The Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions enter their Week 18 game with matching 14-2 records and will be playing for the top seed in the NFC.
The stakes could not be any clearer.
The winner not only wins the NFC North, it also gets the No. 1 seed, a bye week and home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. It is an absolutely massive reward for winning the game.
The loser does not get anything close to that. Despite having a record that will still be one of the top-five records in the league, the loser will not only get the bye week or home-field advantage; it will end up having to go on the road for its first playoff game at the No. 5 seed and play the No. 4 seed (either the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Atlanta Falcons).
The NFL’s playoff format is nothing new. Everybody knows the four division winners in each conference get the top-four seeds and at least one home game. It sometimes presents a situation where a team with a better record has to go on the road, depending on the strength of each division.
Some people do not like that.
You can count Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown as one of those people.
He argued on his podcast this week that the NFL needs to change the playoff seeding format so that division winners get automatic playoff berths, but that overall record still determines the seeding.