The kings of the regular season -- better known as the Colts -- have on more than one occasion wrapped up the division and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs before the regular season is over. When this happens, they rest their starters basically giving the opponent a free victory (if they can beat the Colts backups).
This scenario helped the Jets beat the Colts late in the 2009 season and qualify for the playoffs.
Well, the NFL doesn't like that very much so a possible solution, Commissioner Roger Goodell says, is playing all divisional games in week 17 and a good chunk in week 16, too.
"One of the key things we're doing in the short term is in our scheduling. We're trying to schedule, potentially, Week 17 will be all division opponents. And maybe even a large part of Week 16.
"So we think that will address this to some extent. It will not necessarily eliminate the issue but the Competition Committee -- and I've stressed to them -- we need to continue to look at this because it's important to the quality of what we do, the integrity of our game."
Remember the last time the Chiefs ended the season against a divisional opponent? Yeah, that turned out well.