Saturday’s 6-4 win by England over France in the third-place game of the 2026 World Cup has caused some to suggest the NFL should do the same thing.
The NFL used to stage such a game. It ended with the AFL-NFL merger, and it will never return.
It would be a worthless game, as meaningless as the Pro Bowl. Absent very strong financial incentives, players who have finished the season (including enough playoff games to get to the Conference Championship round) have no reason to play another game for anything other than a Super Bowl ring.
It’s why the Pro Bowl eventually disintegrated into a game of two-hand touch in full pads. There’s no reason for players (especially those on the brink of free agency) to risk injury in a game that gives out a bronze medal.
The NFL started the Playoff Bowl as a way to have another game featuring NFL players at a time when the AFL was becoming a threat. Before the first Super Bowl (which wasn’t called the Super Bowl at the time), the NFL played the Playoff Bowl in the bye week between the NFL and AFL title games and the championship.
The Playoff Bowl went away with the merger. There’s no way it’s coming back. There’s no appetite for it. And the NFL Players Association would never agree to it, absent a significant concession.
And, even if there were, it would disappear the moment everyone saw that the Playoff Bowl would be played like the Pro Bowl was before the NFL took it out of everyone’s misery.
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