Lions withdraw proposal to reseed playoff teams after wild-card round
The Detroit Lions are turning tail.
Minutes before the NFL's spring league meeting began, the Lions withdrew a proposal they had submitted that would have reseeded playoff teams using regular season records after the wild-card round.
Detroit submitted a similar proposal ahead of the annual league meeting earlier this year. In its initial proposal, playoff seeding would be determined solely by regular season record – division winner status would no longer guarantee a home playoff game if there were wild-card teams with better records.
After a lack of initial support, the Lions changed some of the proposal's wording and re-submitted it before the spring meeting.
The new language would shift the proposed re-seeding to after the wild-card round. That would still diminish the importance of winning the division, but not nearly as much as a complete overhaul of the league's playoff seeding system would have.
Nevertheless, the Lions withdrew their revised proposal before the spring meeting even began. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported that the decision was due to a perceived lack of support from other teams. However, it may be revisited in a possible – read: likely – future where the NFL regular season is expanded to 18 games.
Detroit won the NFC North for a second straight season in 2024, though it took the team all 17 games to do it. The Lions were in a neck-and-neck race with the Minnesota Vikings for the division title down the stretch, but a "Sunday Night Football" victory in Week 18 clinched the NFC North crown.
The Vikings fell to the NFC's No. 5 seed with the loss, while the Lions took the conference's No. 1 seed and received a first-round bye.
Both teams went on to lose their first playoff game in January: Minnesota fell to the Los Angeles Rams on the road, and Detroit lost to the Washington Commanders at home in the divisional round.