The Los Angeles Chargers finished the 2022 season with a better record than the Jacksonville Jaguars, but were the road team in a Wild Card Weekend matchup.
Now the Chargers are aiming to add an exception to the rulebook that would allow a path for a wild-card team to host a division winner.
In a rule proposal that will be voted on by owners later this offseason, the Chargers want to add an exception that would strip home-field advantage from a division winner if they are below .500 and finish at least four games behind their playoff opponent.
Chargers propose change to rules on seeding, allowing for wild cards to outrank division champs in certain circumstances. pic.twitter.com/O4oLgkNeDU
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 13, 2023
It’s worth nothing that that’s an exception that would’ve had no bearing on the playoff game in Jacksonville a couple months ago. While the Chargers finished with a better record than the Jaguars, it was just a one-game difference and Jacksonville finished above .500 at 9-8 on the year.
In fact, it’s an exception that would’ve mattered just three times in NFL history.
The 2010 Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West with a 7-9 record and played host to the 11-5 New Orleans Saints. That Seahawks won that game with Marshawn Lynch’s game-clinching Beast Quake touchdown run.
A decade later, the 2020 Washington Football Team also won a division with a 7-9 record and hosted the 11-5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The visiting team won and eventually beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
This season, the Buccaneers snuck into the playoffs with an 8-9 record and hosted the 12-5 Dallas Cowboys. The visiting Cowboys won by 17 points before losing in the Divisional Round.
The only other divisional winner with a losing record was the 2014 Carolina Panthers, but that team finished just 3.5 games behind the Arizona Cardinals.
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