NFL owners approve expanded playoffs; top 2 seeds have huge advantage with lone bye week

There were no annual league meetings for NFL owners this year because of the coronavirus, so on Tuesday they all voted via teleconference to officially approve the expansion of the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams, and it passed easily. Wild Card Weekend for this coming season now will feature three games on Saturday, Jan. 9, and three games on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021. CBS and NBC both picked up another Wild-Card telecast.

The four division winners in each conference will be seeded 1-4, but now there are three Wild-Card teams in both the AFC and NFC instead of two. Only the top seed in each conference will get a first-round bye. That's very important as the last 14 teams to make the Super Bowl all had first-round byes.

The most recent team to reach the Super Bowl without a bye was Baltimore in 2012 when it defeated San Francisco in the Harbaugh Bowl. The Ravens and 49ers would have had the byes this past season; Baltimore was upset at home in the Divisional Round by Tennessee and San Francisco lost to Kansas City in the Super Bowl.

If the 14-team field had been in effect since 1990, an additional 60 teams would have qualified. Of that group, just one would have qualified with a losing record (1990 Cowboys). Last year, the Pittsburgh Steelers (8-8) would have been the seventh team in the AFC and the Los Angeles Rams (9-7) in the NFC.

Since 2002, when the NFL went to its current eight division realignment with four teams each, a total of nine eight-win additional teams would have made the playoffs if it were at 14. There would have been 19 more nine-win teams and nine 10-plus win teams.

The last team with fewer than nine wins to make it was Carolina in 2014 when the Panthers won the NFC South with a 7-8-1 record, beat Arizona in the Wild-Card Round and then lost in Seattle.

From a betting standpoint, this needless to say will shorten the playoff odds of many teams because of that extra spot. For example, if the champion Chiefs had been -1500 at William Hill sportsbook to make it before this vote, they might move to -1700, etc. It's now absolutely crucial to try and finish with the best record in your conference to get that bye week. This could make Week 17 all the more exciting.