The San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens sat idly this weekend waiting to find out their opponent for the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs. They earned the bye week, but should they also have earned another perk?
Andrew Fillipponi and Danny Parkins of the Audacy original podcast “1st & Pod” discussed the idea of the higher seeds being able to pick their opponent for the next round rather than reseeding.
“I was just going to say – and this is an idea that I stole from one of my old colleagues, Mike Schoop, who does afternoons in Buffalo, he’s one of the great local talk show hosts in America. He has said for probably 15 years that in these situations, the team – for example that has the number one seed – should pick who they play,” Fillipponi said (28:00 in player above). “It should not be a seeding thing.
“The 49ers should pick now of the remaining teams who they want to play next week. I think if they were given that option, they would 100% take the team who wins the Bucs-Eagles game over the Packers.”
The Green Bay Packers went into AT&T Stadium on Sunday and stomped the Dallas Cowboys to the tune of a 48-32 blowout that was once a 27-0 lead. The Packers get to ride that momentum into San Francisco this weekend.
Not only would it benefit the higher seeds, but it would also add intrigue to every matchup of the weekend.
“100%. I agree with that, I didn’t know that Schoop has said that but I’ve said it before too,” Parkins replied. “It also would guarantee that every single matchup had an extra layer of pick-up basketball trash talk. ‘Oh, you want us? You chose us? You think we’re the easy out?’ Every single matchup would have that extra element to it. I agree, it’s a great idea. Great idea.”
But alas, the NFL is reseeding and the 49ers are set to host the Packers on Saturday night at 8:15 p.m. ET with the winner of Monday night’s Eagles - Buccaneers game traveling to Detroit to take on the Lions.