The Detroit Lions had one of their best seasons in franchise history in 2024. Detroit won 15 games, earned their second straight NFC North title, and secured the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. All of these are franchise firsts for the Lions. Detroit submitted a playoff-related proposal that would have helped one of their division rivals last season.
The Lions have submitted a proposal that would make the NFL playoff seeding independent of division titles, per The Athletic's Mike DeFabo. Early indications suggest that this proposal has some detractors.
DeFabo reports that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is one of those detractors. Tomlin, who is on the competition committee, calls himself a “division purist.”
“I think the division winner should get a playoff game and a home playoff game,” Tomlin said on Monday, via DeFabo.
The Athletic's Nick Kosmider added that Broncos head coach gave a similar answer about the Lions' playoff proposal. Payton likes the current playoff format.
This proposal would help teams like the 2024 Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota faces a nightmare scenario for playoff seeding last season. The Vikings won 14 games in 2024, but ended up as the No. 5 seed in the NFC playoffs. This happened because they did not beat the Lions in Week 18 to secure the NFC North title.
It will be interesting to see where each team's votes land on this proposal.
Lions also submitted a proposal related to automatic first downs
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The Lions submitted more than one proposal for consideration at this year's annual league meeting.
Detroit submitted a proposal that would eliminate the automatic first down portion of some defensive penalties. The proposal would apply to penalties like defensive holding and illegal contact.
These penalties serve a specific function as currently written. Defensive pass interference (DPI) is a spot foul, meaning if it occurs 35 yards downfield, then it becomes a 35-yard penalty. Many NFL fans are sensitive about DPI penalties because they cause huge swings in momentum in a game, often based on a judgment call by the officials.
As a result, officials will sometimes defer to defensive holding and illegal contact penalties over DPI as a workaround. The automatic first down portion of those penalties allows the team benefitting from the penalty to still gain additional downs. However, they do not receive chunk yardage like they would on a DPI call.
The Lions are clearly one team that has a different opinion than most NFL fans. It would be fascinating to see which games, if any, are significantly impacted if this proposal passes ahead of the 2025 NFL season.
