of 4 teams the rivalries will not be greater than what they currently are.

Look at baseball.
The Brewers rivals are Chicago and St Louis.
Brewers certainly want to beat Pittsburgh and Cincy but rivalries are there whether or not the team is having a good season.

Boston and New York will go at it no matter what.
Baltimore wishes they too could be a part of it.
Toronto and Tampa just don't matter to the fans or the players as a true rival.

St Louis had bad blood with New York back in the 80's because both teams were pretty good and they were in the same diversion.
They were split apart and now it doesn't matter.
Split the Yankees and Boston and they will still fight with the same intensity.

Back to the 8 team division, a team is going to prep as much as they can for their opponent.
You can only know so much then you reach overload.
I don't think UW feels they know Indiana or Purdue better than they know Minnesota because they are in the same division.
The player will play with more passion in the Gopher game because of their rivalry.

Zero2Cool;277179
How many fans are ho-hum over winning the division? Quite a few. Remember last years discussion? If you have two divisions per conference, suddenly winning that division is something to be proud of, vastly more proud of than being the better of four teams.

Hey I was proud of this team winning the division! I even bought the division champ t-shirt!

Or maybe I bought it just to piss off Bears fans by wearing it. [grin1]

Zero2Cool;277179Being the best out of four teams is moronic. What value is there? Oooh you were better than the Bears, Vikings and Lions!! Congrats!! Give me a cookie crumb break!!


The NFL loves divisional games. Why? Because they are often the better matched games. Why? Because they are a familiar opponent (NFL has stated that very point numerous times).

So, lets have SEVEN familiar opponents and add VALUE to actually winning your division!

The NFL won't do this because the NFL isn't intelligent enough to think this far through.


How many fans are ho-hum over winning the division? Quite a few. Remember last years discussion? If you have two divisions per conference, suddenly winning that division is something to be proud of, vastly more proud of than being the better of four teams.


One of 8, or one of 4?

What can I say? I like it better the way it is ....... and I think a lot of people of influence do too.

Playing 7 division rivals twice a year? Not bad, but just 3 games left over to play one each in the other divisions? (That BTW adds up to 17 games). That means you go about 7 years between playing teams from the other divisions. I don't really like that - no good reason why, I just don't.

Speaking from a purely homer point of view also, I think the Packers have an easier route to the playoffs the way it is now - and that, as they say, is not nuthin'.

If they were going to change it like that I would rather have them play different teams more often than a bunch of the same teams all the time.

texaspackerbacker;277203What can I say? I like it better the way it is ....... and I think a lot of people of influence do too.

Playing 7 division rivals twice a year? Not bad, but just 3 games left over to play one each in the other divisions? (That BTW adds up to 17 games). That means you go about 7 years between playing teams from the other divisions. I don't really like that - no good reason why, I just don't.

Speaking from a purely homer point of view also, I think the Packers have an easier route to the playoffs the way it is now - and that, as they say, is not nuthin'.

Three games? What???

Play your division twice, then one opponent from each division from the [h]other conference.[/h]

Poor wording on my part.
I should have said from BOTH divisions from the OTHER conference to be smudge clearly than mud. :)

Under this format, you wouldn't play the other division opponents in your conference outside of the playoffs. Kind of a bummer.

Hmm, okay, so the remaining two games are against two times from the other division in your conference. There we go, bummer problem solved!!