You seem to have missed my point entirely. The way the system is set up now is ‘unjust’ in that it can favor weaker teams over stronger teams in two ways: weaker teams can go to the playoffs while stronger teams stay home, and weaker teams can be seeded higher than stronger teams. You’ve decided that only one of these constitutes ‘injustice’ and the other is just ‘the logic of the divisional model.’ While you state it as though it’s what others should believe too, instead of just a personal preference, you outline no logic or principles that lead you to this conclusion.
If you want to actually reason your way to a playoff system, first decide if justice matters - do teams ‘deserve’ improved post-season position based on regular season performance or not? - and if so, we should just seed the top 12 teams accordingly and have a playoff. If not, start from some other principle like creating exciting games. But to decide it matters for getting into the playoffs but not for seeding is arbitrary.
I could just as easily say the system is the top six teams in each conference make the playoffs, but then I take the division winners and seed them with the top seeds by their records (w/ tiebreakers), and then seed the non-division winners with the remaining seeds by record. See, that way, the conferences’ playoff are always with their top seeds, but the logic of divisional system dictates that if a team can win its division and enter the playoffs, it deserves seeding over a team that doesn’t win its division. It would seem strange, but it’s just as valid as your proposal.
The payoff system may have come from the past existence of different leagues but those leagues are history. It’s all one league now. So why worry about trying to balance the inequality of different fields? Just put everyone in the same field.
How is it fair for the Seahawks to go to the playoffs with a 7-9 record while the Buccaneers (10-6) and the Giants (10-6) get left out? Is it fair for teams with better records to get left out of the playoffs because they’re in the wrong division?
What has fairness got to do with anything? There isn’t a professional sports league that is built on fairness. They are all built on putting an entertaining product and making money. Teams don’t play twice against each division team because it is fair. The worst team doesn’t get the top pick because it is fair. The NFL doesn’t have teams play their home game London for fairness. And certainly a single elimination tournament isn’t a good way of figuring out who the best team is.
Not exactly. The present NFL is, in effect, eight mini-leagues, with a dramatically unbalanced interleague schedule among them.
A truly unified league would have no divisions, and every team would play every other team the same number of times. It would be like the American and National Leagues (each of them, that is) in baseball before 1969; the “playoff” there was simply the World Series between the two champions from the regular season, because there wasn’t any logical doubt as to which team was the best of each league.
Yes. Unless teams play the same schedule of opponents, records are not directly comparable. I’m not saying that this year’s Seahawks are better than this year’s Giants, or anything of the sort–just that there’s a logic to saying that the relative quality of teams in different divisions remains indeterminate after the regular season–and that’s why, in the sporting sense, we need the playoffs.
If the Buccaneers or the Giants had been in the NFC West they would have won their division. If the Seahawks had been in any division other than the NFC West, they wouldn’t have won their division or been a wildcard.
So these teams’ playoff appearances were decided by what divison they were in - a decision they had no control over.
Suppose the commissioner decided he thought it benefited professional football to have the Packers make the playoffs every year. So he creates a Lambeau Division and puts the Packers in it with the Bengals, the Bills, and the Panthers. And he reserves the right to move teams around so that the Packers are always in a division with three scrub teams.
Any objections? After all, he’s not dictated who will win and lose. He’s just created a situation where one team has a lower hill to climb.
With thirty-two teams playing a sixteen game season you’re obviously not going to have every team go head to head. But eliminating the divisions would create a broader base of competition.
Teams currently play their three divisional opponents twice each season along with ten non-divisonal opponents. That means they play thirteen other teams during the season. Eliminate the divisions and each team can play sixteen other teams each season.
I have seen the suggestion of creating two eight team division in each conference. The division winners get the byes and then the next four best teams in each conference. That certainly woudl seem to mitigate any chance of their being a truly mediocre team making it through. I am not sure how that would be scheduled though, 14 games of inter-division play and just 4 (assuming 18 games) games outside your division? I thin folks wouldn’t want to see the same teams every year. Maybe you play three teams in your division twice, four once, four in the other division in your conference annd four in the other conference.
To me the fundamental unfairness of the divisional system is that it creates situations where the fates of the teams are being decided by factors they have no control over. In this case it’s the placement in divisions.
But an analogy to me would be tie-breaking by geography - if two team have equal records, the team that’s further east is seeded on top. So if the Steelers and the Ravens both end up with a 12-4 record, the Ravens win the Division. The Giants would have beaten the Eagles and the Rams would have beaten the Seahawks.
This wouldn’t prevent western teams from making the playoffs: the Colts (10-6) would still have beaten the Jaguars (8-8). But it would give eastern teams an artificial advantage that does not reflect any actual superiority over western teams.
This is true, but as some sports economists have pointed out, making money in a professional sports league often requires an attempt to set up a system that is at least perceived as fair and equitable.
Take the first draft pick going to the worst team. Part of the reason for this policy is the issue (or at least the perception) of competitive balance. In business, if 30 companies are competing and four or five of them are so hopeless that they are never in the race, and go bankrupt, there’s no real loss for the consumer. But in sports, if the fans of some teams realize that their team is never likely to have a shot at the playoffs, they are likely to lose interest and spend their entertainment dollar elsewhere. So leagues make some effort to institute policies that allow, if not parity, then at least a level of competitiveness that fans can live with.
And they have done so in the NFL. The divisions were placed that way for the purpose of maintaining regional or historical rivalries. The fans consistently sell out Redskins-Cowboys games, for example, even in years when they absolutely suck. Pittsburgh fans still find hate for Cleveland even though they’ve owned them since they were reconstituted.
The fact that teams suck consistently can be entirely placed on the shoulders of their management. The last place team in a division plays 6 games in their own division, 7 games against the other last-place teams from the previous year, and 3 against the rest of a single division. That offers considerable opportunity to get well, yet they consistently finish last even against such a creampuff schedule. They also get draft picks galore that are specifically designed to get them well. If the players are bad they have ample opportunity to replace them or barter for better players, all of which require good decisions on the part of management.
I’m fine with the way things are. Of course, you say, the Steelers get fat on the Browns and the Bengals every year. Maybe, but they also get beat to hell against the Ravens, and there’s no reason the Bengals and Browns can’t win. It starts at the top. Pittsburgh, with the endless stability of the Rooney family and the total lack of a coaching carousel, are the epitome of the stability I’m talking about. The Fords are the antithesis.
It seems silly that everybody is making a big stink about this now. It was bound to happen, and since Seattle has acquitted themselves well it would seem that the situation has solved itself. As others have said, win the division and get the playoff spot.
Personally, I am happy that the Falcons get to play the Packers.
If we win, we will have proven ourselves even more than if we beat the Bears later.
I still think the Falcons will play (and hopefully beat) the Patriots.
But that is probably another thread and if so…sorry.
