The National Football League made the playoff expansion official yesterday. There will be seven teams in the playoffs for each conference. The two seed will no longer get a bye. Wild Card weekend will feature three games on Saturday and Sunday. Each day will have wall-to-wall football. Some could theorize the NFL tried out this format of 12:05, 3:40, 7:05 on Saturday’s that it was a trial balloon for playoff football. As a successful team, Green Bay gets more chances at winning the Super Bowl with this playoff expansion even if it means killing the bye week.

In the last nine years, the Packers would not have seen one advantage from the playoff expansion. Actually, it would have paved the way for other NFC North teams to make the playoffs. 2018 Minnesota Vikings, 2011 & 2012 Chicago Bears, 2017 Detroit Lions. Packers would have forgone a bye in 2014 and played the Philadelphia Eagles in Round 1 led by Nick Foles. Packers did beat that Eagles team, 53-20 earlier in the season. Still, the opportunity to have more chances at the playoffs outweighs losing the bye week. Football is unpredictable, but if you’re the second-best team in the conference you should win versus the seven-best.

For those who are mad that things are expanding, my one question for you is ‘Do you have football?’ If the Los Angeles Rams made the playoffs last year and had to come to Green Bay, would that have been a bad thing to watch? What about Pittsburgh and Kansas City facing off? Another week of Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers? Sign me up. If a two seed loses to a seven seed, they have no one to blame but themselves. More football is a good thing especially when the quality should not go down.

We will see the ramifications this year. Will teams try to make more moves to get back into the playoff race? Will we have more competitive football in December? All questions to ponder as we head into the 2020 NFL season.

Charlie.