This has always bugged me in MLB, where the wild card also loses home field to a division winner. It seems somehow a team in the AL East always gets screwed because their division is harder. The wild card could have 20 more wins than another division winner, but it doesn't matter. In baseball, though, with 5 or 7 games the better team normally wins and home field isn't what it is in football. If they had only 1 game you can be sure teams like the Yankees and Red Sox would be raising hell.
The AL East in baseball is the one to watch. There is nothing more sacred in sports, period.
It's also what makes it fun.
What other division in baseball gets TV coverage all over the country and renders fights and discussions after regular season games? Even out in California, there is a deep Yankees and Red Sox following with religious fervor. The long history of the Red Sox vs. the Yankees, which is the best and longest rivalry in American sports, is what makes baseball a religion and football, hockey, and basketball merely popular sports.
I say keep the AL East the money maker it is, and retain the mystique and history of what that rivalry is. And that's without mentioning the other teams in that division.
In football, the closest thing to a tough division on that level would be the NFC East historically, and even the ringless Eagles are always news (again even out on the west coast). The Giants have won several, the Redskins have won several, and then there is the Cowboys. 11 rings for that division. The power structure of football, division wise, has moved to the NFC south these days. TB almost made it into the playoffs which would have joined them with playoff bound Atlanta and New Orleans. Any one of those three teams has what it takes to win the Super Bowl, especially the first two.
The Patriots are practically their own division and to shake things up, it would be nice to bring one of the 3 ring winners of the NFC East to the AFC East. The Redskins? (they have been versatile winning 3 super bowls with three different QBs as have the NY Giants, and they both have gone to 4 Super Bowls). It would make that division kind of fun. After that, then we can talk rivalry and competition.
I do like the addition of the Seahawks into the NFC West. They used to beat my Raiders at the worst time, and now they are doing that to the 49ers. The Seahawks may not have the wins of an Atlanta or Patriots most years, but they take out more teams late in a season who are ready to clinch or go home. They are the spoiler in the NFL and let's see if they can curse anybody in the postseason. The Seahawks are one of those teams in the NFL like college football's University of Hawaii (Giant killers).
