The Detroit Lions’ rule proposal to change NFL playoff seeding will be debated again next week.
During the owners meetings down in Florida earlier in the offseason, zero of the Detroit Lions’ three rule proposals for the 2025 season passed. The league declined the proposal to get rid of automatic first downs on illegal contact, and the opted to table their other two proposals—a change to how injured reserve works and a drastic change to the NFL’s playoff seeding policy.
Well, according to NFL insider Albert Breer, the owners are expected to vote on the NFL playoff seeding change next week at meetings in Minneapolis.
In short, the proposal keeps the NFL playoff policy that four division winners and three Wild Card teams make up the seven postseason teams in each conference. However, once those seven teams are determined, seeding is entirely by overall record. Teams who win the division will no longer automatically be placed among the top four seeds.
One important caveat to this rule is the tiebreaker. According to Breer, the primary tiebreaker in the new proposal is being a division champion—even above any head-to-head record. So winning the division still holds some extra meaning.
While some teams were averse to the idea of giving division winners a little less reward, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has reportedly swayed some minds with a less obvious benefit to this change: fewer teams resting players in Week 18. In 2024, some division winners couldn’t change their seeding (like the No. 2 seeded Eagles)—or didn’t care to (Rams). But with overall record mattering all the way through the regular season, even Wild Card teams who are eliminated from winning their division could still be playing for valuable seeding—including earning a home playoff game. As the NFL reportedly showed other teams back in March:
• The Los Angeles Rams went into Week 18 knowing they’d be Nos. 3 or 4 in the NFC. In the adjusted system, they could’ve been Nos. 4, 5, 6 or 7.
• The Philadelphia Eagles went into Week 18 set as the No. 2 seed. In the adjusted system, they could’ve fallen to No. 3 with a loss.
We’ll see next week if the rule is passed, declined, or tabled for another time.
