More and more, it looks like option (C).

The league is earnestly discussing the idea of playing the first four games of the postseason on Jan. 2 and 3, which for those of you who left your Palm Pilot in the downstairs W.C., is a Wednesday and Thursday.

The two winners would then travel to their next opponent's city for games on Saturday and Sunday. Which is to say, playing a superior team at their stadium with three days' prep time.

Which to say, to play on three days' rest for the right to play on three days' rest.

Which to say, to volunteer for a game that almost surely cannot be won.

So let's see a bookie set a line on that second game -- "Uhh, Denver by 33½?"

The reason for this kind of certifiable madness is obvious -- the $90 million or so that the league will take in after expenses by providing the TV networks with everything on the menu.

Oh, the networks might induce some sort of give-back, but it won't be significant. They'll do what their economics tell them must be done -- pay for play.

The NFL, in its role as the billion-pound elephant, is incapable of stepping lightly in any situation, especially where money is involved, but until now had left the actual competition even-handed.

This, though, puts teams that had the temerity to lose six games at such a glaring competitive disadvantage to making the playoffs as the fifth or sixth best team is almost indistinguishable from finishing seventh or eighth.

Put another way, it's sort of like what author Fran Leibowitz once wrote about the lottery: the chances of winning are the same whether you play or not.

This is not a good thing by any measure, to invite teams to the playoffs and then say, ""Oh, and you'll be going in the direction with no end zone."

Actually, we misspeak. This doesn't even rise to the level of not being a good thing by any measure.

A playoff berth should be an exalted thing, relatively speaking. To say, "Come on, but you're flying steerage, so sit with your legs crossed," is hardly exhaltation.

One of the things that helped render boxing inert as a national point of interest was the introduction of dozens of boxing organizations and hundreds of championship belts. Before you knew it, there were welterweight title fights between Greg Kinnear and Kathy Bates, and people sort of lost interest.

True, this idea of short-sheeting NFL playoff teams is a one-shot thing, caused by the exigencies of the moment. There is, though, no law, federal or otherwise, that says that you should have more playoff teams than sensible dates upon which to play those games. If this happens to negatively impact (i.e., screw up) the Detroit Lions or Jacksonville Jaguars, the San Francisco 49ers or Oakland Raiders, well, life's tough and stop your sniveling.

But we anticipate just the opposite. The NFL will probably play the games, they'll be awful, and the winners will end up no better off than the losers. It'll be "Let's Make A Deal" with gaggles of eye-pecking hawks behind all three curtains.

Which, I suppose, makes for its own kind of must-see TV.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.