Conf. Championship on neutral site?

Stupid idea...it would erase any rewards for having a better season than your opponent.

It would probably take away a week or 2 of good games at the end of the regular season. A team that has clinched a playoff berth still plays for home field advantage. Under the proposed plan, they'd have nothing to play for and just rest everyone earlier than ever before.

I am pretty sure the owner's would shoot this one down pretty quick. Not a very good idea.

Isn't it the point to get homefield advantage when you have the better record? What incentive does a team have to even show up for games if they have zero incentive to win after clinching their division? Imagine a team from a bad conference who has the division won by week 11 or 12. They would have 4 games with no incentive to play to win outside of pride. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If winning the SB isn't enough of an incentive I don't know what is. The only teams that have the luxury of sitting their players right now are those who already have 12+ wins and have already clinched a bye week...and often times these teams do in fact sit their players out which kinda washes the argument that teams will get complacent and not play towards the end of the season. The first round bye week is a huge incentive to make sure you win more games than the rest of your conference.

All I'm saying is there is a huge deal of strategy involved if the championship game was played in the neutral site too. Also, this kind of structure works for the NCAA so I don't see how it's a totally bad thing.

Stupid idea...it would erase any rewards for having a better season than your opponent.

It would probably take away a week or 2 of good games at the end of the regular season. A team that has clinched a playoff berth still plays for home field advantage. Under the proposed plan, they'd have nothing to play for and just rest everyone earlier than ever before.


The last two weeks of the season have alway been about teams trying to make the playoffs or those who are trying to clinch a first round bye week. I don't see the excitement of the last two weeks going away if the conf. championship game is played at a neutral site.

Your making this out to be more than it is. Every year they shoot around a bunch of ideas to see what the owners think about them. Then out of all these ideas maybe a couple will take hold and will get talked about for a couple of years then fade out or get voted on. These guys are just making news, I could here one of the owners suggest this as the other owners boo and laugh at them.

Your making this out to be more than it is. Every year they shoot around a bunch of ideas to see what the owners think about them. Then out of all these ideas maybe a couple will take hold and will get talked about for a couple of years then fade out or get voted on. These guys are just making news, I could here one of the owners suggest this as the other owners boo and laugh at them.

Perhaps but from a business standpoint it is not a bad idea as it will enable the NFL to create mini-SBs. And from competitiveness standpoint it's not a bad idea either.

Ultimately this idea will be shot down because of the fans. People don't like change.

Perhaps but from a business standpoint it is not a bad idea as it will enable the NFL to create mini-SBs. And from competitiveness standpoint it's not a bad idea either.

Ultimately this idea will be shot down because of the fans. People don't like change.

I would actually argue that this is not a great business idea. The "neutral" site will likely not have anywhere near the number of box and luxury seats that the home team would have because they would likely be playing in a college stadium since it has to be a neutral site. Also, the home team would lose out on significant revenue, expecially big market northen teams like the skins, giants, chicago, that will never get to host a game due to climate.

Also, who gets the seats? Season ticket holders for the "home" team, or is it all up to grabs like the SB? The latter would REALLY stink since the superbowl is usually a lousy crowd since it is more about money than true fans.

I appreciate your position, but I stand by my opinion that this is a bad idea for both competitive, financial, and fan-centric reasons.

If the new commish is actually thinking about this then he is going way overboard. Many of you will not agree with me, but in general I feel he is trying really hard to make changes and whatnot. If he keeps it up, it could be too much. There is a fine line between cleaning up the league, and turning into one of the Devil's associates like David Stern.

That would just be dumb. No way that a logical group of people will ever change this.

I would actually argue that this is not a great business idea. The "neutral" site will likely not have anywhere near the number of box and luxury seats that the home team would have because they would likely be playing in a college stadium since it has to be a neutral site. Also, the home team would lose out on significant revenue, expecially big market northen teams like the skins, giants, chicago, that will never get to host a game due to climate.

Neutral site means site neutral to both teams. For example, if the game was between WAS and DAL the game could be played in Miami (the 'Fins stadium) or Indianapolis (Colts' stadium).

Also, who gets the seats? Season ticket holders for the "home" team, or is it all up to grabs like the SB? The latter would REALLY stink since the superbowl is usually a lousy crowd since it is more about money than true fans.

Like I said in my first post, the biggest impact would be on the fans. Any serious discussion of change would have to remedy concerns of the fans whose team has home field advantage.