As always, there are a handful of rules changes and other proposals that have been suggested by teams that are under discussion and could come up for a vote at the owners meetings at the end of the month. Among the suggestions: by the Packers, banning the Brotherly Shove; from the Eagles, using the playoff overtime rules in the regular season; from the Lions, ending the automatic first down aspect of the 5-yard defensive holding/illegal contact penalties.

We will see if those even make it to a vote. (I am going to guess maybe for overtime and nope for the other two.)

But it was the Lions who came up with the one that caught my eye. Essentially, it is to seed the seven playoff teams straight by record, regardless of division. Right now, if you win a division, you are guaranteed at least one home game. This would do away with that.

Of course, it kind of makes divisions moot if that were the case, although there have been times when a sub-.500 team has won the division: see the 2010 Seahawks, the 2014 Panthers. Although it's funny, with home games, both the 7-9 Seahawks (over the Saints in the game with the BeastQuake run) and the 7-8-1 Panthers (over the Ryan Lindley-injury-ravaged Cardinals) won that home playoff game.

The Cardinals' history is torn on this. That 2014 Cardinals team probably would've been helped to host the Panthers that playoff game (does Arizona win? Ehh. The injuries were killers). But the 2008 Cardinals won the NFC West and beat the Falcons in the first round when that game would've been in Atlanta under this new proposal. And the Cards used that as a springboard to the Super Bowl.

Last year, in the NFC alone, there would have been differences if this rule was in affect:

CURRENT RULE

NEW PROPOSAL

The Vikings would've played the Bucs instead of the Rams. And the Rams wouldn't have hosted a playoff game (which happened to be at State Farm Stadium.)