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As a matter of principle I’m OK with wild-card teams in the playoffs, but not in any sport where unbalanced schedules make it completely unfair. The NFL is the worst offender here, since the season isn’t long enough to come close to a balanced schedule.

Funny. I came to the opposite conclusion. Because ethe schedule is unbalanced, the likelihood of a very good team with a less than perfect record is more likely. The Jacksonville Jaguars went 14-2 in the 1999 season. The Wildcard Tennessee Titans went 13-3. But guess where the Jags' two losses came from? Yup. Tennessee, who went on to toast them a third time on the way to getting beaten by the Rams in an exceptional Super Bowl. It would have been a shame if the Titans didn't get into the playoffs, as a 16 game season is barely enough to separate wheat from chaff.

Good point. The problem, though, comes when you have wild-card contenders from different divisions. Imagine the scenario of a 10-6 team that doesn’t even make the playoffs because they lost a wild-card tiebreaker to another 10-6 team in a different division that went 6-0 against three very weak division opponents during the course of the year, and went 4-6 against the rest of the NFL.