Change is inevitable in sports, and it could be coming to the NFL's schedule in the form of an 18th game and a new playoff format.
But that doesn't mean everyone is excited.
"That would be a bloodbath," a team executive said of an 18-game schedule amid rumors of changes to the playoff format in a Tuesday piece by ESPN's Jeremy Fowler.
The tenor of the piece discusses how exclusive a first-round bye is in today's NFL. The current playoff format gives that bye to just the No. 1 overall seed in each conference, although the previous format rewarded it to the top two seeds.