Ready for a sub-.500 playoff team?

Zero2Cool
Elite Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmonsnfl2010/100924

I'm only quoting the part that sparked my interest. I believe Rourke will like this setup, because, I don't. Not in spite of me, but differing opinions on scenarios.

Here's my question: Why create the potential of a 10-win team missing the playoffs just because we were obligated to include a sub-.500 team? The easiest solution: Any division champ that doesn't win eight games loses its guaranteed playoff spot. If you go 7-8-1, 7-7-2, 7-6-3, 6-6-4, whatever ... you're out. I want eight victories. Minimum. Then again, you shouldn't sneak into the playoffs with eight wins just because you lucked out with a crappy division. The NFC West has lost 58 percent of its games since 2002. Fifty-eight percent! Why should the division champ be grandfathered in every year like some drunk legacy kid at a country club?

A more radical (and fairer) solution: We shake things up starting in 2011 and create four eight-team divisions ...

AFC East: New England, New York, New York, Buffalo, Philly, Baltimore, Washington, Carolina.

AFC West: Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Arizona, Kansas City, St. Louis.

NFC Central: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minnesota.

NFC South: Miami, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Tennessee, Atlanta, Jacksonville.

Geographically? Makes total sense. Finally. (Is there anything dumber than Baltimore being in the AFC Central but Miami being in the AFC East?) Competitively, since the owners are stupidly/stubbornly/indefensibly/greedily/soullessly/selfishly pushing for an 18-game regular season and will inevitably prevail (sadly, there's no real way to stop them even as their sport inches closer and closer to that final scene of "Rollerball"), we change the schedule's requirements so teams play home-and-homes with three of their division rivals every season (never the same three teams); they play the other four division rivals once; they play four teams from the other division in their conference; then they play four teams from the other conference. That's 18 games ... and tons of collateral damage. But, hey, who cares about the health, happiness and well-being of retired football players?

For my revamped playoffs, the four division champs would earn byes for Round 1. Everything else would play out like it does now: 12 playoff teams, four rounds, winner takes all. And we'd never have to worry about a sub-.500 team getting 10-plus points at home in a first-round playoff game ever again.

Eight teams, per division? I think that eliminates a lot of rival games. I like having two chances to pounce the Vikings and Bears. If you were to play everyone in your division, that leaves two out of division games to be played.

Would that make playoffs more exciting because teams would be less prepared?

Wanna join the discussion?! Login to your PACKERSHOME forum account or Register a new forum account

Porforis
Veteran Member

14 years ago

The idea of increasing the number of games, or drastically restructuring divisions drives me up the wall everytime the subject gets started. It has everything to do with sucking extra money out of fans, and there's so many reasons why getting rid of preseason games and adding regular season games is a BAD IDEA.

More directly on-subject, I like the idea on paper but when's the last time a 7-9 team won their division? It might be something worth putting in the books just in case, but there's plenty of more pressing matters at hand that the league should be focusing on. There may not BE a next year.

Formo
Veteran Member

14 years ago

"Porforis" wrote:

This.

Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!

Nonstopdrivel
Preferred Member

14 years ago

Eliminating preseason games and increasing regular season games will have one effect, and one only: increase the number of sucky games at the beginning of the season. Right now the first couple of weeks tend to be really sloppy. If we go to two preseason games and 18 regular season games, we'll probably see at least four weeks of bad football. So fans will still be paying full price for a sub-par product.

Zero2Cool
Elite Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

Two preseason games .. so first game starters play three quarters, then only a couple series in the second?

GOPACKGO1225
Registered

14 years ago

I never understood why the Cowboys are in the NFC East.

mi_keys
Senior Member

14 years ago

That sounds like a terrible idea. He's cocking up far more than he could ever hope to fix.

I went back and looked at every year since 1970 to see how many times teams had .500 or below .500 records and won their division. Only one team has won their division with a .500 record in the last four decades (San Diego in 2008). Only 11 teams have made the playoffs with a .500 record or worse and all but San Diego have been wild cards. So what problem does he plan on fixing?

In the mean time he is planning on breaking up rivalries in favor of geographic proximity. I'm sorry but if you need to be told why Baltimore is with the AFC North (old Browns, heated rivalry there) or the Dolphins are in the AFC East (again rivalries with the other East teams) or Cowboys are in the NFC East you're not following rivalries in football.

Also, if he's so worried about geographic proximity, going to four divisions makes everything more spread out. One of his divisions has Dallas and Miami in the same division. That's something like 1,300 miles apart, and not all that closer than Dallas and New York.

Terrible idea.

Born and bred a cheesehead

Zero2Cool
Elite Member Topic Starter

10 years ago

This would be fascinating.

Michaeld David Smith says: Using ESPN’s NFL Playoff Machine, I found a scenario that saw the Packers finishing at 12-4, losing the NFC North tiebreaker to the 12-4 Lions, and then losing the NFC wild card tiebreaker to the 12-4 Cowboys and 49ers.

Green Bay fans would be livid if that happened, although that scenario is a long shot. However, there are plausible scenarios that have an 11-5 team missing the playoffs while a 5-11 team wins the NFC South.

wpr
Preferred Member

10 years ago

Why would anyone be lived? If you don't win the division you are an at large/ wild card team. If there is a softer division and a team with a losing record gets in that's the breaks.

sschind
Senior Member

10 years ago

#10

Yeah, lets fix more shit that ain't broken.

Important Information:

The PACKERSHOME uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. More Details Close

Fan Shout

dfosterf (20h) : There will be a mini camp practice Thursday.

Zero2Cool (11-Jun) : He's been sporting a ring for a while now. It's probably Madonna.

Martha Careful (10-Jun) : We only do the tea before whoopee, it relaxes me.

wpr (10-Jun) : That's awesome Martha.

Mucky Tundra (10-Jun) : How's the ayahuasca tea he makes, Martha?

Martha Careful (10-Jun) : Turns out he like older women

Martha Careful (10-Jun) : I wasn't supposed to say anything, but yes the word is out and we are happy 😂😂😂

Mucky Tundra (10-Jun) : I might be late on this but Aaron Rodgers is now married

Mucky Tundra (10-Jun) : Well he can always ask his brother for pointers

Zero2Cool (10-Jun) : Bo Melton taking some reps at CB as well as WR

Zero2Cool (10-Jun) : key transactions coming today at 3pm that will consume more cap in 2025

Zero2Cool (9-Jun) : Jaire played in just 34 of a possible 68 games since the start of the 2021 season

Zero2Cool (9-Jun) : reported, but not expected to practice

Zero2Cool (9-Jun) : Jenkins has REPORTED for mandatory camp

Zero2Cool (9-Jun) : I really thought he'd play for Packers.

buckeyepackfan (9-Jun) : Packers releasing Jaire Alexander.

Mucky Tundra (8-Jun) : (Context: he wants his defense to create turnovers)

Mucky Tundra (8-Jun) : Giants DC Shane Bowen tells players to “be a damn pirate."

dfosterf (6-Jun) : Semper fi !

Cheesey (6-Jun) : This is why I have so much respect for those that have gone through battles

Cheesey (6-Jun) : I can't even imagine what that would have been like

wpr (6-Jun) : "Come on, you sons of bitches. Do you want to live forever?"

wpr (6-Jun) : Facing a line of machine guns 2 time medal of Honor recipient, First Sergeant Dan Daly told his men,

wpr (6-Jun) : Another detachment went into the Belleau Wood.

wpr (6-Jun) : On the 6th the Marines took Hill 142 but suffered terrible losses.

wpr (6-Jun) : It’s time to remember dfoster’s Marine brothers in Belleau Wood. The battle went on from June 1-26. Nearly 10,000 casualties.

packerfanoutwest (6-Jun) : Nick Collins and Morgan Burnett have signed with the PACK

packerfanoutwest (6-Jun) : he won't be wearing #12, maybe he will wear number two

packerfanoutwest (6-Jun) : He will fail this season, should have retired

Mucky Tundra (5-Jun) : Thus the cycle of Hall of Fame Packer QBs going to the Jets and then the Vikings is broken

bboystyle (5-Jun) : Rodgers to steelers on 1 year contract

Zero2Cool (5-Jun) : It's the cycle of civilizations. Get lazier, lazier, softer, softer and vanish.

Martha Careful (5-Jun) : great point. every aspect of society, including art, culture and sports has degraded.

dfosterf (4-Jun) : Green Bay sweep meant something to society about stopping pure excellence. We have the tush push now

dfosterf (4-Jun) : We old Martha.

Martha Careful (4-Jun) : *front four

Martha Careful (4-Jun) : Re frout four, I wish we had some Green "People Eaters" or a fearsome foursome

dfosterf (4-Jun) : *directions*

dfosterf (4-Jun) : Just don't ask him for driving direct

dfosterf (4-Jun) : Jim Marshall was an all-time great DE for the Purple People Eaters. Didn't like him. That's a compliment. RIP

Zero2Cool (3-Jun) : ooppppss

Zero2Cool (3-Jun) : “Kenny Clark played all of last season hurt by the way and got surgery to fix it in January”

Mucky Tundra (3-Jun) : @ByRyanWood How much did the injury affect him last fall? “A lot.”

Mucky Tundra (3-Jun) : @ByRyanWood Kenny Clark said he had foot surgery in January. Injured his foot in opener against Eagles and played through it all year.

Zero2Cool (3-Jun) : Golden is wearing guardian cap again. I bet he plays with it on too.

Mucky Tundra (3-Jun) : All the stuff I'm reading from Lions fans are pointing at his toe; he more or less has permanent turf toe in one of his big toes

dfosterf (3-Jun) : Kenny played through it, and a shame he gets little credit for that, imo

dfosterf (3-Jun) : Big men. I hope it's not the undoing of Kenny Clark

dfosterf (3-Jun) : Probably his toe. Pretty much a great center. Toe injuries are brutal to bigen

Mucky Tundra (2-Jun) : Lions All-Pro C Frank Ragnow retires

Please sign in to use Fan Shout

2025 Packers Schedule

Sunday, Sep 7 @ 3:25 PM

LIONS

Thursday, Sep 11 @ 7:15 PM

COMMANDERS

Sunday, Sep 21 @ 12:00 PM

Browns

Sunday, Sep 28 @ 7:20 PM

Cowboys

Sunday, Oct 12 @ 3:25 PM

BENGALS

Sunday, Oct 19 @ 3:25 PM

Cardinals

Sunday, Oct 26 @ 7:20 PM

Steelers

Sunday, Nov 2 @ 12:00 PM

PANTHERS

Monday, Nov 10 @ 7:15 PM

EAGLES

Sunday, Nov 16 @ 12:00 PM

Giants

Sunday, Nov 23 @ 12:00 PM

VIKINGS

Thursday, Nov 27 @ 12:00 PM

Lions

Sunday, Dec 7 @ 12:00 PM

BEARS

Sunday, Dec 14 @ 3:25 PM

Broncos

Friday, Dec 19 @ 11:00 PM

Bears

Friday, Dec 26 @ 11:00 PM

RAVENS

Saturday, Jan 3 @ 11:00 PM

Vikings