What if the NFL Playoffs were Determined like the College Football Playoff?

The drama of the regular season in College Football plays out like a reality show. We determine the best four teams to make the playoff with a selection committee, there’s an entire weekly production behind it every single week, and you get to argue countless statistics, eye tests, strengths of schedule, and everything in between until the next weekly ranking comes out. The drama feels like it can’t be replicated with how exclusive the four teams making it out of the hundreds of division 1 programs is.

The NFL is on the opposite side of the spectrum; the Netflix “quantity over quality” approach, if you will, because it is a money printing press. With 14 teams making the playoffs, we’re ten weeks deep and a team with someone

dreadful as Zach Wilson at quarterback is one tie-breaker out of a postseason berth because they know we’ll watch all of the games. The NFL is king.

However, for argument’s sake, what would the postseason look like if it was determined with the exclusive drama that occurs in college? Debating who looks the best, records, and potential ceilings? With how deep we’re into the season and the best teams starting to come to the forefront, let’s determine the four playoff teams should they hypothetically use the “Bachelorette reality show drama” method the NCAA uses.

1 SEED: Philadelphia Eagles (9-1)

The Eagles still indisputably have the best record in the NFL, their only loss coming on a Monday Night interdivisional matchup, and have the most-balanced and deep roster in the NFL on both sides of the ball. The only question about their roster coming into the year about their team was if Jalen Hurts could take them to new heights, and he’s performed like an MVP candidate and answered every single bell thus far. The “playoff committee” could argue that they’ve gotten off to hot starts and then allowed the competition back in the second half, but it’s almost as if they’ve just toyed with their food and preserved their energy. They’ve got some impressive wins on the resume, wins against Dallas and Minnesota in convincing fashion, and they’ve blown out the teams that they’ve needed to when the time came. They’re deserving of the #1 spot.

2 SEED: Kansas City Chiefs (8-2)

The team with the best player in the league that is the absolute most unstoppable force in sports when everything is clicking is the Kansas City Chiefs. Their loss against the Colts might go down as the weirdest early season result of the year, and losing a gritted out game at home to Buffalo is not a good look, but every other game has been a murderers’ row of competition that feels as if Mahomes is never going to lose; in Black Adam, the Rock faces 0 adversity whatsoever- it is just a highlight reel of the Rock tossing down helicopters. That’s what it feels like watching Mahomes take the field every week. He’s inevitable.

They even lost Tyreek Hill and have had so much turnover on their offense in terms of weapons they use, and Mahomes and Kelce have still been in sync like clockwork. They’ve blown out the Bucs, they’ve blown out the Niners, and come up clutch to win against the Chargers (twice), the Raiders, and the Titans.

If you had to bet your life on a team to win a game this year, it’d probably be the Chiefs. The committee would love them and put them through.

3 SEED: Miami Dolphins (7-3)

Now we’re getting to the playoff team that the committee would argue the CEILING for. The Dolphins are undefeated in every game Tua has started and finished, they have a young and innovative first year head coach that could create a scheme up for any type of opponent, and with the explosiveness of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, they could boat race any team in the league. 

Tua leads the league in passer rating, has the second-highest passing yards per game, and they have an offense that has 2nd-most yards per play. It’s the flash the committee would eat up given the lack of explosiveness this year as they’re truly the fun team of 2022.

The sex appeal, a résumé in which they’ve come back to beat Baltimore and Buffalo and only have losses in which they were in flux at quarterback, and the heights they may not have even reached yet would have them matched up against the 2-seeded Kansas City in our hypothetical playoff.

4 SEED: Dallas Cowboys (7-3)

This is where the drama with the committee comes in. Imagine the reactions claiming that the media is biased and wants the big name, shiny helmet with the blue star in the playoff! Social medias and networks would have a field day saying the NFL is rigged since they got in over 8-2 Minnesota or a dominant Buffalo Bills team!

The Cowboys are 7-3 and have losses that could all be written off somehow by the voters- they’d see the week 1 loss against Tampa was an unprepared game where Dak left injured. They’d see the loss against the Eagles on the road as a divisional loss against the best team in football with Cooper Rush at quarterback. They’d see the OT loss against the Packers on the road as a miracle pulled off by Rodgers and some brain fart moves by Mike McCarthy in crunch time.

The rest of the season, they’d be praising the organization for staying afloat with Rush as the backup on the strength of Micah Parsons and Dan Quinn’s defense! Then they have a résumé of a clutch win against the Bengals, the largest point differential in football, and most-recently a 40-3 road slugging of the 8-1 Vikings, possibly exposing them as frauds.

The “Star power” is very real. The Dallas Cowboys would get the shameless vote of approval as the last spot in the hypothetical playoff. Sorry, Vikings, Bills, Titans, or Ravens.