The 6-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers have an inside track to host a postseason game this winter, despite their sub-.500 record. This is only possible because of the NFL’s divisional structure, which is slowly losing steam in the sport’s other big leagues in college football. This begs the question: Do we really need to reward division winners in 2022?
If you look at college football, the Pac 12 and Big 12 have already eliminated division winners from automatically qualifying for their championship games. The Big 12 simply doesn’t have enough teams, while the Pac 12 has chosen to have the two teams with the best records play each other in the title game.