You shouldn't be guaranteed a playoff home game by winning your division. Here's how you solve the issue:

1. Overall record (better than)

2. Conference opponents (at least tied)

3. Common opponents (at least tied)

If those parameters are reached, then a lower seeded team can host a higher seeded team. I know they don't all play the same schedules but the current system favors weaker divisions. The AFC South for example doesn't have a single good team and generally doesn't, so it would allow deserving teams a better fate. You could have two 15-1 teams in the same division but one would have to play most if not all of their playoff games on the road and even likely be fed to the 1-seed in the second round.

I think being division champ merits a home game on Wild Card Weekend as you had to play each team in your division twice, however, its not necessarily how division champs get awarded because it appears to me the go overall record then division record to determine standings.

You only play in your division 6 times out of 16. Your entire division could be weak, as in the case of the AFC South, so you're just awarding the best of a bad bunch in such a case versus the West which has 3 teams that appear clearly better than the best team in the South (take your pick).

Overall record goes first but if that isn't better, then other measures need to be considered.

like, who has the hottest cheerleaders?

You read the OP right?

Overall record, common opponents, conference record. If you want to add more in the equation, then conference opponents records could be factored in. That at least considers other factors besides who was the best of a bad division.

The root problem is that 4-team divisions are too small. The probability that at least 1 of 8 4-team divisions will have four mediocre or worse teams is fairly high. The NFL stuck itself with this problem when they expanded to 32 teams. At 30 teams they had six 5-team divisions, and in that format the probability of an entire division finishing with 8 or fewer wins is much smaller.

One idea that I like: A wild card team could get home field vs. a division winner if the wild card team has at least 2 more wins than the division winner. That seems like a decent compromise between always giving the home field to a division winner and not giving any "bonus" to a team for winning its division.

Again though, the schedules are so different, it's not really fair. It's like college football in that regard, each division/conference is different and each team plays a unique schedule, including non-conference play. Teams in each NFL conference from different divisions play anywhere from 2-8 common opponents. So if two teams only play two common opponents, is it really fair to place one team over another when the division winner was the champion of a group that played basically the same schedule?

i believe as long as the NFL has these small 4-team divisions, the division champion should get home field in the first round. if a team wants home field, then win your division, its that simple. that's what each team has control over.

with that said, I do not like the small 4-divisions where everybody plays each other twice. I would much prefer 6-team or 8-team divisions when everybody plays each other once.