1. This note is the most important thing I’ll ever write, and thus a natural lede to the column: The term “Divisional Playoffs” makes no sense. It used to make sense, back when the division winners would face off in this round, but it no longer makes sense in the days of eight divisions and four wild-card teams, when some of the division winners have already gone home.
If the NFL is really married to the term “Divisional Round,” here's the only way to justify it: When a wild-card team defeats a division champion in the wild-card round, that wild-card team gets to proclaim itself champion of the defeated team's division.