Believe it or not, the NFC East isn't even the worst division this year.
That may surprise you, seeing as no team has a winning record. However, the AFC South is in the same scenario, and the combined records of the teams in that division are actually worse than that of those in the NFC East. Fortunately for those teams, their media coverage isn't nearly what it is for the Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants, and so they haven't had to deal with as much of the spotlight.
The fact of that matter is that we may have two team with losing records make the playoffs this year, something that's only happened once in the history of the of the National Football League. The only time it happened was in the shortened 1982 season, when only nine games were played due to a players' strike. Sixteen teams made the playoffs that year, including the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions, with just four wins and five losses, so clearly that season is marked with an asterisk.
Even though it's a rare occurrence for a sub-.500 team to make the playoffs, it's certainly happened more frequently in recent years. Besides for those two teams in 1982, it's only happened two other times, both in the past five years: the Seattle Seahawks at 7-9 in 2010, and the Carolina Panthers at 7-8-1 just last year.
There's no guarantee that it will happen again this season, but if it does, it may be time to start talking about a change in the NFL playoff system. A team with a 7-9 record may make the playoffs, while it's possible that the New York Jets could be 11-5 and miss out. That is simply ridiculous. And while I may be saying that as a Jets fan, I'm also saying it as an NFL fan. The league deserves to have its best teams playing in January, not some team that got by on the weakness of its division.
Of course, there's not likely to be change anytime soon. This still happens rarely enough that there has yet to be general outcry against the current system. Besides, it's difficult for the NFL to change their format when the NBA hasn't done anything to change theirs, even though a Western Conference team that missed out on the playoffs has finished with a better record than the eighth-seeded Eastern Conference team seven of the past eight years.
In the end, it might not matter. It's still possible that the winners of both divisions could end up at 9-7, while the Jets might play typical Jets football and finish 8-8, eradicating any controversy that might have arisen. Regardless, everyone will forget about it a few weeks afterward when the Cardinals play the Patriots for the Super Bowl. At least until it happens again next year.
