Lions’ Brad Holmes delivers commencement speech at North Carolina A&T
Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes delivered the commencement speech at his alma mater, North Carolina A&T, on Saturday, May 10, 2025.
Winning your division still will count for something in the NFL this fall.
With support waning for it to pass, the Detroit Lions pulled their proposal to overhaul playoff seeding from the docket at the league’s spring meeting, according to multiple reports, leaving the four division winners in each conference to be guaranteed at least one home postseason game in 2025.
The Lions had proposed seeding the playoffs by record with little regard for division winners. The measure was tabled at the NFL’s annual meeting in March and resubmitted with simpler language this week.
Lions president Rod Wood said in March the team submitted the proposal at the behest of the NFL after comments Amon-Ra St. Brown made in January wondering why the loser of the Lions-Minnesota Vikings Week 18 game would be a wild card and play its postseason games on the road.
The Lions finished with the best record in the NFC at 15-2 after beating the Vikings (14-3) to win the NFC North in the last game of the regular season. The Vikings, who tied for the second-best record in the NFC, lost their playoff opener on the road to a Los Angeles Rams team that won the NFC West with a 10-7 record.
The Lions lost their playoff opener as the No. 1 seed at home against the Washington Commanders.
“Troy Vincent from the league reached out to me and said, ‘I tend to agree with (St. Brown’s comments). Would you mind partnering with us on making a proposal on that?'” Wood said in March. “So we made a proposal. There was a lot of discussion about it. We ultimately decided to withdraw it. They’re going to look at different versions of it that maybe are not just based upon the record, but if you’re at .500 or below .500 and you win a division, should you get a home game? So they put out different options.”
The Lions’ resubmitted proposal did not include any provisions regarding .500 or better records, though it did include winning a division as a tiebreaker for receiving a home playoff game.
Had the proposal been in effect last season, the Lions would have been the No. 1 seed in the NFC, followed by the Philadelphia Eagles at No. 2, the Vikings at No. 3 and the Commanders at No. 4, while the Green Bay Packers, NFC West champion Rams and NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers would have gone on the road in the wild-card round.
The NFL supported the measure as a way to give more meaning to late-season games. If wild-card teams still could earn a home playoff game or two, the reasoning goes, they would be more apt to play their starters in Weeks 17 and 18 if a division title is out of reach.
Opponents of the proposal wanted to preserve the reward for division winners, who draw first-place schedules the following year — while wild-card teams don’t face division winners in crossover games — under the NFL’s scheduling formula.
NFL owners voted Wednesday, May 21, on a measure to eliminate the “tush push” quarterback sneak play. The measure failed, with 10 teams — including the Lions — voting to continue to allow the short-yardage strategy.
This story was updated with the result of the “tush push” vote.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
Birkett is the author of the book, “Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline.” Order your copy here.