JDG Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Nearly every sports league has each division champion go to the playoffs regardless of record. Otherwise, what's the point of having divisions? I normally agree with you, and I would have not too much problem with a 9-7 division winner getting in over a third 11-5 non-division-winning team. Giving 8-8 teams not just a playoff berth, but a home playoff game is a joke, though. I would support a "qualifier rule" that requires a winning record for a playoff berth, and so any 8-8 team that would ordinarily have qualified for the playoffs is sent home in favor of the next-best available Wild Card team from within the Conference, or if necessary, from the other Conference. The selected team would be the #6 seed, regardless of any other factor... JDG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 I already told you guys how to solve this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartacus Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 Nearly every sports league has each division champion go to the playoffs regardless of record. Otherwise, what's the point of having divisions? that's why a real GM (like Polian) builds his team to beat the teams in his division, and then his conference. take care of what you can control, (winning your division) and the rest will take care of itself Unfortunately our brain trust did not realize that the 3 teams in our division played a 3-4 defense, and thus had no clue how to attack it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth on hold Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 If the Bills were 8-8 en route to a playoff birth would you complain? Personally, I think the NFL playoff system is the best in pro sports, and is the main reason the NFL is the juggernaut it is (well that and fantasy fb). Makes your division and conference games very important. I like how only 12 or the 32 teams make it unlike the NHL and NBA. true, for me NHL lost its appeal years ago when they abandoned the 2 conference / 4 teams from each, playoff system. every team in it earned it, the regular season mattered, and the playoffs were intense with all 8 having a chance. hockey is just way too rough a sport to have the regular season mean so little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDG Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 I already told you guys how to solve this problem. Its an interesting proposal, but it is not without its drawbacks. On paper, the current system is elegant because each 4-team division plays a schedule that is 88% the same as that of the other teams in the division. The top against the same schedule is the best and moves on to the playoffs. Under your proposal, the home-and-home concept within the division is lost, which detracts from competitive balance. Also, the teams no longer play the same schedule - the different schedules are all over the map. I think the combination of these two factors would leave too much of the division championship in the luck of the draw of the schedule, rather than in head-to-head competition. JDG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 thank you for actually taking a moment to read it. yes the home-and-home is lost, except for that one series per year. of course, that makes the one that is on your schedule each year thaqt much more exciting. but i disagree in that the title would be decided by the luck of the draw. including your one home-and-home series, you'd have a minimum of 8 games against common opponents. that might be all you get, but statistically, you'd have a 50/50 chance of having 11 games against common opponents. that's not enough? meanwhile, my system would create some genuine rivalries with teams like pitt and cleveland that we currently don't have, without taking the traditional rivalries off our schedule. it would be more like college football, which most people seem to really enjoy. i just think it would be a lot more fun, and is way better than having 8 and 9 win teams in the playoffs; that is a TRAVESTY in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDG Posted December 24, 2008 Share Posted December 24, 2008 thank you for actually taking a moment to read it. yes the home-and-home is lost, except for that one series per year. of course, that makes the one that is on your schedule each year thaqt much more exciting. but i disagree in that the title would be decided by the luck of the draw. including your one home-and-home series, you'd have a minimum of 8 games against common opponents. that might be all you get, but statistically, you'd have a 50/50 chance of having 11 games against common opponents. that's not enough? meanwhile, my system would create some genuine rivalries with teams like pitt and cleveland that we currently don't have, without taking the traditional rivalries off our schedule. it would be more like college football, which most people seem to really enjoy. i just think it would be a lot more fun, and is way better than having 8 and 9 win teams in the playoffs; that is a TRAVESTY in my opinion. Well, 8 games against common opponents would only be 50% - and really that would only be 7 games (44%). After all, if you are the team that drew Detroit twice this year, you don't really have the same common opponents as the team that drew the Giants twice this year. The current system has 88% of the games truly be common opponents. I also think that in the eight team format, the rivalries might actually be diminished. In the four-team format, the other three teams in the division are truly standing between your team in the playoffs. You play them twice, which I think can't be underestimated, and you can't even so much as get a wild card spot unless you finish ahead of them. In some ways, NFL rivalries are even better than college rivalries, since college has this bizarre system where you actually root for your rivalries in non-Conference games in order to boost your strength of schedule credibility with the voters and in order to win those crazy "best Conference" debates. With your system the teams you are competing with for those slots seem more likely to change from year to year. Also the team you are competing with might be a team that you played in Week 1 or Week 2, without a second matchup looming in the second half of the schedule. So bottom line, I just don't know how much of a "rivalry" develops with Cleveland and Pittsburgh under this format. I do totally agree with you about the travesty of an 8-8 team making the playoffs (less so about a 9-7 team, though.) JDG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 put your calculator away you gadfly! if half my schedule comes from the division and so does yours, that's enough. and if 8 games on my schedule are against you or 6 other teams you're also playing that's 50%. and i would LOVE it if we had cleveland and pitt on the schedule every year. and if, god forbid, the bills ever won the division again, it might actually mean something. i don't get the obsession with having the exact same schedule as 3 other teams. if the allsuck, then what have tyou proved? with my schedule, everyone who wants to be in the playoffs has to win 10 or 11 games against an NFL schedule. you telling me that the broncos deserve to be in the playoffs over new england? even if they WIN? i have a way to get rid of it, and you're nitpicking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDG Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 put your calculator away you gadfly! if half my schedule comes from the division and so does yours, that's enough. and if 8 games on my schedule are against you or 6 other teams you're also playing that's 50%. and i would LOVE it if we had cleveland and pitt on the schedule every year. and if, god forbid, the bills ever won the division again, it might actually mean something. i don't get the obsession with having the exact same schedule as 3 other teams. if the allsuck, then what have tyou proved? with my schedule, everyone who wants to be in the playoffs has to win 10 or 11 games against an NFL schedule. you telling me that the broncos deserve to be in the playoffs over new england? even if they WIN? i have a way to get rid of it, and you're nitpicking! Merry Christmas to you too, Scrooge! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 Denver might be the worst team ever to make the playoffs. They are absolutely horrible. The only thing that separates them from the Bills is Cutler and Marshall. Oh yeah they have a tight end as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HughC Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 1. While I like your proposal for four eight-team divisions, there will still be detractors complaining about the setup being unfair. Complaints of "that team doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs, and my team does" will simply be replaced with complaints of "that team has an easier schedule than my team does". 2. Overall this will be less exciting for fans. The current setup has about half the fans of the NFL following their team battling for a division title - an average of two per division, times 8 divisions = 16 teams. While the same number of teams make the playoffs, how excited are fans going to be with a team finishing in 5th or 6th place? Not nearly as much. 3. That lower level of excitement leads to more no-shows at games, less sales of NFL licensed products like clothing and license plates. In other words, less revenue and profits for the NFL and the players. To change to this format would be a poor business decision. 4. If you are the 6th best team in your conference and get left out of the playoffs because the 7th or 8th best team gets in instead, I have very little sympathy for you. If you can't win your division, there are two wild card spots available. That's three opportunities to make the playoffs. 5. While you have eliminated the possibility of 8-8 division winners, you have added two more playoff teams - increasing the chances of 7-9 teams making the playoffs. Basically what the proposal does is trade the complaint of an 8-8 playoff team for the complaint of a 7-9 playoff team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted December 25, 2008 Share Posted December 25, 2008 1. While I like your proposal for four eight-team divisions, there will still be detractors complaining about the setup being unfair. Complaints of "that team doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs, and my team does" will simply be replaced with complaints of "that team has an easier schedule than my team does". 2. Overall this will be less exciting for fans. The current setup has about half the fans of the NFL following their team battling for a division title - an average of two per division, times 8 divisions = 16 teams. While the same number of teams make the playoffs, how excited are fans going to be with a team finishing in 5th or 6th place? Not nearly as much. 3. That lower level of excitement leads to more no-shows at games, less sales of NFL licensed products like clothing and license plates. In other words, less revenue and profits for the NFL and the players. To change to this format would be a poor business decision. 4. If you are the 6th best team in your conference and get left out of the playoffs because the 7th or 8th best team gets in instead, I have very little sympathy for you. If you can't win your division, there are two wild card spots available. That's three opportunities to make the playoffs. 5. While you have eliminated the possibility of 8-8 division winners, you have added two more playoff teams - increasing the chances of 7-9 teams making the playoffs. Basically what the proposal does is trade the complaint of an 8-8 playoff team for the complaint of a 7-9 playoff team. my intent is for 2 division winners and four wild card teams from each conference. total of 6 from each conference. if it looks somewhere like i wanted 8, it's because i may have been typing too fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wooderson Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 That's the way the cookie crumbles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts