Judging by the wildcard round outrage, you could be forgiven for thinking that a cackling Andrew Dillon had brutally sacrificed Bambi outside AFL House while the blood spattered footy fans in the eye.
Yet it was something even more demented. He fixtured two extra finals. You know, those games we kinda like that fill stadiums. He gave two extra teams a shot at September and gave the top six teams a greater finals advantage than those below it. Call the guy Hannibal.
If you haven't already worked it out, despite being enamored with footy's history and traditions as much as anyone, in my view, the scathing criticism of the new finals structure is a sideshow with little relevance to the reality of what we will see next September.
To be fair, the AFL led with the chin by calling it a 'wildcard round' for no apparent reason.
They have accordingly copped the punches of every fan who does not want to see the game Americanised, which has manifested itself in outrage about every aspect of the idea.
It is another cautionary tale against slavishness to U.S. sport that is ever-present in administrative ranks.
Later in the week, after the now traditional slow drip leak, the full 2026 fixture was dropped with less hysteria, but just as much criticism.
The wildcard furore, and the constant carping on any changes the AFL make, camouflages that there is unified agreement that the fixture is flawed. Hopelessly unfair for far too long, it cuts to the core of the game's integrity. It simply needs to be acted upon.
The problem for the AFL is that no matter what it tries to do, a section of the footy public immediately spits venom about any sort of 'change'.
Ironically, 95% of the changes they make (yes, that includes the much-maligned 'stand' rule) are designed to bring the game back to the former glories treasured by traditionalists.
How there is no final 10-level outrage at the disappearance of the 100-goal-kicker for the last 17 years is baffling.
The 'game's gone' pantomime is the tagger the AFL cannot shake, and it is hurting.
AFL change is so on the nose now, I shudder to think of the reaction to reform that is needed for a fixture fix.
Today's AFL cannot be equitably structured like the old 12 team VFL blueprint we have inherited. Bolting on 'rivalry rounds' is just as unfair as what we have now and makes any reform exercise pointless.
Granted, an 18 or 19 team competition is extraordinarily difficult to achieve fixture parity, yet in the future projection of a 20-team competition we have paths. A 20-team league give us three ways for the fixture to be fair again.
The first option is if every single player (and person) in the game agrees to a significant pay cut and the fans unanimously decide they want less footy with a 19-game regular season. Pigs might fly.
The second is if we extend to a 38 game season. Players and fans would revolt, and cricket would need to be exterminated to find grounds.
The third is if the current season length remains, the traditional ladder is retired and the competition is split into conferences. So, how could this work?
There could be four conferences of five teams. The top finishing team of each conference wins a top four spot and the second finishing team in each is guaranteed a finals place.
A 23-game home and away season could be kept where each team plays each other once, and then a second game against each of their four other conference teams.
With 'Gather Round' as the outlier, every team would play 11 home games and 11 away games. Fairness.
Most importantly, the conferences and fixtures can be structured (see below) so that every team has the same amount of out of state travel as its conference peers. There can no longer be howling at Collingwood's lack of frequent flyer points.
The finals wildcard round? Well, it actually would be a wildcard round, because the two next best records across the league get the 9th and 10th spots.
The big problem with all of this, judging by the wildcard reaction, is that half the people reading this will have already fallen off their chair and declared it as something the fans "never wanted."
If we had that kind of vitriol at the relatively innocuous addition of two extra finals, we might get a January 6 style storming of Docklands if the ladder went the way of the dodo. That is the battle on the horizon while fixture explanations get increasingly flimsy, but conservatism abounds.
What we all have to accept is that the AFL fixture in its current form is hopelessly compromised. It's the 1986 version of the VFL draw with a bunch of dodgy renovations tacked on that should never have got council approval. And if we look at it objectively, that we live with this is significantly more distasteful than a final 10 structure can ever be.
Footy fans have a choice. It's a bastardised version of tradition that we have now, or it's fairness. It's impossible to be both.
How a hypothetical conference system could work:
Southern Conference
Tasmania
Adelaide
Port Adelaide
West Coast
Fremantle
Northern Conference
Sydney
GWS
Brisbane
Gold Coast
20th Team (ie NT)
Victorian North Conference
Collingwood
Carlton
Essendon
North Melbourne
Western Bulldogs
Victorian South Conference
Geelong
Hawthorn
Richmond
Melbourne
St Kilda
*Each team plays 19 games versus every AFL team (9 home, 9 away, 1 at Gather Round)
*Each team finishes season with 'second' matches against teams in its own conference. Ensuring derbies and many big rivalry games are doubled.
*Teams compete for two finals spots among its own conference, with each team having an identical draw.
*Teams in each conference would travel out of their state the same amount as their conference peers.
*The minor premier of every conference wins a top four position, positioning based on overall season record (or record for first 19 games)
*The runner-up in each conference wins a finals spot, with the next best two records across the AFL gaining the 9th and 10th wildcard spot. Overall record (or record for first 19 games) determine finishing order and games among these six teams.
*National representation is guaranteed under the finals system (at least four Non-Victorian teams each year)
*The Finals system works as the current one does, once those week one positions are determined.