Every year the NFL and football operations allow teams to propose any changes that they feel would improve the league. Some examples this year are the Philadelphia Eagles, who proposed to carry out the overtime playoff rules to the regular season. Another example is the Packers who actually tried to strike upon the Eagles when they proposed to ban, “an offensive player from pushing a teammate who was lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap, immediately at the snap” informally known as the “tush push.” All of these will be brought up to the table and decided soon, but one stood out to me.

The Detroit Lions were an NFC favorite to make the Super Bowl, but they fell short to only the divisional round. The Lions proposed two rules. The first was what football operations call a “Club Playing Rules Proposal.” The Lions proposed this: “By Detroit; amends Rule 8, Section 4, to eliminate an automatic first down as a penalty imposed for defensive holding and illegal contact.” Now if you look deeper into this proposal it is clear that the Lions are not trying to improve the league because the rule of an automatic first down is widely considered as a good rule. The Lions corner back Terrion Arnold was first in holding calls in the 2024-2025 season, which is why they tried to propose this new rule. The NFL will quickly strike this one down, but the Lions also placed another proposal that landed in the section called “Club Bylaw Proposals Summary.”

Usually a team proposes to boost their chances at either improving their teams chances or impairing another team’s chances, which showed in the Lions first proposal, but the Lions did something incredibly unusual with their second proposal. They proposed a rule that would’ve not just helped other teams last year, but even worse for them, a team in their division. The Lions proposed this rule: “By Detroit; amends Article XX, Section 20.2 of the Constitution & Bylaws, to amend the current playoff seeding format to allow Wild Card teams to be seeded higher than Division Champions if the Wild Card team has a better regular season record.” In other words, this means that if say the Packers went 13-4 and won the NFC North, and the Falcons went 9-8 and won the NFC South, but the Lions finished 12-5 right behind the Packers. Instead of the Falcons getting a top four spot for a division winner, the Lions would actually jump them since they own the better record. This is how the NBA handles playoff seeds.

Now when you look at this rule change and think of it first hand, it seems like that would be the obvious thing to do because in that scenario the Lions were clearly the better team as they won 3 more games than the Falcons, but this takes away from something that no other sport does better than the NFL. Division games in the NFL are the most important regular season games. They mean so much more than a game against a non-conference or non-division opponent. Many fans including myself, like to sit back and watch a good rivalry and divisional game like the Steelers and Ravens. It is fun to see those teams battle it out for their respective divisions. If the NFL carried out the Lions rule change it would mean that none of the divisional games meant anything. That is how the NBA is. Most NBA fans don’t even know what teams are in their divisions simply just because it means nothing. If the NFL did this the same rules would apply. No more Steelers vs Ravens, Bears vs Packers, 49ers vs Rams, Bills vs Patriots, Chiefs vs Broncos. Soon enough NFL fans 150 years from now wouldn’t even think about these matches because they don’t mean more than any other game. That is what makes the divisions so special.

Before I said that the Lions would be helping out a divisional team with this rule. Last year the Minnesota Vikings tied for second best record in the NFL at 14-3 before losing to the Rams in the wild card round. If the NFL had the rule that the Lions proposed, then the Vikings would’ve been third seed and played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who they match up well with. The Lions sort of helped themselves, though, since they play in a good division that may have 3-4 nine-or-more win teams. Then their proposed rule would be in affect.

This rule will most likely not be applied to next season and so on, but the slight chance that it could, scares me as an NFL fan who enjoys the divisional matches. This is the main reason why I don’t think the NFL should pass this rule: “By Detroit; amends Article XX, Section 20.2 of the Constitution & Bylaws, to amend the current playoff seeding format to allow Wild Card teams to be seeded higher than Division Champions if the Wild Card team has a better regular season record.”