...criterion. Why not, I don't know, rank order teams based upon their total number of wins at the end of the season and take the top 4 into the playoff. If there are ties, you can go to some other metric. Seems to avoid subjectivity just as much as rewarding conference champs and seems to be just as arbitrary -- given that not all conferences are equal and with unbalanced schedules, not all teams in a conference play the same schedule.

I get it -- you like clarity and objectivity and consistency -- but those alone don't create fairness, IMO.