Incent the NFL

I know, I know, I'm late on this, but it needs to be said anyway.

Last weekend in the Dolphins-Steelers game, CBS hosted commissioner Roger Goodell to talk about how to get teams to play more competitively in Week 17. The commish mentioned draft choices and positives, not negatives, and on some level, that's a win to me; if nothing else, it was nice to hear him admit this is a problem. The commish stepped in it a bit, however, by stressing how teams that aren't going to try need to communicate who was going to be out better, "just like we do with our injury reports."

Um, Roger? Depending on the team (i.e., Patriots, Colts, Lions, others), your team's injury reports kind of suck, and prove to me (yet again) that there's a long way between your idea of the league and how the fans experience it. But let's move on to actual solutions to the problem.

You see, this whole sweetness and light "incentives only, no negatives" nonsense is just not, well, reality. So let's look at some ways that we can fix Week 17.

1) Mandatory Week 17 divisional games.

Probably the simplest and best way to give the league a better chance for relevance, in that a loss in the division can be as much as a two-game swing in the standings, depending on what happened earlier in the season. Had we had, say, Jets-Patriots and Steelers-Ravens in Week 17 to go with Eagles-Cowboys (and what the hey, maybe even Packers-Vikings works too), our chances for a much better week would have skyrocketed. This solution also is the least invasive to the dreaded "integrity of the game" and "right of teams to quit like dogs" argument, in that if you've ran off and hid with your division (see Chargers, Saints and Colts), you still get to dog it.

Feasibility: Strong.

Advantages: No real change to the world. De facto playoff games for an extra week.

Disadvantages: A little less drama in the middle of the year, perhaps. But really, not very much. A harder road for teams in tough divisions, but it's minor.

2) Conference seedings.

The idea here is that just because you've won your division, that doesn't mean you get a home game, which is a prime cause of dogging it (see Arizona and Cincy). If you want to rest the starters and Not Try, you get to go to the wild card team's stadium in wild card weekend. Suck on that, quitter boys.

Advantage: We can all feel better about shafting the winner of the NFC West, or any other dog division with an erratic champion.

Disadvantages: Giving second-place teams a home game is kind of irritating, and makes the division games less meaningful. This would also increase the amount of scoreboard watching, and teams in weak divisions would still benefit, since they are more likely to rack up easy wins in division (I'm looking at you, San Diego).

3) Draft picks.

Goodell's concept is, I think, designed to award some valuable but not earth-shattering compensation pick in an act of largesse to teams that do the right thing and try.

Advantage: You'd be able to spend some guy's entire career saying, "Hey! We got him for Not Quitting!"

Disadvantage: Just seems ripe for abuse, faked in-game injuries, and all kinds of Belichickian Shenanigans. Just can't see this as feasible, really.

So... what's the solution? If it keeps us from a replay of last week's nonsense, I'd take all three, really, and just be extra safe. But realistically, I think we wind up with just one. (And if they go to an 18-game season, they better do all of this stuff and more.)