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The two worst NFL division winners are the 1985 Cleveland Browns and the 2008 San Diego Chargers, both of whom finished 8-8. The Browns, led by rookie Bernie Kosar and a pair of 1000 yard rushers in Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack actually led 21-3 in their playoff game against the Dolphins before choking away their lead (typical of the 80s Browns) and losing 24-21. The 2008 Chargers, who started the season at 4-8 before winning their last 4 games, actually won their first round game 23-17 over the 12-4 Colts in overtime on a Darren Sproles touchdown. They would lose in the next round to the eventual champion Pittsburgh Steelers.
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So it's not as though the two teams that have "snuck" into the playoffs haven't been able to hold their own. And yes, in each of those years, an 11-5 team missed the playoffs, but consider this: no matter how you slice it, the teams with 3 best records in the conference are guaranteed to make the playoffs. The current set up is also such that no team can finish last in their division and make the playoffs. So now you have the 4 best non-last place teams guaranteed to grab one of the top six spots. Your other two teams make the playoffs because they either won their divisions or because they're the wild card teams. Is it a perfect system? No. As in the case of the 1985 Denver Broncos (back when only 5 teams made the playoffs) and the 2008 New England Patriots, you can have a really good season, but fall short. But the Broncos lost a pair of overtime games to the AFC West Division Winning Oakland Raiders and lost their division by 1 game. So they had their chances. The Patriots were tied for the 6th best conference record having all 5 of their losses come to AFC opponents (as a result they lost a tiebreaker for the AFC East Division Title with the Dolphins). Who were they tied with? The 8-8 Chargers.
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Bottom line, if they'd won more games, they wouldn't have had to worry about vying for a wild card spot. If you take away division winners getting automatic playoff berths, then why even have divisions? I suppose you could always take a page out of the English Premier League Playbook and have one division in each conference. The American Football Division and the National Football Division. Play every team in your league once. Top 6 teams go to the playoffs in each league. Then you have no issues with teams missing the playoffs when they shouldn't have. All your tiebreakers can be head to head too. You could even make it work on an 18 game schedule. Your 3 extra games could be against teams from the other league. Wow, I should be the commissioner.
This isn't exclusively a problem that the NFL is facing. Every major sport in the United States rewards the teams that win their respective divisions. Baseball almost had a sub .500 playoff team a few years ago when the 2005 San Diego Padres made the playoffs at 82-80. Still, boasting flame-throwing right-hander Jake Peavy and his 2.88 ERA, they were a trendy pick to upset the St. Louis Cardinals in the first round of the playoffs. However, afer the fact it was revealed that Peavy had broken a rib when celebrating winning the division. So, after getting lit up in Game 1, it was announced that he was done for the year. The Padres went on to get swept 3 games to 0.
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College football and college basketball are the two best examples of sports that reward division/conference winners. In the BCS, six of the ten automatic bids are given to teams who win the BCS conferences (ACC, Big East, SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 10). As of right now, 4-loss Connecticut, the favorite to win the Big East assuming they can beat South Florida gets a BCS bowl game. Even better, there's a scenario where 5-loss Pitt could win the Big East. 1-loss teams like Michigan St., Ohio St., and Stanford have no such guarantee. 2-loss LSU and 1-loss Boise St. aren't even in the conversation.
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Similarly, automatic bids to the NCAA Basketball Tournament are based on winning your conference tournament. As a result, teams with losing records can qualify over perhaps more deserving teams. In 2008 Coppin State made the tournament despite losing 20 games because they won the MEAC Tournament. Some other team with a winning record didn't get because Coppin St. did. Unfair? Perhaps.
Bottom line in my opinion, every team has a chance to qualify for the postseason in their respective sports. With wildcards and at-large berths built in to every league's playoff structure, there is leeway for the top teams that don't win their divisions/conferences, etc. Yes, there are going to be cases where teams come up on the short end of the stick, but ultimately every team controls their own destiny. You want to be guaranteed your spot in the postseason? Win. If it works out that you miss the playoffs because you're the 3rd best wildcard team, how much of a case did you really have in the first place? Sure it sucks that the 7-9 49ers could make the playoffs, but that's life. The very best teams will still make the postseason in every league and ultimately that's all that really matters.
Here's the schedules for the 4 NFC West teams over the rest of the way:
Seattle:
vs Carolina (1-10)
at San Francisco (4-7)
vs Atlanta (9-2)
at Tampa Bay (7-4)
vs St. Louis (5-6)
St. Louis
at Arizona (3-8)
at New Orleans (8-3)
vs Kansas City (7-4)
vs San Francisco (4-7)
at Seattle (5-6)
San Francisco:
at Green Bay (7-4)
vs Seattle (5-6)
at San Diego (6-5)
at St. Louis (5-6)
vs Arizona (3-8)
Arizona:
vs St. Louis (5-6)
vs Denver (3-8)
at Carolina (1-10)
vs Dallas (3-8)
at San Francisco (4-7)
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