NFL ‘likely’ to change something that doesn’t need changing

Would Roger Goodell just listen to himself?

The NFL commissioner talked about how well the league’s current 12-team playoff format works, then said that it probably will change.

“(It) likely will happen at some point,” Goodell told a group of Jaguars season ticket holders via NFL.com. “But we want to be really cautious because we really like the balance we have with the importance of the regular season and the postseason and you don’t want to mess with that balance.”

The last time the playoffs expanded was 1990. Since then, the NFL’s popularity has skyrocketed. Despite that, it has seemed inevitable in recent years that the formula would change.

Playoff expansion possibly would involve an additional wild-card team in each conference. If there were 14 playoff teams, one team in each conference would get a bye.

There would be something awkward about six teams playing wild-card games with one team getting a bye compared to four teams playing wild-card games and two teams awaiting the survivors.

It seemed that Goodell finally understood that when he extolled the virtues of the current playoff configuration, but then again this commissioner can fix anything that’s not broken.

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