If St. Louis loses out, and Indy beats Jax next week (not that unlikely), anyone know who wins the tiebreaker for the #1 overall pick?
I’m guessing St. Louis, because they would have no division wins. They beat the Saints and the Browns. The Colts would have two division wins, beating the Titans and Jaguars. I think division wins count in one of the early tiebreakers, at least in determining playoff seeding…dunno if that matters for draft order or not.
Ah, yeah, the botched 20 yard field goal snap to beat the Browns, I forgot that. Without that, St. Louis could have the #1 overall pick, allowing the Browns to trade with them… damn.
And I don’t think divisional wins matter for anything except determining who wins the division. I think the tiebreaker for draft order is strength of schedule.
Strength of schedule is the first tie breaker, and it looks like the Colts are basically unbeatable there - at least, WRT the Rams and Vikes.
The next tie breakers are divisional record and then conference record, and then it goes to a coin toss.
Why would cheerleaders displease the football gods? Cheerleaders have been a part of football tradition since forever and I would speculate that it goes the other way – Football gods like cheerleaders. My evidence on this is that the Chicago Bears have not won a SuperBowl since they got rid of their cheerleaders.
I’ve thought about the cold coach theory before Easterbrook started writing it as well. It does seem that the colder coach gets the win more often, but I think that there are enough games played in a season that you can point to the games where it’s true and selectively ignore the ones where it isn’t.
Cheerleaders are gimmicks meant to attract people who aren’t really into the football. Real football fans don’t require gimmicks.
Look at the list of teams that don’t have cheerleaders:
Bears, Browns, Lions, Packers, Giants, Steelers. All old-school, storied NFL franchises. The only team that doesn’t really belong there is the Lions, who play in a dome, which is a far greater transgression than having cheerleaders.
Edit: In general, it’s generally the same sort of principle that dome teams aren’t real, hardcore football teams, just to a much lesser degree.
The Jets added cheerleaders in 2006 and have been noticeably more successful since. Just saying.
Jimmy Johnson must have taken all the good cheerleaders when he left Dallas.
The Packers technically have cheerleaders (or, at least, they have in the past few years, I’m not 100% positive about this year). But, they’re actually drawn from the cheerleading squad at UW-Green Bay, and there are both men and women. In other words, it’s more like a college cheerleading squad, and not really at all like the typical “hot babes in tight outfits” squad which most NFL teams have.
What is the point of NFL cheerleaders anyway? They don’t show them on TV for longer than two seconds and 90% of the stadium can only see them as tiny figures far away.
All they do is stand awkwardly on the sidelines and try to avoid getting run over once in a while. Lame, lame, lame. Do they really sell enough calendars to make it worth the expense?
What do you think college cheerleaders look like? 
It’s a publicity tool. The Saintsations do PR appearances in the offseason…and I know the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders do that kind of thing, perhaps on an even larger scale. Want to say they’ve done USO tours and such.
Also, for the record, NFL cheerleaders make $100 per game. They cost less than their uniforms.
Do the football gods also lament the passing from favor of leather helmets?
Whatever fabric the uniforms are made of must be expensive; they don’t use very much of it.
My pants might have $10 in material but retail for $60. Go figure.
OK, here’s my point:
Packer cheerleader squad: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EEAl5VOFhjM/TUtg65NZRKI/AAAAAAAAAGI/0O7mhyzgY5g/s1600/green_bay_packers_cheerleaders_wallpaper_-_1280x960.jpg
Yes, the girls are wearing skirts, but it’s not really a “cheesecake” look.
Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders: http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0810/nfl.cheerleaders.cowboys/images/cowboys-cheerleaders.jpg
Bare midriffs, visible cleavage, short-shorts. Pretty typical for your “normal” NFL cheerleader squad.
Do you see the difference?
Girls from Wisconsin are ugly? d & r
Other than the fact that the Packers have males too, I don’t see much difference at all. Something like half of all NFL cheerleaders are college students; the teams just don’t adopt college cheer squads lock, stock and barrel.
You’re implying that the UW-GB squad is typical for college cheer squads.
For example: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1101/cfb-bcs-championship-cheerleaders/content.1.html
You’re also making the assumption that the Oregon cheerleaders’ outfits are typical. Compare them to the Auburn unis in that set of pictures, which are an awful lot closer to what the Packer / UWGB cheerleaders are wearing.
A few more examples, suggesting that Oregon’s unis may be the exceptions (given what the Oregon football uniforms look like, I’m not sure I’d hold Oregon out as a prototypical example of anything 
):
Ohio State: http://www.thesportsbank.net/core/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/osu-cheerleaders.jpg
University of Florida: http://ufcompetitivecheer.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/3/2103339/5624766.jpg?467
USC: http://conferencechalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/USC.jpg
LSU: http://www.matthewvisinsky.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/LSU-Cheerleaders-2011-Cotton-Bowl-LSU-v-Texas-AM-1-7-11-46.jpg
At any rate, I’m sure you could find some other schools which have skimpier outfits for their cheerleaders, but the images above are the sorts of unis which I think of when I think of college cheerleaders. 
And, it’s certainly a different look than NFL cheerleaders:
Tampa Bay Bucs: unathleticmag.com
Oakland Raiders: http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/000/322/277/raiders-cheerleader.5_display_image.jpg?1280556775
Carolina Panthers: unathleticmag.com
