May 24, 2025 5 min read

Thank goodness the Detroit Lions came to their senses and withdrew their proposal to adjust the way the NFL playoffs are seeded.

Detroit had proposed for a vote last week at the NFL Spring Meetings in Minnesota for the league to seed its playoffs based strictly on records of the qualifying teams, regardless of whether they won their division or not.

But prior to the league’s owners voting on the proposal, the Lions, likely understanding they didn’t have the needed 24 votes to get the rule passed, pulled it.

Everyone understands that the No. 1 wildcard team can, and often does, have a better record than the worst division champion, who is the fourth seed.

The problem, however, is that the NFL doesn’t play a balanced schedule. The Vikings went 14-3 last season and wound up as the fifth seed. They played at the 10-7 Rams in the first round of the playoffs and lost.

But the 12-5 Commanders were the sixth seed. They went on the road to the third-seeded Buccaneers, who also finished 10-7. But they won and advanced to the NFC Championship.

The Vikings played only six teams that qualified for the playoffs, going 3-3 in those games.

The Rams played five playoff teams, including the Vikings, and went 2-3. But one of those wins came against Minnesota.

The Steelers played seven teams that qualified for the playoffs in 2024 and went 4-3 in those games.

The point is, not all records are alike.

The league sets its schedule years in advance. With a quick search on your computer, you can find out who your favorite team plays in, say, 2028. Teams don’t schedule their own opponents. There’s a formula involved.

And who is to say that one team’s schedule is the same in terms of difficulty or ease four years out from another?

The current playoff format rewards a team for being the best in its division, thus making those six division games mean more. Often, teams are built specifically to beat the teams within their division because those games are so meaningful. It also creates fantastic rivalries.

Simply giving the division winner a playoff spot and taking away the home game that comes with that would make those games less meaningful.

• On Wednesday, the Pirates tied the Major League Baseball record by failing to score more than four runs in their 26th consecutive game. Prior to that game, they last scored more than four runs in a 9-4 win April 26 against the Los Angeles Angels, a win that improved their record to 9-15.

They won again the next night, 3-0, to get to 10-15.

They broke out of their “slump” Thursday night by scoring five runs, ending their streak. But they did so in an 8-5 loss to the Brewers.

At this point, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more anemic offensive attack, perhaps in the history of baseball.

It cost manager Derek Shelton his job a couple of weeks ago. But the change to Don Kelly as a replacement has mattered little.

The real issue lies with the roster Ben Cherrington has given this team. Not enough was done in the offseason to make this a legitimate MLB lineup.

And that’s a shame given the way the team has pitched. The pitching hasn’t been the best in the league, but it’s nowhere near the worst.

The run production, however, has clearly been lacking. On the day they tied the Major League record for offensive futility, the Pirates had scored 143 runs, an average of 2.91 runs per game. That’s not earned runs per game. That’s total runs per game.

• The local youth baseball regular seasons are winding down – or what has amounted to a regular season in this very wet spring.

Less than a month from now, the tryouts will be held for the Washington County team that will represent the area in this year’s Pony World Series. Those teams all compete in the Founders League, which stretches across Washington County, from Avella to Beth-Center and Claysville to McDonald and almost everything in between. Thirteen of the county’s 14 school districts have teams that compete in the Founders League.

It truly is a Washington County team.

Judging from the talent in the league’s 21 teams – from which all players are eligible to be selected – this year’s team should be a very strong one.

In fact, there’s so much talent in the league – which includes more than 250 Pony players – that a second and even a third all-star team could be chosen that would be very competitive in just about every tournament in which it plays.

Dale Lolley hosts The Drive on Steelers Nation Radio and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter. Editor’s Note: Dale Lolley is president of Washington Youth Baseball’s Pony division and the Founders League.