The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Just approved today. Only the #1 seed will have a bye week now.

I hate this, think it is very stupid, makes the #1 seed even more favored now and will allow a bunch of 8-8 teams to make it. Just stupid, half the league doesn't need to be in the playoffs.

It's one more team and one more game per conference. Meh. About the only thing it changes is two more games to watch on the first weekend of the playoffs. Don't see how that changes much at all. If they really want to make me take notice, take the 7 teams with the best record in each conference and not have 4 division winners automatically make the playoffs. That's where you end up with the 8-8 teams in the playoffs, not by adding 1 more wild card team.

From the NFL's announcement:

The expanded format, which was agreed to in the new CBA, added one team per conference, creating six total wild card slots. Per league data, since 1990, when the playoffs expanded from 10 to 12 teams, 44 of the 60 teams that would have claimed the seventh seeds had winning records, including 10 different 10-win teams. Only the 1990 Dallas Cowboys would have made the playoffs with a losing record over that span in a 14-team format.

I am ok with anything that gives me more football...especially playoff football.

I don’t think this was the year to add.

Good move.

Based on these numbers, if 44 of 60 7-seeds had "winning records" and only one ('90 DAL) had a losing record, then that means 15 of 60 (or 25%) were 8-8.  Consequently, if that pattern holds, we should expect to see an 8-8 #7 seed in the playoffs every other year.  Not a convincing argument for playoff expansion, IMO.

Of course, that pattern can't hold when they move to a 17-game season.  So the question at that point will be: how many 8-9 teams make the playoffs?

Very good idea.   Or better yet, the division winners are for seeding purposes only.   If the wild card team has the better record, they get home field advantage.

If those 8-8 teams don't deserve to be there, they'll be quickly and easily dispatched of by the top seed without a bye who otherwise would not be playing at all. This also means we should see a lot of deserving teams make the playoffs that otherwise wouldn't perhaps making the wild card games a bit more entertaining. It's a trade off and a pretty minor one. Not really any reason to get all up in arms about it.

Not so much about an 8-8 team getting in, but it's punishing the #2 seed who goes 12-4 and it gives an even bigger advantage to the #1 seed. It's just a cash grab by the league, doesn't help the onfield play at all.

For me, the big question is the impact it will have on week 16 and 17 games. 

If the change mean that there is one or two more meaningful games as teams that would otherwise be out of the playoff race are competing for the 7 seed, than that is good.

If the change means that a team that has a shot at the #2 seed, but no shot at #1 and is guaranteed the #4 seed is resting its starters than that is bad.

By this logic, there's nothing wrong with expanding the playoffs to include losing teams, because they'll quickly be eliminated if they don't "deserve" to be there.

Fuck it, make the whole league a playoff bracket, regular season record determines seeding.

That is pretty much the NBA and NHL model.  Even with this change the NFL’s regular season will matter.

The NBA and NHL have 7-game series to determine who moves on in the playoffs.  The NFL has 1.

People talk about the NBA regular season being "meaningless," but in the NBA Playoffs, the higher seeds perform a LOT better than in other sports.  (In contrast, the NHL is a great example of a sport with a meaningless regular season, as their playoffs are basically a coin flip in every round.) Adding additional weak teams to a playoff system which is already very favorable to weak teams has a much bigger effect on delegitimizing the regular season than in a sport where upsets are much less common.

Complaints about adding an additional, meaningful game on a football fan site. What is next, complaints about having too much sex?

...I'm too tired...

That's because the NHL playoffs are determined by cliches like grit and toughness where as the NBA is just skill. Not knocking them in any way, just stating how it is. You can will yourself to the Stanley Cup in the NHL.

I think it has a lot more to do with the size of the teams. Hockey teams have 15 or 20 players that get plenty of ice time. The NFL has maybe 30 to 40? The NBA has maybe 6 or 7? Games are not typically decided by the same 3 or 4 players night in and night out in the NHL or the NFL like they are in the NBA so upsets are much more likely.

EXACTLY!!

No one is advocating expanding the playoffs to include "losing" teams, it's actually the reverse. They are expanding the playoffs to include teams with winning records that have previously missed the playoffs, the problem is that there's no way to ensure that happens without also allowing for the possibility that a team with a losing record will be included from time to time. As I have maintained from the beginning it's a trade off. Simply looking at the negative side effects while completely ignoring the positive benefits is short-sighted.

I'm no hockey fan, but my understanding is that in playoff hockey, the team with the better goalie almost always wins, and the rest of the players on the ice barely matter in comparison.

The only comparable example is pitchers in baseball, but even the greatest pitcher can't play every game.

I'd say that goalies have about as much effect on the game that a pitcher in Baseball and a QB in football have. More then most, but not as much as the rest of the team combined. Even the best goalies are beat unless they have solid defense in front of them. As in Football, the media and fans tend to exaggerate the relative importance to the W and L columns. I would also argue that the best players in Basketball have a bigger effect on the 'W' and 'L' columns just because of the relatively small size of the teams. Think of it this way, if you play Singles Tennis then 100% of the 'W' or 'L' is based on the one player. In doubles Tennis it's split between the 2 players, but still relatively even so approximately 50% for each. As you get larger and larger teams the relative effect any 1 player has gets smaller and smaller. Certainly the better players and the certain positions have more effect but it's still relatively small in size compared to the entire rest of the team. As for the goalie, if you have a shit team with the best goalie ever, the best you can hope for is a tie.

The bottom line is that this playoff expansion, by definition, will include worse teams that would be excluded under the old system.

Now, if you're the kind of fan that loves random chaos in the postseason, this is great! (And given the popularity of March Madness, American sports fans definitely like random chaos!) I, personally, do not.  I like to see the teams with better records win in the postseason, not a 9-7 team catch fire and invalidate the entire regular season.

There's a reason it's called post season. The regular season is over.

Chicken and egg. Of course the winning side is going to appear to have the better goaltending,. Did they win because of his stats or are his stats because they won?

That's not true at all.

In all of these sports, the team that scores more points wins the game.  So does that mean that we credit the amazing defense of every team that wins, because they held the opponent to fewer points than they scored?  Of course not.  There are teams that win because of strong defensive play, and other teams that win with OK defense and strong offense.

Maybe I am miss remembering, but I don’t recall you express such angst at the randomness of the NFL post season in February of 2008.  Had we had a system where only division winners advance the Giants would have not made the post season.

Yes, and in a world where better record always wins, NE doesn't get their first title in 2001, Bledsoe doesn't get traded to BUF, and Brady gets shipped out at the end of the 2002 season (after losing his job as a starter).

True, and we certainly wouldn’t have won the 1985 AFCCG.  But I am not opposed to wild playoffs, you are.

For me the only question is “will this result in more or less meaningful week 16 and 17 regular season games?”. If more than it is good, if less than it is bad.

Expanding the playoffs to 8 teams per conference would result in an even greater number of meaningful late season games.  But for some reason, that's considered crazy.

The goaltending isn't the only factor of defense so I still stand  by my point. You are the one who tried saying the better goaltending almost always wins.

Honestly, I think that's the next step.   Nobody should get a first round bye. 

I will take the unpopular position of agreeing with you.  I love football as much as anyone, and I'd be fine with adding another regular season game to the schedule.  But I hate it when sports leagues dilute the playoffs by expanding them to allow a lot of teams to make the playoffs. It used to be that making the playoffs in any sport was something to take some pride in, but expanding it to include mediocre teams just kind of defeats the purpose for me.  There is no right or wrong answer to this one.  it is just a matter of opinion. 

Maybe, maybe not.  If teams didn’t view any appreciable advantage to having the 2 seed over the four seed or the 5th seed over the 8 seed you could see more playoff bound teams resting starters during the last week of the season.  In my opinion  the worst possible outcome would be for two playoff bound teams to play week 17 with both resting starters rather than competing for a better playoff seed.