| MTZehvor said: I'd personally rather stick with two teams getting bye weeks, especially since the #1 seed is so often decided by tiebreakers. |
Only twice in the last 12 or 13 years has the #1 seed been decided by anything other than head to head. In that same period four times the #2 seed has been decided. By this logic you should be bothered even less by a 2nd seed team not earning a bye, since "so often" they only got that #2 seed based on conference win percentage.
| MTZehvor said: ...such as...what? A mediocre team getting pounded into the ground by the two seed? Gee, sign me up. |
Sorry but you don't know what you're talking about if you're just going to blindly assume the 7th best team in each conference every year is "mediocre". And I assume you've never watched playoff football if you're also assuming the #2 seed will automatically "pound" them. You're not really arguing with logic here, just blanket statements that aren't based in reality.
| MTZehvor said: I'd argue, most of the time, it won't be good football. It'll be a team like the Bills or the Dolphins from last year getting beat down by a two seed. |
Well Miami would not have made it in last season. Nor would the Bills, they'd have been the 4th ranked 9-7 team. But the Texans were ending the season on a roll and were playing good defense. It also would have given the Chiefs AND Chargers something to play for in week 17 instead of just the Chargers. In 2013 you would have had the 10-6 Cardinals in after winning 7 of their last 9, losing only two games by field goals, each to 10+ win playoff teams.
These aren't 5 or 6 win teams being allowed in :)
| MTZehvor said: ...by the same token, this argument can be used the exact opposite way. The 2 seed might get a player injured or have a bad call in the additional game they're forced to play now and lose to an undeserving team as a result. Injuries happen, bad calls happen. The way to make them an even bigger deal than they were before is to give them another game to happen in. |
Nah, early season injuries a team bounces back from are not nearly the same as an injury happening in a playoff game. Furthermore we're talking about the regular season that sets up the playoffs. Not the playoffs. Pointing out that the same can happen in a playoff game doesn't negate how important the regular season is. It's not the same argument. The same argument would be me coming back and saying yes, injuries can happen! Lets play 12 regular season games.
| MTZehvor said: ...this is exactly why I would say division winners should meet criteria outside of winning the division. The NFC South was a total dumpster fire of a division last year. No one from that division was a playoff quality team. The mere fact that all anyone in that division had to do was be the best out of an awful group should say more than enough about things. I suppose there's a chance of a really strong division just beating up on each other to the point where no one can make the playoffs without division winning rules, but honestly, I don't think I've ever seen that happen. We have seen a number of awful teams that shouldn't have made the playoffs make the playoffs. Until the former becomes a reality, I don't think it's worth worrying about. |
We've seen more wild card teams get dominated in the playoffs than we have seen 7 win division champions. I guess we should just eliminate all wild cards? It's ok, the change is coming sooner rather than later.
