Pete Carroll strongly opposed the proposal that would have taken away a guaranteed home playoff team from division winners, a stance rooted in his own coaching history.
For decades, NFL division winners have earned the right to open the playoffs on their home fields, regardless of their records, while wild card teams hit the road. A proposal this offseason suggested that if a division winner had a losing record, the wild card could be the home team when they met in the playoffs. Carroll’s 2010 Seahawks went 7-9 in the regular season but won the NFC West, faced the 11-5 Saints in the first round of the playoffs, and won an upset in Seattle.
That game is best remembered for Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch’s iconic “Beast Quake” touchdown run, one of the greatest plays in NFL history, and Carroll reminisced about it on Lynch’s podcast with fellow former Seahawk Mike Robinson.
“I wasn’t voting for that other rule. I was voting for the division winners,” Carroll said. “I like the structure and I like the championship within the championship. That’s just part of it. Remember? Own the NFC West was our deal, and own the AFC West is what it is now.”
Carroll said anyone who thinks a division winner with a losing record can’t make noise in the playoffs need only remember what those 7-9 Seahawks did.
“Remember what we did with it? Remember that freaking game? Nobody ever thought — they were saying, ‘This is the worst matchup in the history of the NFL, and we were going to get murdered,’” Carroll said.
For this year, the playoff seeding will be unchanged. It’s possible that the NFL could revisit the rule next year. If so, expect Carroll to be a voice at the league meeting in favor of guaranteeing division winners home-field advantage.
