8 Fascinating Facts about the 2020 NFL Divisional Round

It’s the 2020 NFL Divisional Round and I’ve got all-original facts! But first, I have a question: Why is it called the DIVISIONAL round of the playoffs? Seattle and San Francisco are in the same division, but they’re not playing each other. In fact, there are two other pairs of teams that are in the same division but not facing off Sunday (Minnesota and Green Bay, Houston and Tennessee). So why not rename the divisional playoffs something like “the quarterfinals” or “the final eight round” or “the Capital One: What’s in your Wall-Eight?”

So why then, does the NFL misleadingly called it the divisional playoffs?

Hello? Is anyone going to answer me? Fine I’ll look it up myself, thanks a lot, dear readers!

Okay, now I’m distracted because Wikipedia says, “From 1920–1923, the championship was awarded to a team by a vote of team owners at the annual owners’ meeting.” Times were different back before someone invented the concept of “fun,” I guess.

Looks like, way back over 50 years ago, they had four divisions and the winner of each division advanced to the playoffs. So “divisional playoffs” comes from the division winners round. This is still really non-sensical since the divisional playoffs, by design, would never feature a game with two teams from the same division. There’s a lot of weird, silly stuff baked into the NFL’s early stages.

On to the 2020 NFL divisional playoff facts!

For more articles and analysis, check out these pieces and watch for our conference championship facts, next week:
Minnesota Vikings vs San Francisco 49ers Preview
Cincinnati Bengals Fantasy Football 2019: What to Remember
Christian McCaffrey: Looking Ahead

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