Fairness being raised over divisional alignment

[Don Corleone]

I think the Tampa game was key. I think the Minny game was gravy.

I think you meant that the Philly game was gravy. We actually wanted Minny to win last weekend to keep both wildcard spots open for this weekend.

 

[jobberone]

I wouldn't want to be in any other division. The East is great for us. Wanna be in the West with Seattle, AZ and SF? And the occasional 8-8 or 9-7 team is going to be a division winner. Wait until someone wins a division with a losing record. It's eventually going to happen. They have the greatest game on earth right now. I wouldn't change it right now.

 

[Biggems]

Wouldn't this be the first 11 win team to miss the Playoffs?

Oh, if the Cowboys were to miss the Playoffs with 11 wins, the whining and gnashing of teeth would never end.

I like how they stress the importance of winning your division, but is the NFL really putting the best product on the field when an 8-8 team is in the Playoffs and an 11-5 team is at home?

However, how far do you take this? Sometimes one Conference is more dominant than the other, so you have really good teams in one Conference left out and very bad teams in the other Conference in the Playoffs.

whats to whine about? the system has been this way for decades. i think it has been very successful thus far. only since the NFL went to 32 teams and had to increase to 8 divisions did it get a bit crazy. Even then, this year has been an anomaly when compared to past seasons.

so if we went 11-5 and missed the playoffs, but Zona got in at 8-8, I would be disappointed, but the system is what it is. Plus Arizona beat us head to head.

 

[Givincer]

Imagine the NFC East in the uncapped NFL (2011, I think?)? You think it's a tough division now!

I don't think there needs to be realignment. I really don't. There is going to be one or two week divisions every year. It's the way things pan out.

 

[Biggems]

the only thing I would change about the current playoff system, is to not guarantee HFA for division winners. IMO, simply making the playoffs should be enough reward for winning your division.

I dont mind that they take 4 division winners and 2 WC teams. However, I do mind the seedings. Once the 6 teams are determined.....the top 2 division winners get a bye. Now, in the WC round, the two teams with the better records get HFA.

I think it is lame that Indy would have to go to SD/Den for the WC round. It should be SD/Den going to Indy.

 

[wick]

The Cardinals are particularly galling since five of their eight wins are against St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle, three of the handful of worst teams in the entire league. It's conceivable that the NFC West could produce a playoff team next year with a sub-.500 record. Wouldn't that be fun?

 

[jobberone]

I'm looking forward to an uncapped league but I'm not counting on it. We'll prosper under it.

 

[Givincer]

I'm looking forward to an uncapped league but I'm not counting on it. We'll prosper under it.

Me too! I cannot wait for 2011.

Jerry is counting on it with the contracts he's been writing up loading all the payoffs for 2011. Very smart stuff.

 

[DWhite Fan]

The Cardinals are particularly galling since five of their eight wins are against St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle, three of the handful of worst teams in the entire league. It's conceivable that the NFC West could produce a playoff team next year with a sub-.500 record. Wouldn't that be fun?

Just like in the 80s when the 49ers were assured 6 wins and the division title before the season even began because the NFC West was a joke. The only team that even remotely tried to compete with San Fran was the then LA Rams, and that was minor competion at best. The Falcons and Saints were patsy on the 49ers schedule.

 

[Biggems]

The Cardinals are particularly galling since five of their eight wins are against St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle, three of the handful of worst teams in the entire league. It's conceivable that the NFC West could produce a playoff team next year with a sub-.500 record. Wouldn't that be fun?

the NFC West has long been a garbage division. Remember when it was the Niners, Rams, Saints, and Falcons. You wonder why the Niners had such a good record....the had 6 cake games each year....well other than the Dickerson years.

 

[Biggems]

Just like in the 80s when the 49ers were assured 6 wins and the division title before the season even began because the NFC West was a joke. The only team that even remotely tried to compete with San Fran was the then LA Rams, and that was minor competion at best. The Falcons and Saints were patsy on the 49ers schedule.

hahaha....u beat me to the post

 

[Biggems]

How did we ever loose to the Cardinals?????


http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_y...ug=jc-playoffdebate122408&prov=yhoo&type=lgns


Fairness being raised over divisional alignment

By Jason Cole, Yahoo! Sports Dec 24, 4:04 pm EST




While cries of unfairness coming from Patriots Nation are likely to fall mostly on deaf ears outside of Massachusetts these days, Sunday’s finales could lead to more questions about the current divisional and playoff formats.
Not only is it possible that the New England Patriots could miss the playoffs at 11-5, but there’s the potential that two of the NFL’s eight division winners will be mediocre 8-8.

The Patriots’ flattening of the Cards ultimately might not matter. [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

(US Presswire/David Butler II)​

[/FONT]

The Arizona Cardinals, who didn’t do much more than warm up the team bus on their way to getting waxed 47-7 on Sunday at New England, and the San Diego Chargers, if they beat Denver, will win their respective NFC and AFC West divisions with eight wins. No team has won a division at 8-8 since the Cleveland Browns captured the AFC Central in 1985.
Meanwhile, even if the Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills to reach 11 wins, they’ll miss the playoffs if the Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens win. However, this is about more than the Patriots getting the short end of the stick.
Since the NFL switched to its current eight-division format in 2002, which made the possibility of an 8-8 division winner more likely, three times have teams won their division with only a 9-7 mark. One of those teams, last season’s Buccaneers, went to the playoffs while the Browns sat home with a 10-6 record. This season, there’s a chance that seven teams could finish with better records than two division winners, but not make the postseason.
Still, the reaction from those with the greatest influence is simple: Remain calm.
“This is something we warned the owners that could happen when we switched to this format, so it’s not unexpected,” said Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, who is also the co-chairman of the NFL competition committee. “The feeling is that this is an aberration, not a sign of some trend … Now, if it were to happen again over the next two or three years, maybe it’s something we look at.”
Likewise, Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian said: “It’s definitely something we anticipated when we went with this eight-division format. This is not a surprise nor is it something we should over-react to … when we proposed this system, this is something the owners ultimately wanted and felt good about.”
Moreover, it’s something that ultimately the owners believe improves interest in the game, even if it’s occasionally frustrating for fans.
Polian knows that well from having grown up as a baseball fan in New York. Until 1969, major league baseball featured a one-division format in each league. The division winner went to the World Series. No playoffs, no wild cards, no anything to keep fans in multiple cities interested to the end.
“At most, you might have three teams competing in a given year,” Polian said. “In the system we have now, you have fans in multiple cities excited right up to the end.”
Going into the final week of the season, there are 11 teams still competing for five spots. In addition, Atlanta and the Carolina Panthers are still battling for the NFC South title, putting 13 teams in play during the final weekend. That puts the final Sunday of the NFL season on par with the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament in terms of wide-ranging interest.
Ultimately, more excitement equals more fan interest which equals more money being pumped into the game. The exchange for the almighty dollar is that occasionally some team that seems more deserving might get left out.
New England coach Bill Belichick didn’t seem upset about his team’s predicament, even after a remarkable season by Belichick’s high standards. The Patriots have a chance to go 11-5 despite having 15 players on injured reserve, including 2007 Most Valuable Player Tom Brady.
“Well, that isn’t really anything we have any control over. We just have to do what we can do,” Belichick said Sunday after his team humiliated Arizona. “We would like to be in the playoffs. That’s what we are here for. I think our guys are playing hard, preparing well and they are playing very competitively. But, we are not in it with Arizona at this point. They are in a different conference.”
Would Belichick like to see the format change?
“That is not for me to decide. I have my hands full trying to coach a football team,” he said.
Some of Belichick’s players weren’t so accommodating.
“Typical stuff you see around the NFL,” one Patriot said. “How do you get to go to the playoffs at 8-8 or whatever when other teams win 10 or 11 games and don’t get in?”
Said another: “Doesn’t make much sense to me, but I’m not in charge. I mean, Arizona didn’t even show up [against New England] and when you look at the tape, they haven’t shown up in about a month.”
The Cardinals are in the playoffs despite having lost four of their past five games. In those four losses, Arizona gave up 37, 48, 35 and 47 points. The only win in that span was over 2-13 St. Louis.
Likewise, Denver has had a chance to clinch the AFC West the past two weeks, but lost both and allowed 30 points in each game. In fact, for the season, both Arizona and Denver have been outscored.
Finally, San Diego is in position to win the division despite being 4-8 at one point. At least in the case of the Chargers, they beat the Patriots 30-10 earlier this season.
“At least with them, they can play,” one of the Patriots players said. “I don’t know how the heck they were so bad, but I know they have talent.”

awesome avatar

 

[ZeroClub]

It was a mistake to go with 4 divisions per conference rather than 3 per conference.

When you go with 4 divisions per conference rather than 3, you increase the odds that this kind of thing will happen.

The current plsyoff system is "fair" insofar as they follow established rules that are known to all teams, but the system itself doesn't make much sense, IMO, if the goal is to have the best teams compete for the championship.

It simply isn't in the league's best interest to have weaker teams make the playoffs while stronger teams miss the playoffs.

By the way, the current system will yield even worse results when the number of regular season games is increased.

 

[Hoofbite]

I have no problem with the current system.

Changing it in any way would be a mistake. Once ever 20 years it works out to where a good teams misses while a crap teams makes it.

Big deal. Move on.

 

[Beast_from_East]

The problem with seeding from 1-6 based on records and not divisions is that the schedules are not the same for all NFC teams.

For example, we have to play the G-men twice while the Bears get to play the Lions twice. We might actually have a better team, but not as many wins as the Bears because of the schedule.

In other words, you cant reward a team with a high playoff seed if most of their games were against weaker competition. There has to be some formula that takes into account strenght of schedule as well as overall wins and losses to determine playoff seeds if you are not going by divisions.

That is the problem with just straight seeding off record, strenght of schedule issues.

 

[Daudr]

Well, I happen to think that Divisional champ should mean something and that the current system is the correct one. It's the divisional implications that give this game strong rivalries and if you take that away you take away a lot of what the NFL is about.

 

[BC27]

Whats right with picture the Cards and Chargers could win their divisions at 8-8 and possibly the Saints,Skins, and Cowboys could be 9-7 and in last place in their divisions. I wish they would go with 2 divisions in each conference, division winners get 1st round byes, with 4 wildcard teams to assure the 6 best teams from each conference make the playoff.

 

[RoadRunner]

If they miss the playoffs, you can bet your life savings that the NFL will accomodate their desires by changing the playoff seeding rules for next year.

Nah, they wouldn't do that for the Pats... they sure would for the Steelers though.

 

[wileedog]

The current plsyoff system is "fair" insofar as they follow established rules that are known to all teams, but the system itself doesn't make much sense, IMO, if the goal is to have the best teams compete for the championship.

It simply isn't in the league's best interest to have weaker teams make the playoffs while stronger teams miss the playoffs.

But the goal isn't to have the "best" teams to compete for the championship, its to have the *most* teams compete for the championship.

That's the point of the entire parity driven system - the idea is not to put the best teams on the field, its to keep the most people in the most cities interested for the longest, so they keep watching games and buying stuff they might not have if their team was out of it earlier (even deservedly, like Arizona).

Honestly the % of hardcore fans like folks on this board who notice and care that the quality of play has been diluted to utter crap the past 10 years is dwarfed by the number of 'casual' fans who tune into the game because their local news programs notified them their local team is in the playoffs.

 

[Biggems]

the only legit way to go from 8 division back down to 6 is to take away 2 teams or add 4 teams that way it is either 30 or 36 teams. It would yield 6 five team divisions if 30 or 6 six team divisions if 36.

Another thing they could do is add one more team to the playoffs. This would give the bye week to only 1 team, the best team in the conference. It sure would make that 1 seed a lot more favorable. The 3 division winners would then play the 3 WC. The winners in those 3 games would advance. From a marketing standpoint, this is nice for the NFL cause it includes 2 more teams and 2 extra playoff games.

WC Round
1 - bye
7 at 2
6 at 3
5 at 4

after the games are over and the winners have been determined....the winners would then be reseeded. So if 2, 6, and 4 won......2 remains the 2 seed, 6 becomes the 4 seed, 4 becomes the 3 seed. (this is the way it is already done, I like it so why change it)

Divisional Round
4 at 1
3 at 2