Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I was wondering about the 1982 NFL playoffs in regards to how they agreed on having the 16 team tournament. Were there other proposals that were considered as to how to handle the playoffs, maybe even leave the division structure intact?

Ivan Urena probably has a more precise answer to the question. Had the strike not canceled seven weeks of games, they probably would have had the 3 division winners and 2 wild cards in each conference, but as it dragged on, it was clear that the teams in each division wouldn't be able to play a home-and-away against each other without major revisions in the schedule. They did arrange a new schedule for the final week of regular play, with 12 of the 14 games being intradivision (the exceptions were the Jets vs. Chiefs and the Cowboys vs. Vikings, all of them the odd-man out in their five-team division) .

Pete Rozelle was quoted as saying, "When we got down to nine games, we knew we couldn't establish the playoffs by divisions and we could by conferences. We felt in fairness to all the teams, and to increase fan interest, it was the thing to do."

Mark L. Ford wrote:Ivan Urena probably has a more precise answer to the question. Had the strike not canceled seven weeks of games, they probably would have had the 3 division winners and 2 wild cards in each conference, but as it dragged on, it was clear that the teams in each division wouldn't be able to play a home-and-away against each other without major revisions in the schedule. They did arrange a new schedule for the final week of regular play, with 12 of the 14 games being intradivision (the exceptions were the Jets vs. Chiefs and the Cowboys vs. Vikings, all of them the odd-man out in their five-team division) .

Pete Rozelle was quoted as saying, "When we got down to nine games, we knew we couldn't establish the playoffs by divisions and we could by conferences. We felt in fairness to all the teams, and to increase fan interest, it was the thing to do."

In Ivan's book, he pointed out that each of the week 9 games (which were played in the first weekend of January 1983) were actually games that were lost in the missing seven weeks. The week 9 Dallas at Minnesota game, which was the MNF game where Dorsett got the 99-yard run, there was a Minnesota at Dallas game scheduled in the seven weeks that were cancelled. In this way, in the ninth game, you didn't have any games that weren't originally on the schedule.

I also remember that when the strike was settled, Rozelle stated that if more than half the regular season were lost before the strike was settled, that the remainder of the season would have been cancelled, and the owners and players knew this and they had to hammer out an agreement because both sides stood to lose a lot of money if the entire season was wiped out. This is one reason why the extra week 9 was added to the schedule, so that more than half the regular season schedule would be played.

In the end, I think the 16-team postseason tournament came down to 2 things, to ensure the best teams would get into the playoffs, and to try to recoup some of their lost revenue by scheduling 15 playoff games. And in the end, I think four of the five best teams in the NFL in 1982 made it as far as the conference championship, Washington, Dallas, Miami, the Jets, and also the Raiders, who lost to New York in the second round. It wasn't like a Detroit or Tampa Bay or Cleveland snuck into the title game.

In my playoff methodology, in 1982, I figured that seven of the 16 playoff teams each had a .005 or less probability (200-1 or worse odds) of winning the Super Bowl, those being Minnesota, Atlanta, St. Louis, Detroit and Tampa Bay, along with New England and Cleveland. I don't think a 16-team tournament is good for the NFL to adopt, because the law of averages will creep up and you would have a 6-10 team winning the Super Bowl at some point, but it was highly unlikely to happen in 1982. The cream was able to rise to the top.

With the 8-1 Redskins winning Super Bowl XVII that season, they became the only post-merger Champion not to win an Interconference game. All 8 of their wins were vs. NFC teams.

Rupert Patrick wrote: And in the end, I think four of the five best teams in the NFL in 1982 made it as far as the conference championship, Washington, Dallas, Miami, the Jets, and also the Raiders, who lost to New York in the second round.

Following up on Chris's question about consideration of the regular playoff format, the New York Jets actually would have missed the playoffs if the league had used the division alignment to determine 10 playoff teams. The Raiders (8-1), Miami (7-2) and Cincinnati (7-2) would all have won their divisions. The Jets, Chargers and Steelers all finished 6-3, but the Jets conference record was 2-3, as opposed to 5-3 for San Diego and Pittsburgh, who would have become the wild cards. In the NFC, Washington would have won the East (8-1) and Dallas (at 6-3) would have come in as a wild card. Green Bay (5-3-1) and Atlanta (5-4) would have won their divisions. Minnesota, St. Louis and Tampa Bay were all 5-4, but the Bucs would have been edged out by their conference record.

Pete Rozelle was quoted as saying, “When we got down to nine games, we knew we couldn’t establish the playoffs by divisions and we could by conferences. We felt in fairness to all the teams, and to increase fan interest, it was the thing to do.”

In the end, I think the 16-team postseason tournament came down to 2 things, to ensure the best teams would get into the playoffs, and to try to recoup some of their lost revenue by scheduling 15 playoff games.

Thanks for the replies, folks. I guess it boiled down to two things. Trying to get the fans interested again and to recoup lost revenue.