Brian Billick's thoughts for March 10

Billick examines the Oakland Raiders' draft needs and possible playoff reseeding.

Raiders may draft help for secondary

Going 8-8 may not seem like a major accomplishment to most, but when you have had seven straight years of double digit losses like the Oakland Raiders, it was a huge step.

Not to mention a 6-0 division record that is definitely something to be proud of.

New head coach Hue Jackson helped elevate the Raiders offense to a top-10 unit and the second-ranked rushing offense in the league. Also 2008 first-round choice running back Darren McFadden (fourth overall) finally lived up to the selection.

Similarly, Oakland did a nice job in last years draft coming up with three starters in linebacker Rolando McClain, defensive tackle Lamarr Houston and offensive tackle Jared Veldheer.

If the Raiders are going to build on that momentum, they are going to have to do it without a first-round selection. They gave up what became the 17th overall pick in this year's draft to New England for Richard Seymour.

If Nnamdi Asomugha leaves via free agency, as may safety Michael Huff, they may look to shore up the secondary with their second-day picks.

The Raiders have to head east (historically tough for West Coast teams) when they take on the AFC East in 2011, but get a break in playing New England and the Jets at home. They will also have to face both of last year's NFC Championship Game representatives, Green Bay and Chicago.

Is playoff reseeding necessary?

The NFL competition committee meeting begins this week with the Baltimore Ravens' Ozzie Newsome having been a major part of this process for a decade.

The No. 1 item the committee is looking at is proposing the idea of reseeding the playoffs at the end of each season. Currently the division winner is guaranteed at least a wild-card opening round home game.

Of course, the league’s worst nightmare when this type of seeding began, was what happened this year. A sub .500 team, by way of the Seattle Seahawks out of the anemic NFC West, goes 7-9 and hosts the 11-5 reigning Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints. The fact that the Seahawks pulled off the upset and beat the Saints 41-36 diminished the effect, but still the idea of a team that goes 11-5 having to go to a 7-9 team in the first round of the playoffs just doesn’t seem right.

Those who are against reseeding say it will devalue winning a division, but I strongly disagree. The only way a 7-9 team is going to make the playoffs is to win the division, and that should be incentive enough. Some have even proposed that we go a step further and, like the college game, say that a team has to be “bowl eligible”, or in this case at least have an 8-8 record to be allowed into the playoffs.

Is it right that the 10-6 New York Giants or the 10-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, who beat the Seahawks two weeks before 38-15, be ousted from the playoffs while Seattle not only gets in, but hosts a game?

Secondly, the league has done a nice job of pushing divisional games to the end of the season to enhance the need for teams to play out the entire schedule and not sit players down when they have the division, and a playoff spot, already in hand. By reseeding, you enhance the chances of an already playoff bound team competing to improve their seed. Or better yet, get a home game with a 12-4 record even as a wildcard.

I don’t know that there is a viable economic argument that will surface from the owners to shoot this topic down, and it has been presented before getting as many as 18-20 votes. The league needs 24 votes for this to get enacted and hopefully chairman Rich McKay, who is a proponent of this, can garner enough votes.