The topic of expanding the NFL postseason seems to come up every year, and every year, the league ends up nixing the idea.
Don't be surprised if that changes soon, though.
During a meeting with Jaguars season-ticket holders over the weekend, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that the NFL will "likely" expand the playoffs in the future.
"It will likely happen at some point," Goodell said of playoff expansion, via the Jags' official website. "But we want to be really cautious because we really like the balance we have with the importance of the regular season and the postseason."
The last time the NFL expanded the postseason came in 1990, when the league jumped from 10 playoffs teams to the current number of 12. If the NFL decides to expand again, the most likely number would be 14.
Although Goodell has been talking about playoff expansion since at least 2012, nothing has happened yet because a lot of owners are content with the current format.
"It works so well right now [with 12 teams]," Goodell said. "I think that what makes the NFL great is every game means so much. You don't ever want to lose that. You don't want to lose the fact that every regular-season game is important. Only having 12 teams qualify, which is the smallest of any of the professional leagues by far, that's a good thing for us."
There are also a few other issues that have been slowing the league down when it comes to a possible postseason expansion.
"We're still looking at the broadcasting side of it, and then there's a labor-relations side of it, which you have to deal with," Goodell said.
The potential broadcasting issue stems from the fact that the league would have two extra games during Wild Card Weekend.
Six games on Wild Card Weekend could mean that we end up getting a Monday night playoff game. The problem with that, though, is that the winning team would play in the next round on a short week, which isn't exactly fair during the postseason.
On the labor end, the NFLPA might ask for something in return in order to approve the extra postseason games. One possibility floated in September is that the union would agree to adding two extra playoff teams if the NFL is willing to trim down the preseason.
If there had been 14 teams for the 2015 postseason, the Falcons and Jets would've qualified for the playoffs last season.
Playoff expansion might not happen in time for the 2016 season, but it does sound like something that's definitely going to happen soon.
