Justin Jefferson: Wild card teams with better records should have home-field advantage

The Vikings finished the regular season tied for the second-best record in the NFC last year, but because they didn’t win their division, they were the No. 5 seed. That meant they opened the playoffs on the road. And Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson has a problem with that.

Jefferson was asked in an interview with Yahoo Sports whether wild card teams with better records should have home-field advantage in the playoffs, and he answered, “Yes.”

“With the season that we had last year, to go and play away, it definitely was a little different,” Jefferson said. “It definitely needs to go into consideration and something that we need to figure out because having 14 wins . . . normally doesn’t go to play away in the playoffs.”

Jefferson acknowledged that his team had the chance to take care of business when the Vikings faced the Lions with the No. 1 seed on the line in the final game of the regular season.

“We definitely had the opportunity to play home field with the last game in Detroit, but even losing that we still felt like we should’ve had home-field advantage,” Jefferson said. “But even not having home-field advantage is never an excuse. It’s something we had to deal with and we wish we would’ve had home field but it is what it is.”

The Lions offered a proposal this offseason that would have changed playoff seeding, but it didn’t have enough support to pass. Which means a division winner with a losing record can still host a playoff game, and a wild card team with the second-best record in the conference can still have to play on the road.