The NFL talks of parity with pride. To have 19 teams -- even if many finished with 9-7 records -- eligible for the playoffs in the final week of the regular season is remarkable. It's a tribute to the balance of the schedule, a balance that contributed to one of the best seasons in NFL history.

What surprised me and others at last week's owners meeting in Phoenix is the push to go to 14 playoff teams. It surprised the Competition Committee, too. They kissed off the concept because everyone seemed to be in agreement three years ago that the league wouldn't tinker with the playoffs after drastically realigning the divisions and setting up a schedule that promoted more common opponents within the divisions and conferences.

	Tom Brady's Pats would have been the AFC's 7th playoff team last year.

It wasn't broke, yet the sentiment seemed to be rushing to fix it. Thank heavens Commissioner Paul Tagliabue tabled the proposal until May, and once owners take time to study it fully, they'll table it to 2004 or later. The NFL needs at least another season before it adds more playoff teams.

More than any other sport, the NFL's results are schedule-influenced. Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil has studied the subject to a science and is about a week or two away from getting his latest report. His theory has proven out that often Super Bowl winners don't have to have winning records against winning teams. They just have to not play a lot of them.

Easy schedules skew the playoff seedings, a phenomenon that started showing itself around 1997. Why the mid 1990s? Expansion was one reason. The NFL has gone from 28 to 32 teams, adding the Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans. The NFL held to 12 playoff teams, but a predictability showed itself for a few years. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several of the AFC's top seeds came from divisions with an expansion team and the top AFC wild-cards came from the same division.

The old AFC Central had an advantage because of the additions of the Browns and the Bengals. Top seeds mean home-field advantage. Top wild-card seeds mean one extra playoff home game.

It was totally predictable that at least two AFC teams -- the Chiefs and Patriots -- would make a push to add a playoff team for each conference. It was predictable because as early as November it was clear that the teams in the AFC East and AFC West were going to be hurt when it came to the playoffs. Their divisions were too good. With the East playing the West and every team having an 8-8 record or better, teams in those divisions had 10 games against playoff contenders without even taking into account their other six games.

But parity doesn't mean mediocrity and that is what rushing into an expansion of the playoffs is going to do. It will happen, probably in 2004. But letting this realignment play out another year at least will let the league and the fans know what they are getting themselves into by adding two wild cards.

Two things are going to happen with 14 playoff teams. First, top seeds in each conference will have more of a free pass to get to the Super Bowl. Second, more 8-8 teams will make the playoffs. And at some point, you'll probably see a 7-9 playoff team with a playoff expansion.

Parity is one thing. Mediocrity is another. Rewarding more 8-8 teams is troubling.

Since 1990, 8-8 teams have made the playoffs three times. In 1999, two 8-8 teams made the NFC playoffs. Had the NFL had 14 playoff teams since 1990, there would have been 10 instances in which an 8-8 team would have made the playoffs.

While it may be wonderful to shock the world with an upset, it's not likely that a seventh-seed is going to get hot and upset a top seed. Sixth-seeds have only won five playoff games since 1990 and none have reached a championship game.

Only one fifth seed advanced to a championship game since 1990 and that was the Jaguars in 1996. It's hard going back earlier than 1990 because rosters are so influenced by free agency and the 1992 addition of the salary cap.

Odds of a seventh playoff team winning three road games and going to the Super Bowl are close to the chances of a 16th seed making the Final Four in the NCAA basketball tournament.

		Parity doesn't mean mediocrity and that what rushing into an expansion of the playoffs is going to do. I concede it will happen, probably in 2004. But letting this realignment play out another year at least will let the league and the fans know what they are getting themselves into by adding two wildcards.

What the Competition Committee will have to study is the impact on the No. 2 seed and how playing that extra game instead of a bye week will alter the playoff results. The Bucs, for example, may have had to rush Brad Johnson back a week earlier from his injury last year while Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb would have had the extra week to come back from his broken leg.

Here's the clincher, though. Everyone in the league fears an 8-8 or 7-9 division winner. That didn't happen last year because the best divisions played each other and the worst divisions had the easier schedules.

The Steelers finished 10-5-1. They might have finished 8-8 or worse playing last year's AFC West or AFC East schedules. They zipped through the AFC North with a 6-0 record and were 4-5-1 out of the division, facing the AFC South and NFC South.

They are going to have to play much better to win 10 games this year. The Houston Texans are in their second year and getting better. The Bengals seem to have better direction under Marvin Lewis. Plus, the Steelers and and the rest of the teams in the AFC North play the tough, deep AFC West and the four games against the NFC West won't be a cake-walk.

Had the NFL rushed to add a seventh playoff team and had a division winner at 8-8 or 7-9, owners would be voting to change the seeding plan in 2004. They could end up with a fourth-seed division winner at 8-8 or 7-9 hosting a 12-win wild-card team in the first round.

That 12-4 team would be pushing next March to change the playoff seedings. Extra tinkering would only make things worse.

Fortunately, the NFL doesn't rush into a lot of things. They aren't following the reactionary moves of the other sports. How silly is baseball for giving an extra World Series home game based on which league wins that all-star game. That's beautiful. Bud Selig can't figure out how to conclude an extra inning of the All-Star Game and so now he's going to mess with the World Series?

I thought the NBA overreacted by switching their first-round playoff series from five to seven games at mid-season just because there was a chance that the Lakers might be the eighth seed. Probably, going to seven games in the first round was long overdue, but something smells about making that change after the season started.

The NFL needs another year to see what they are getting into by going to 14 playoff teams.

Playoff expansion is coming, but let's not rush into it.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.