(From this Yahoo Sports article by Henry Bushnell. Please take a moment and read it before continuing to the discussion, below.)
Many ways have been discussed to improve the NFL, and make meaningless games at the end of the season by losing teams actually mean something. Soccer uses relegation and promotion as a penalty/incentive for it's professional teams in England and elsewhere.
The thought is that the prospect of relegation/promotion adds more excitement in the middle and bottom of the pack of NFL teams. It also keeps teams from tanking completely (looking at you, 2016 Browns and 2017 Jets). However, this idea is not going to be embraced by the owners without sweetening the pot. I think the added revenues and ticket sales from additional promotion/relegation "playoff games" would be enough.
The linked article refers to a scenario where the NFL is split into an upper and lower division of 16 teams, with relegation and promotion of teams at the end of every year between the two. There would still be a playoff between the top 4 teams in the top division every year to determine a champion (meaning - keep the Super Bowl).
The author, Henry Bushnell, gets radical and suggests that there should be consequences for being the last place team in the lower division. One possibility is relegating 1 team out of the lower division every year. He envisions a playoff where teams from the UFL, CFL, or other entity can take the place of the relegated team via a play-in tournament. (The NFL team could win this and keep its spot though). I am not a fan of this because the styles of play are so different between the non-NFL leagues.
The other suggestion, and one I like, is that the worst NFL team must play the CFB playoff winning team at the end of the season. This would be entertaining, and might end (or add fuel to!) the debate that seems to arise every year as to whether an Ohio State, Clemson, USC, or Alabama could beat a pro team.
I don't think that's enough, though, and I think that the worst NFL team should have more of a penalty for being last. It should be something that doesn't affect revenue or competitiveness going forward (like fines or loss of draft picks/position), but something to make the team averse to being last - like having to have the owner, coaches, and players all donate 40 hours each to cleaning up the trash on the side of the streets/freeways in the team's city, etc.
Here's my official idea:
Add 4 new teams, and have 3 divisions of 12 - the Upper, Middle, and Lower divisions. Top 4 in the Upper division have a seeded playoff for the championship. The top 2 teams in the Middle and Lower division play the bottom 2 teams in the Middle and Upper division for relegation/promotion. The bottom 2 teams in the Lower division play in the "toilet bowl" game, and the loser of that plays the best CFB team. Both bottom teams in the Lower division each year have the service hours penalty. Each team plays every team in it's division once, plus a couple of games with other teams in other divisions to allow the NFL to keep rivalries intact and still have 16 std. schedule + a bye week for each team. Drafting is in rank order, lowest team in the lower division to highest team in upper division. Salary cap stays, and TV revenue is shared. Trades are possible up through week 12.
It's an interesting concept with great potential, but not quite ready for prime time. My question to the 11W populace - what changes to the proposed idea in the Yahoo article would be needed to make relegation/promotion truly work in the NFL?
TL;DR - What need to be done to make relegation work in the NFL?
