NFL: What if the NFL was run like world soccer associations? Who would get promoted and relegated? Who would win the league, and the Cup? I'm gonna find out. Here's the first in a series.

On the first Sunday in months without the NFL, I found myself watching the other Football and wondering what the NFL would be like if it decided to run it's season like soccer leagues do. So with the help of WhatIfSports.com's simulation engine, I set out to figure it out.First I had to divide the league into four separate divisions, with the best teams at the top, and the worst at the bottom. So I looked up the 2015 draft order and here's how it shook out: League StructureAt the top of the pile is the NFL Premiership, next is the NFL Championship, followed in order by League 1 and League 2.Next came scheduling. Teams will play all 7 other teams in their division once at home and once on the road for a total of 14 games. For this job, I called on the fantasy football schedule maker at footballguys.com, and here's what it turned out: Premiership, Championship, League 1, and League 2. I've only posted the first eight weeks to save space, but the remaining schedules are basically a reverse of the first half of the season.Here is where I should mention that in European Soccer, each association usually runs a secondary competition alongside it's main league championships, these are known as cups, and guess what - We're gonna have one too. These are usually single-elimination knockout tournaments where the teams are randomly drawn against each other. The 32 teams in the NFL are perfect for this. Here's the draw for round 1. Cup games will start after week 3 of the league season.As far as the league competition goes, like in soccer, a win will count for 3 points in the standings, and a draw 1, and a loss 0. At the end of the season, the two worst teams in each division based on points (with point difference in their games being the tiebreaker) will get relegated to the next lowest division, and the two highest ranked teams will be promoted to the next higher division. The top team in the premiership will be the Champion of Football in America.So with all the rules out of the way (I think that's all there is to cover) - Let's get to Matchday 1 Results!In the premiership, the game of the week was a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX with the Seattle Seahawks visiting the New England Patriots and getting their revenge with a 27-17 road victory. Marshawn Lynch racked up 114 yards on 19 carries, and Russell Wilson scampered 68 yards to the end zone in the 4th Quarter to seal the win. I've linked the Game Report.Other results in the Premiership were Packers 22-24 Colts, Cowboys 7-38 Broncos, and Panthers 31-34 Ravens.Week 1 in the championship looked like this, with links to the best games in each division:Lions 27-24 CardinalsBengals 30-30 Steelers in an exciting former AFC North derby.Bills 31-29 EaglesChargers 23-12 ChiefsLeague 1 played out like this:49ers 20 Texans 13Saints 23 Dolphins 33Vikings 18 Browns 23 in which Isaiah Crowell scores at the death to seal the come-from-behind victory for Cleveland.Giants 37 Rams 25And finally, in League 2:Bears 21 Falcons 40Washington 7 Jets 24Jaguars 10 Raiders 20Buccaneers 17 Titans 16: Vincent Jackson catches a last-second TD pass to escape the road loss.So after week 1 here are the standings for the whole NFL.So, I hope you all enjoyed my post, and I hope you like the idea! But most of all, I hope you'll keep coming back to check in throughout the "season" for fun and discussion.Until next time.EDIT: Well, thanks for the gold, you kind people! I wanted to mention that I'll be posting these every 4-8 days. It won't be exactly weekly, But I'll try to not make it longer than that. via /r/nfl http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/2v8tmn/what_if_the_nfl_was_run_like_world_soccer/