New NFL playoff format could be coming for 2025: Owners set to vote on huge postseason changes this week

The NFL postseason could be undergoing a huge change for 2025

The NFL playoff format could be undergoing a huge change heading into the 2025 season. When the NFL's 32 owners get together in Minneapolis this week, they're expected to vote on a proposal that would dramatically change the seedings in the postseason. 

The owners could have voted on the potential playoff change back in March, but after spending some time debating the issue, it was decided that the talks would be tabled until their next meeting, which will be happening Tuesday (May 20) and Wednesday (May 21). 

The proposal for the postseason change actually came from the Detroit Lions, and that proposal is what will be taken into consideration. The NFL released the full language of Detroit's proposal on Monday night, less than 24 hours before the owners will be arriving in Minneapolis. 

Under the Lions' proposal, the seven teams in each conference would still consist of four division champions and three wild-card teams. However, the big change is that the teams would be seeded by who has the best record. Under this proposal, a wild-card team could be seeded ahead of a division winner if the wild-card team has a better record. This means that a wild-card team could be seeded as high as No. 2. Under the current format, the four division winners get the top four seeds followed by the three wild-card teams. In the current format, no wild card team can be seeded higher than fifth. 

If this new proposal would have been in place in 2024, the Chargers (11-6) would have been the fourth seed in the AFC and they would have gotten to host the fifth-seeded Texans (10-7) instead of the other way around. Also, the NFC playoff picture would have been turned upside down. 

Here's what the NFC playoff seedings looked like in 2024: 
1. Lions (15-2) 
2. Eagles (14-3)
3. Buccaneers (10-7)
4. Rams (10-7)
5. Vikings (14-3) 
6. Commanders (12-5)
7. Packers (11-6)

Here's what they would have looked like with the Lions' proposal: 
1. Lions (15-2) 
2. Eagles (14-3)
3. Vikings (14-3) 
4. Commanders (12-5) 
5. Packers (11-6)
6. Buccaneers (10-7)
7. Rams (10-7)

That's a huge shift. The Rams were the only team that came close to beating the Eagles in the playoffs and Philadelphia would have had to host them in the wild-card round. Also, the Commanders and Vikings both would have gotten to host a playoff game instead of opening the postseason on the road. That could have been huge for the Vikings, who got smoked on the road by the 10-7 Rams, 27-9. Minnesota would have hosted Tampa Bay while the Packers would have traveled to Washington. 

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One tiebreaker that would be added is that if a wild-card team and a division winner have the same record -- like the Vikings and Eagles above -- the division winner would automatically get the better seed, even if they lost a head-to-head game against the wild-card team.

In the divisional round, the No. 1 seed will play the worst-remaining seed and the next best remaining seed will play the second-worst remaining seed. 

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been showing support for a possible change to the playoff format, so it's certainly possible that this will be approved. 

When Goodell was asked about this specific proposal in April, he seemed to be enthusiastic about it. 

"I thought it is a very healthy proposal and a very healthy point that we need to evaluate and continue to look at," Goodell said. "It went through many different forms. There was some great data to show that we should really look at some form or version of this."

For the new format to be implemented for the 2025 season, 24 of the NFL's 32 owners would have to vote to approve it. Although it certainly could pass, CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones reported on Friday that there's no guarantee that the owners will embrace such a radical change.