Any Given Friday: NFL proposed CBA and 7th seed argument

This week our Any Given Friday trio is back with their take on the newly proposed NFL CBA that has been sent to the NFLPA for approval. All three of our hosts have varying opinions, but Corey has a strong stance against a 7th seed playoff team, while Kai’Chien and Eric agree that a six-game wild card weekend would be awesome.

What does a 7th seed mean?

For what seems like months, the rumors of a 17th game in the regular season have been floating around. This would, in turn, create fewer preseason games (thank god) while including an extra bye week. The NFL and a majority of its owners agreed on a new 17 game NFL season with three preseason games. An extra bye week has not been reported.

For reference, Warren Sharp tweeted that in the last ten years, we would’ve had ten teams with five wins, nine teams with nine wins, and six teams with eight wins as seventh seeds. Five of the eight-win teams were 8-8. This doesn’t seem too rewarding as an 8-8 season would go down as a failure for most teams. Just sticking at .500. This would create a situation where #2 seeds in each conference would host a wild-card weekend game against their 7th seed opponent. As an example, this season, the Kansas City Chiefs would’ve hosted the 8-8 Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Green Bay Packers would’ve hosted the 9-7 Los Angeles Rams all on wild-card weekend.

More games, more excitement

There is no doubt that an extra playoff game would create more excitement with fans. Waking up on both Saturday and Sunday of a wild-card weekend with games at 1 pm, 4 pm, and 8 pm would be amazing. This would make those weeks 16 and 17 matchups that much more important. It could even force a #1 seed to start its star players in Week 17 to insure the playoff bye. The NFL and the NFLPA must agree on a proposed CBA as soon as possible. This should be an exciting development for the next few weeks.