I went to a small Catholic high school outside of Los Angeles, graduating in 1978. We used to play Verbum Dei in basketball every year. During that time they had four future NBA players on their roster, one of whom was David Greenwood, and would beat us 100 to 40 or so. Their athleticism was mind boggling. And depressing.
I saw Eric Dickerson play in the state championship game in high school in 1980 or so. I also saw Billy Sims play in a playoff game around 1974. Sims was from Hooks, Tx, and Dickerson from Sealy, Tx, both medium to lower medium size schools. Yes, it was absolutely ridiculous to watch, especially Dickerson.
I saw Earnest Graham in high school. He later played for the Gators and Bucs. Pretty good in college not too great in the pros. In high school he would take the pitch outside, the 1-2 players who could (sometimes) catch up were 30-40 lbs lighter, so they would basically hang on for dear life to slow him up until enough help arrived to tackle him about 10-20-40 yards downfield. Very entertaining.
Re: Belichick, I think he keeps coaching to prove that he can win a Superbowl without Brady. I mean, that seems like a silly thing to have to prove, but his success with the Patriots happens to coincide with Brady's time there. I can see Belichick as just the sort of person who needs to prove that he didn't just get lucky with one of the greatest QBs of all time—especially after Belichick's part in ushering Brady out of New England.
I agree the 7th playoff team in each conference throws off the balanced elegance of the old system. But I'm not sure why you describe the top-seed tiebreakers as "absurd":
The Titans beat the Chiefs 27-3 and they have the same record; I don't see an argument against this tiebreaker.
The Packers' tiebreaker was conference record which is a bit more arbitrary, but they were a game ahead and rested starters against the Lions in week 18 because the top seed was already clinched. If the tiebreakers had been different and less favorable for them (point differential?) they would likely just have beaten the Lions and finished a game ahead.
Plenty to criticize about the new playoff setup but the right teams were given byes based on wins and losses.
I don't favor playoff expansion, certainly not to 14 teams. I think it is at it's best number right now, and I somewhat enjoy the wild card sudden death game. But if 14 is inevitable, let's do it in a more exciting way and reward division winners at the same time.
7 playoff teams per league mean 4 wild card teams, so let's have a tournament. At a neutral site chosen (perhaps even bid on?) before the season. Day 1 the 4 teams play (one game in the afternoon, one at night) Day 2, the winners play and the losers play. 0-2 team gets eliminated, 2-0 team gets the day off. Day three the two 1-1 teams play, loser is eliminated. Day 4, the two teams play, if the 2-0 team wins they are the champions, if the one loss team wins they play again. Now, my idea was to play the first game in the afternoon and the if necessary game at night to get it over with in one day. Some say that is draconian, and they should play on day 5.
However they do it, the series between the #2 and #3 seeds begin on the wild card winners travel day, naturally staggering the series to come. With 4 teams remaining, (in each league) the remainder of the playoffs unfold the way they do now. We are guaranteed only one non division winner in the final four still, there is still the rest advantage for division winners and a big incentive to win the division rather than just try and make it in.
On the baseball expansion: I believe this is the owners trying to A: Make more money from more playoff games, while B: repressing top end salaries. I mean, this will be the end result right? If you just have to make the top half then why are you going to try to be #1 out of the gate?
Will this kill the trade deadline? How many sellers will there be? IF there are going to be 14 playoff teams there will probably be 80+% of the teams that think they have a chance in August. Teams will just try to be mediocre every year. Also, of course, in baseball, there is much more of a chance that inferior teams win than in other sports. As well as a longer season. In football, with differences in schedule, and close games, teams 3 wins apart might be a tougher schedule and 3 plays different. In baseball , why do you need the marathon if everyone is going to make it?
Well, that's basically the players' union position on expanded playoffs. I hope they win on that one.
In answer to your final question, obviously to make more money as the networks like it and it seems to have worked for basketball in the NCAA and NBA. Personally it has killed my interest and I used to be an avid fan of both but don't even follow either one anymore.
I agree with point A but not necessarily B. Teams will still try to improve - however they will optimize for October - which I think will mainly affect how they assemble a pitching staff. Your best chance of a hot run in October is still to have the best team.
Lack of penant races could hurt attendance though.
I think it's a bad idea overall. I liked 4 teams per league but that ship has sailed.
Seeing yet another weekend of games heavily influenced by referees getting the call wrong, it’s clear to me the NFL needs to move to a “review everything” from a remote location model. Have somebody watching the game on TV be able to step in and say “that was after the whistle” or “the was face mask” or what have you.
It’s not the refs’ fault—the game is too fast for them and the standard is too high because of how good broadcasts are now. The game just needs technological advances in reffing. I get the downside, by the downside of it doing it (weekly embarrassment) is greater.
Yep, might as well add another half hour to the games. Remember when replay was added to eliminate just the obviously blown call? Before they stopped to look at it in slow motion, freeze frame and 77 different angles because it's so important to get it exactly right? Yet they still have blown calls some in plain sight.
Technological advances? Like we need "robo umps" in MLB because they miss pitches that are an inch or two off the plate?
If you do it right, one of the huge advantages of remote reffing is that it will make the game go *faster*. You just have somebody in the refs ear telling them the call—no need for lengthy meetings to poll every ref on the field nor long replays in which the field ref has to examine the play himself. Those are the really flow killers—well that and injuries and commercials, but those latter two are here to stay, unfortunately.
That sounds good in theory. It would eliminate the conferences. However, like the TV announcers watching on monitors, I suspect remote refs will want to stop the action to look at replays from different angles and freeze frames. They too won't want to get caught making a mistake. Then there's the unintended consequences not foreseen until it's too late. Once the door is open it never closes.
One thing MLB has done right is experiment in lower leagues. The NFL doesn't have that opportunity.
Here's the thing about watching High School players. The ones that play in high D1 programs, and for sure those that even make a pro league roster are ridiculous in High School. My younger son played against several now (or recent past) NBA players. They were all absurd in High School. The best one of the now NBA players is a good role player/sometimes starter. A couple of them were on two way contracts & never moved beyond. It was actually a little surprising, but their (seemingly small) weaknesses were really exposed at higher levels.
I think the thing that's most problematic about expanding the baseball playoffs is that any team can get hot and win the thing. The Braves did exactly that last year & it's been done many times by teams that squeaked into the playoffs. So the regular season is really, really deemphasized. Although there certainly have been some lower seeds that have won championships in the NFL, there haven't been many. And it's really rare in the NBA. And the home field is much more important in the NFL & NBA than in baseball. So expanded playoffs in those sports don't really degrade the regular season for the NFL & NBA, because the top teams have big advantages in seeding and home court/field heading into the playoffs.
I think it's also due to the narrower spread between the best and worst teams in baseball. The best baseball teams win around 60% of their games, the worst win 40%. In the NBA and NFL it's more like 75/25.
I also think if half the MLB teams make the playoffs, the good teams will start optimizing for October, whatever that looks like, since they are basically guaranteed a playoff spot.
The only thing that would prevent MLB from expanding the playoffs that much is the weather. And the owners are unlikely to want to cut the regular season short, since that means less revenue for them.
The calendar is an issue, but they do have an option to start the season earlier, or the less likely option of playing the World Series in a neutral, warm weather location or domed stadium. If they started the season earlier, they could schedule the first several games in warmer weather/domed stadiums. It can be done. If it was the NFL, they wouldn't even hesitate to make those types of changes. But baseball.... they struggle to do smart, obvious things because... baseball.
Leagues will "grow" their products as long as that growth does in fact mean more revenue, which means enough of us still consuming the product. I decry the expansion of advertising in baseball (more commercial breaks; more during the game; more sponsored items), but I won't give up baseball on account, or even decrease my intake. With the football playoffs, though, I had a thing as a kid where I refused to miss a single playoff game. I took pride in that the way I took pride in perfect attendance. But six playoff games in a weekend, and particularly three at night, given my schedule, doesn't make sense for me. So now I am more judicious. I will see only three of this weekend's games in full. I'm not sure the NFL has grown revenue where I am concerned. Everyone has a breaking point.
Playoff should mean "must watch," but if you bring enough teams in, and add enough games, that goes by the wayside. Not only is the winner of the tournament less legitimate, not only is the regular season less interesting, but the playoff games themselves mean less to general fans.
Another way baseball has f'd up. Not only is the regular season a waste of time, but you can't watch all the playoffs. Either you don't have the pay cable channel, or two (or more) games are going on at the same time).
On that blown (blown?) whistle call - I think justice was served in the end. The whistle didn't change anything about the result of the play. I think it would take a pretty irate Raiders homer to argue that the DB in the back of the end zone would have made a play on the ball or the receiver had the whistle not blown. As a disgruntled Chargers fan, maybe a little anti-Raiders bias is creeping in, but it looked to me like that touchdown would have been good regardless, and so I think the officials did the right thing.
Right. I'm a Bengals fan, and am 100% biased, but I saw a breakdown of the play/whistle/clock. The whistle blew, seriously, .1 to .15 seconds before the ball was caught. Not 1 or 1.5 seconds - 0.1 to 0.15 second.
Eh. Call me an irate Raider fan then. On the replay the defenders all seem to stop trying while the ball is in mid-air. As in, the exact way they would if they thought the play was over because it was whistled dead. The closest DB doesn't even try to put his hands up to attempt a block.
You could argue that it was a well-thrown ball and they probably could not have defended it anyway, but you have to at least let them try.
I pretty much agree. I'm pretty much OK with them engineering the best solution even though it didn't really fit reality or the rule book. If I was a ref, I could live with that over completely botching a playoff game with an early whistle that never, never should have been blown.
I went to a small Catholic high school outside of Los Angeles, graduating in 1978. We used to play Verbum Dei in basketball every year. During that time they had four future NBA players on their roster, one of whom was David Greenwood, and would beat us 100 to 40 or so. Their athleticism was mind boggling. And depressing.
Thanks, Joe, for speaking for me once again. I may start watching the NFL playoffs this week when they really begin - or maybe not.
Get ready for bracket creep in NCAAF too.
I saw Eric Dickerson play in the state championship game in high school in 1980 or so. I also saw Billy Sims play in a playoff game around 1974. Sims was from Hooks, Tx, and Dickerson from Sealy, Tx, both medium to lower medium size schools. Yes, it was absolutely ridiculous to watch, especially Dickerson.
I saw Earnest Graham in high school. He later played for the Gators and Bucs. Pretty good in college not too great in the pros. In high school he would take the pitch outside, the 1-2 players who could (sometimes) catch up were 30-40 lbs lighter, so they would basically hang on for dear life to slow him up until enough help arrived to tackle him about 10-20-40 yards downfield. Very entertaining.
Re: Belichick, I think he keeps coaching to prove that he can win a Superbowl without Brady. I mean, that seems like a silly thing to have to prove, but his success with the Patriots happens to coincide with Brady's time there. I can see Belichick as just the sort of person who needs to prove that he didn't just get lucky with one of the greatest QBs of all time—especially after Belichick's part in ushering Brady out of New England.
I agree the 7th playoff team in each conference throws off the balanced elegance of the old system. But I'm not sure why you describe the top-seed tiebreakers as "absurd":
The Titans beat the Chiefs 27-3 and they have the same record; I don't see an argument against this tiebreaker.
The Packers' tiebreaker was conference record which is a bit more arbitrary, but they were a game ahead and rested starters against the Lions in week 18 because the top seed was already clinched. If the tiebreakers had been different and less favorable for them (point differential?) they would likely just have beaten the Lions and finished a game ahead.
Plenty to criticize about the new playoff setup but the right teams were given byes based on wins and losses.
I don't favor playoff expansion, certainly not to 14 teams. I think it is at it's best number right now, and I somewhat enjoy the wild card sudden death game. But if 14 is inevitable, let's do it in a more exciting way and reward division winners at the same time.
7 playoff teams per league mean 4 wild card teams, so let's have a tournament. At a neutral site chosen (perhaps even bid on?) before the season. Day 1 the 4 teams play (one game in the afternoon, one at night) Day 2, the winners play and the losers play. 0-2 team gets eliminated, 2-0 team gets the day off. Day three the two 1-1 teams play, loser is eliminated. Day 4, the two teams play, if the 2-0 team wins they are the champions, if the one loss team wins they play again. Now, my idea was to play the first game in the afternoon and the if necessary game at night to get it over with in one day. Some say that is draconian, and they should play on day 5.
However they do it, the series between the #2 and #3 seeds begin on the wild card winners travel day, naturally staggering the series to come. With 4 teams remaining, (in each league) the remainder of the playoffs unfold the way they do now. We are guaranteed only one non division winner in the final four still, there is still the rest advantage for division winners and a big incentive to win the division rather than just try and make it in.
I would watch that.
On the baseball expansion: I believe this is the owners trying to A: Make more money from more playoff games, while B: repressing top end salaries. I mean, this will be the end result right? If you just have to make the top half then why are you going to try to be #1 out of the gate?
Will this kill the trade deadline? How many sellers will there be? IF there are going to be 14 playoff teams there will probably be 80+% of the teams that think they have a chance in August. Teams will just try to be mediocre every year. Also, of course, in baseball, there is much more of a chance that inferior teams win than in other sports. As well as a longer season. In football, with differences in schedule, and close games, teams 3 wins apart might be a tougher schedule and 3 plays different. In baseball , why do you need the marathon if everyone is going to make it?
Well, that's basically the players' union position on expanded playoffs. I hope they win on that one.
In answer to your final question, obviously to make more money as the networks like it and it seems to have worked for basketball in the NCAA and NBA. Personally it has killed my interest and I used to be an avid fan of both but don't even follow either one anymore.
I agree with point A but not necessarily B. Teams will still try to improve - however they will optimize for October - which I think will mainly affect how they assemble a pitching staff. Your best chance of a hot run in October is still to have the best team.
Lack of penant races could hurt attendance though.
I think it's a bad idea overall. I liked 4 teams per league but that ship has sailed.
If the NFL does go to 8 team playoffs they should steal the Aussie Rules football finals series
A: Best div winner
B: 2nd best Div Winner
C: 3rd best Div winner
D: 4th best div winner
E: best wildcard team
F: 2nd best WC team
G: 3rd best WC team
H: 4th best WC team
Week 1
Game 1 A v D
Game 2 B v C
Game 3 E v H
Game 4 F v G
Winners of 1 & 2 get a week off, losers of game 1 & 2 play winners of game 3 & 4 (losers of games 3 & 4 eliminated
Then straight knockout to the end
Seeing yet another weekend of games heavily influenced by referees getting the call wrong, it’s clear to me the NFL needs to move to a “review everything” from a remote location model. Have somebody watching the game on TV be able to step in and say “that was after the whistle” or “the was face mask” or what have you.
It’s not the refs’ fault—the game is too fast for them and the standard is too high because of how good broadcasts are now. The game just needs technological advances in reffing. I get the downside, by the downside of it doing it (weekly embarrassment) is greater.
Yep, might as well add another half hour to the games. Remember when replay was added to eliminate just the obviously blown call? Before they stopped to look at it in slow motion, freeze frame and 77 different angles because it's so important to get it exactly right? Yet they still have blown calls some in plain sight.
Technological advances? Like we need "robo umps" in MLB because they miss pitches that are an inch or two off the plate?
If you do it right, one of the huge advantages of remote reffing is that it will make the game go *faster*. You just have somebody in the refs ear telling them the call—no need for lengthy meetings to poll every ref on the field nor long replays in which the field ref has to examine the play himself. Those are the really flow killers—well that and injuries and commercials, but those latter two are here to stay, unfortunately.
That sounds good in theory. It would eliminate the conferences. However, like the TV announcers watching on monitors, I suspect remote refs will want to stop the action to look at replays from different angles and freeze frames. They too won't want to get caught making a mistake. Then there's the unintended consequences not foreseen until it's too late. Once the door is open it never closes.
One thing MLB has done right is experiment in lower leagues. The NFL doesn't have that opportunity.
Here's the thing about watching High School players. The ones that play in high D1 programs, and for sure those that even make a pro league roster are ridiculous in High School. My younger son played against several now (or recent past) NBA players. They were all absurd in High School. The best one of the now NBA players is a good role player/sometimes starter. A couple of them were on two way contracts & never moved beyond. It was actually a little surprising, but their (seemingly small) weaknesses were really exposed at higher levels.
I think the thing that's most problematic about expanding the baseball playoffs is that any team can get hot and win the thing. The Braves did exactly that last year & it's been done many times by teams that squeaked into the playoffs. So the regular season is really, really deemphasized. Although there certainly have been some lower seeds that have won championships in the NFL, there haven't been many. And it's really rare in the NBA. And the home field is much more important in the NFL & NBA than in baseball. So expanded playoffs in those sports don't really degrade the regular season for the NFL & NBA, because the top teams have big advantages in seeding and home court/field heading into the playoffs.
I think it's also due to the narrower spread between the best and worst teams in baseball. The best baseball teams win around 60% of their games, the worst win 40%. In the NBA and NFL it's more like 75/25.
I also think if half the MLB teams make the playoffs, the good teams will start optimizing for October, whatever that looks like, since they are basically guaranteed a playoff spot.
Yes, baseball has killed any interest in the regular season.
The only thing that would prevent MLB from expanding the playoffs that much is the weather. And the owners are unlikely to want to cut the regular season short, since that means less revenue for them.
The calendar is an issue, but they do have an option to start the season earlier, or the less likely option of playing the World Series in a neutral, warm weather location or domed stadium. If they started the season earlier, they could schedule the first several games in warmer weather/domed stadiums. It can be done. If it was the NFL, they wouldn't even hesitate to make those types of changes. But baseball.... they struggle to do smart, obvious things because... baseball.
Leagues will "grow" their products as long as that growth does in fact mean more revenue, which means enough of us still consuming the product. I decry the expansion of advertising in baseball (more commercial breaks; more during the game; more sponsored items), but I won't give up baseball on account, or even decrease my intake. With the football playoffs, though, I had a thing as a kid where I refused to miss a single playoff game. I took pride in that the way I took pride in perfect attendance. But six playoff games in a weekend, and particularly three at night, given my schedule, doesn't make sense for me. So now I am more judicious. I will see only three of this weekend's games in full. I'm not sure the NFL has grown revenue where I am concerned. Everyone has a breaking point.
Playoff should mean "must watch," but if you bring enough teams in, and add enough games, that goes by the wayside. Not only is the winner of the tournament less legitimate, not only is the regular season less interesting, but the playoff games themselves mean less to general fans.
Another way baseball has f'd up. Not only is the regular season a waste of time, but you can't watch all the playoffs. Either you don't have the pay cable channel, or two (or more) games are going on at the same time).
On that blown (blown?) whistle call - I think justice was served in the end. The whistle didn't change anything about the result of the play. I think it would take a pretty irate Raiders homer to argue that the DB in the back of the end zone would have made a play on the ball or the receiver had the whistle not blown. As a disgruntled Chargers fan, maybe a little anti-Raiders bias is creeping in, but it looked to me like that touchdown would have been good regardless, and so I think the officials did the right thing.
Right. I'm a Bengals fan, and am 100% biased, but I saw a breakdown of the play/whistle/clock. The whistle blew, seriously, .1 to .15 seconds before the ball was caught. Not 1 or 1.5 seconds - 0.1 to 0.15 second.
Eh. Call me an irate Raider fan then. On the replay the defenders all seem to stop trying while the ball is in mid-air. As in, the exact way they would if they thought the play was over because it was whistled dead. The closest DB doesn't even try to put his hands up to attempt a block.
You could argue that it was a well-thrown ball and they probably could not have defended it anyway, but you have to at least let them try.
Sure, the ref blew it (literally and figuratively). But 25 wasn't getting there even if he had kept trying.
I pretty much agree. I'm pretty much OK with them engineering the best solution even though it didn't really fit reality or the rule book. If I was a ref, I could live with that over completely botching a playoff game with an early whistle that never, never should have been blown.
That's where I am. The whistle did not affect the play.
Imagine if they had followed the rule to the letter and it had cost the Bengals the game. I think there would be far more outrage.