Why are there 12 teams in the playoffs?
Hello
Eastern Division Western Division
Baltimore Ravens Denver Broncos
Buffalo Bills Houston Texans
Cincinnati Bengals Kansas City Chiefs
Cleveland Browns New Orleans Saints
Miami Dolphins Oakland Raiders
New England Patriots San Diego Chargers
New York Jets Seattle Seahawks
Pittsburgh Steelers Tennessee Titans
National Conference
Eastern Division Western Division
Atlanta Falcons Arizona Cardinals
Carolina Panthers Chicago Bears
Dallas Cowboys Detroit Lions
Jacksonville Jaguars Green Bay Packers
New York Giants Indianapolis Colts
Philadelphia Eagles Minnesota Vikings
Tampa Bay Buccaneers St. Louis Rams
Washington Redskins San Francisco 49ers
I switched the Jags and Saints for geographical reasons. I switched
the Colts and Seahawks for historical reasons.
The schedule would consist of 12 division games, 4 interdivision
games, and 2 interconference games, for a total of 18 games. Each
team would have two division rivals it would play twice every year.
It would also play three of its other five division rivals twice
(based on an annual rotation) and the other two once each.
Interdivision and interconference games could be determined on a
rotation or based on the previous year's standings.
Only the division winners would make the playoffs, so that there would
be only one playoff game per conference, as there was from 1933 to
1966 in the National and from 1960 to 1968 in the American. Every
regular season game would be critical, and the silly wild card and
conference semifinal games would be dispensed with. No more New
England-Jacksonville conference title games. No more 9-7 teams
knocking out 13-3 teams in the second round. No more meaningless last
few regular season games for the top teams.
If you don't think the NFL's plan of 8 4-team divisions is a mistake,
consider that the Titans were the best this year of the three existing
teams that, with Houston, will form the AFC South next year, at 7-9.
Mpoconnor7
the proper ratio IMO is between 25 and 33 percent. Next year 12 of 32 will be
in the postseason (37.5 percent), which I can live with, but if it gets any
higher than that it will be too much like the NBA and NHL, where sub 500 teams
make the playoffs.
With the way it is currently designed it is nearly impossible for a sub 500
team to get into the postseason (it actually happened during the 1982 strike
season) and I think it is good if most of the teams above 500 make it to the
playoffs.
Michael O'Connor - Modern Renaissance Man
"The probability of one person being right increases in a direct porportion to
the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"
BackDownUnder
wants playoffs. I agree that the very best teams after the regular season
should be the ones competing the post season, resulting in one of the best
winning it all......but having only four teams making up the playoffs won't
ever work because of revenue for more playoff games among more teams.
I think the most you can go is 50% ratio for teams in the playoffs.....but it
is a problem if you have sub 500 teams in there. The 25 to 33 percent is
pretty sufficient.
I was hearing talk of 16 teams in next years playoffs with the new
re-alignment. I would only be comfortable with this if the division champs
were given double chances, meaning if they lost their first game, they would
get to play again. If they won their first game, they'd get a bye. But
another week in the playoffs would probably be needed.
I do agree with the whole AFC South situation. That's why I hate divisions and
conferences in general. I'd rather see all the teams in one table and the top
12/16 play in the postseason....but for that to work, traditional rivalries
would have to be sacrificied leading to loss of revenue.
The Philster
"Hello" <jerem...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b46afb15.02011...@posting.google.com...
> The schedule would consist of 12 division games, 4 interdivision
> games, and 2 interconference games, for a total of 18 games. Each
> team would have two division rivals it would play twice every year.
> It would also play three of its other five division rivals twice
> (based on an annual rotation) and the other two once each.
> Interdivision and interconference games could be determined on a
> rotation or based on the previous year's standings.
>
16 games is fine.....unless you like injuries.
> Only the division winners would make the playoffs, so that there would
> be only one playoff game per conference, as there was from 1933 to
> 1966 in the National and from 1960 to 1968 in the American. Every
> regular season game would be critical, and the silly wild card and
> conference semifinal games would be dispensed with. No more New
> England-Jacksonville conference title games. No more 9-7 teams
> knocking out 13-3 teams in the second round. No more meaningless last
> few regular season games for the top teams.
>
Dumb idea. Only 4 playoff teams? And the idea of 9-7 teams possibly knocking
out 13-3 teams keeps things interesting. What you propose is something that
will lose a lot of ratings and the NFL will join the NHL in the crapper.
> If you don't think the NFL's plan of 8 4-team divisions is a mistake,
> consider that the Titans were the best this year of the three existing
> teams that, with Houston, will form the AFC South next year, at 7-9.
Just because the Titans are the top team in the upcoming AFC South this
year, doesn't mean anything. In the age of free agency, the AFC South COULD
actually finish with all teams above .500......even the Texans.
--
The Philster
Mpoconnor7
>re-alignment. I would only be comfortable with this if the division champs
>were given double chances, meaning if they lost their first game, they would
>get to play again. If they won their first game, they'd get a bye. But
>another week in the playoffs would probably be needed.
I would only be comfortable with 16 teams in the playoffs if there were about
45 to 50 teams in the NFL.
I am of the belief that you could add two expansion teams once every five years
provided you could find suitable ownership groups who can provide a place to
play, and there would be no overall decline in the quality of play. There are
enough stadiums across the country that sit idle on Sunday afternoons (in
Portland Oregon, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, Raleigh/Durham,
Mexico City, Birmingham, Columbus Ohio and lots of other places), and more
than enough NFL quality talent that never makes it to the league.
The NFL Scouting is good but not always right; they did not project Kurt Warner
to be a star and he lost years of his career stocking groceries in a
Supermarket when he should have throwing bombs for some NFL club. There are
several hundred college teams across the country and thousands of high school
teams, more than enough talent to stock 50 NFL teams.
All that's lacking for this rapid expansion is the money, and for each current
owner to look at thet big picture and realize that although his respective cut
of the pie would get smaller, the pie itself would get much larger.
>
>I do agree with the whole AFC South situation. That's why I hate divisions
>and
>conferences in general. I'd rather see all the teams in one table and the
>top
>12/16 play in the postseason....but for that to work, traditional rivalries
>would have to be sacrificied leading to loss of revenue.
Besides that, (paraphrasing a Baseball official who oversaw the 1969
realignment to four divisions) "You cannot sell a sixteenth place team".
A sixteen team playoff was tried in 1982 and it was a mess; there were four
first round games on both Saturday and Sunday and it was impossible to watch
all the games. Also there were 4-5 teams in the playoffs. I don't mind 16
teams in the playoffs if even the worst playoff team is 9 - 7.
But to expand to 16 team playoffs the League would first have to lengthen the
schedule to 18 games in order to spread out the winners a little; this way you
do not have five teams tied at 9 - 7 and have to use complex tiebreakers to
split hairs amongst them.
Hello
You have a percentage in your head and you believe anything lower than
that is "too few." I don't see how you can arrive at that conclusion,
since all teams would have an equal chance of winning the division.
There is no such thing as "too few." No two teams that play almost
the same schedule (read: are in the same division) should go to the
playoffs, since the team that is better between them has already been
decided. Playoff games are simply a logical necessity arising when
there are more than one set of teams playing unique schedules (that
is, when there are more than one division). The question therefore
isn't what is too few as a number of teams that should be admitted to
the playoffs, but how many divisions there should be, and I submit
that 8 is a ridiculous number because 1) 6 division games is not
enough, in a 16-game season, to produce legitimate division champions,
2) sub-.500 teams *WILL* make the playoffs about once every 2-3 years,
which is an outrage, 3) teams would see three rivals every year, but
the other 28 NFL teams just once in a blue moon, and there are
matchups that should take place more often--e.g., Buffalo-Cleveland,
Buffalo-Pittsburgh, Jets-Baltimore, Kansas City-Houston,
Jacksonville-Tampa Bay, Indianapolis-any midwestern team, and 4)--the
most important--the more teams that are in the playoffs, the less the
regular season means. The 49ers-Rams struggles this year meant little
(other than a bye). Same for Packers-Bears and various matchups in
the AFC East.
Expanding the season to 18 games should make a dent in the revenue
loss from the elimination of the first two rounds of the playoffs. In
addition, the two conference championship games could be hyped like
never before, marketed like mini-Super Bowls and both held in
prime-time. Perhaps they would even approach the ratings-bonanza
plateau of the big game itself. An 18-game season would also create
the chance to schedule two games for each team against each of seven
division opponents, with two interdivision and two interconference
games--this is a bit different from what I suggested in the first
post. Each division would come to have the feel of a college
conference and rivalries would be intense because every game would
mean much more than it does now. Teams would be involved in heated
division races with familiar rivals, but not with the same team every
year, since there would be seven, rather than three, opponents to fend
off. Another result would be that not winning a division could
nonetheless mean a successful season that a team could look back on
with pride. That is, by saying, "we finished in third place," fans
would immediately have an idea of how your season was. It would mean
you won about 11 games (in an 18-game schedule), lost most of your
games against championship caliber teams, and won most of your games
against almost all the other teams. Under an 8-division format,
finishing second, for example, means nothing without elaboration on
the number of victories the team had and whether it won a wild card,
since second place in a four-team division could realistically mean
anything from 5 to 12 wins.
I'm not saying any of this will happen, just that it's the logical
thing to do. Why, in 1967, did finishing ahead of three randomly
determined teams suddenly qualify one to have a chance at the NFL
World Championship?
Lee Harris
thats 4 per conference, no wild card games at all
but i dont think its going to happen!
"BackDownUnder" <backdo...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020112051843...@mb-mr.aol.com...
Byron A Jeff
Hello <jerem...@hotmail.com> wrote:
- {Summary: 4 divisions, 18 games, only division winners goes to playoffs}
-Only the division winners would make the playoffs, so that there would
-be only one playoff game per conference, as there was from 1933 to
-1966 in the National and from 1960 to 1968 in the American. Every
-regular season game would be critical, and the silly wild card and
-conference semifinal games would be dispensed with. No more New
-England-Jacksonville conference title games. No more 9-7 teams
-knocking out 13-3 teams in the second round. No more meaningless last
-few regular season games for the top teams.
The idea is so laughable I'm not even sure where to start.
Let's start with baseball. You sound like a baseball purist. In the beginning
there were two leagues and only the league champions went to the World Series.
Then the leagues were divided into two divisions, where each division winner
went to the playoffs, playing in the LCS. Now there are three divisions in
each league. Each of the division winners goes to the playoffs along with
a wild card.
Now one can argue that these changes were due to expansion. But the expansion
of playoffs are driven by two very compelling factors: money and fan interest.
Money for the league and the networks for each additional playoff game.
Fan interest because with your system, every decent team that's 6-3 at the
midway point of the season can pack it in because they'll never catch the
leader that's 9-0 or 8-1. Fan will stop coming to games. People will stop
watching on TV. only 6-8 teams will be of any interest after the 10th game.
Truth be told I wouldn't be surprised if a 3rd wildcard was added from each
conference and only the top seed gets a bye.
And what's wrong with 9-7 teams knocking out a 13-3 team. That's what's the
playoffs are all about: producing under pressure. The 13-3 team has a bye
week. The 13-3 team has home field. They have every advantage, but they have
to produce on the field.
-
-If you don't think the NFL's plan of 8 4-team divisions is a mistake,
-consider that the Titans were the best this year of the three existing
-teams that, with Houston, will form the AFC South next year, at 7-9.
The mix changes every year, so their current records don't mean squat.
BAJ
rob...@bestweb.net
>I would only be comfortable with 16 teams in the playoffs if there
>were about 45 to 50 teams in the NFL.
Me, only if there were 60-80.
>But to expand to 16 team
>playoffs the League would first have to lengthen the schedule to 18
>games
And have the playoffs in the spring.
>in order to spread out the winners a little; this way you do
>not have five teams tied at 9 - 7 and have to use complex
>tiebreakers to split hairs amongst them.
Another way to reduce ties in the standings is to increase tie games.
Overtime or other tiebreakers should be confined to elimination games;
regular season games should be 60 min., period.
Robert
Mpoconnor7
>Michael,
>
>You have a percentage in your head and you believe anything lower than
>that is "too few." I don't see how you can arrive at that conclusion,
>since all teams would have an equal chance of winning the division.
>There is no such thing as "too few." No two teams that play almost
>the same schedule (read: are in the same division) should go to the
>playoffs, since the team that is better between them has already been
>decided.
Sometimes the two best teams in the NFL are in the same division, as happened
last year with the Titans and Ravens. How about Jacksonville and Tennessee in
1999; should one of them have been kept out of the postseason although they
were the two best teams in the AFC (who met for the AFC Championship). In 1997
the Chiefs and Broncos were the two strongest teams in the AFC, and you believe
one of them should have been kept out of the playoffs.
This is a purists' attitude; when Baseball went to three divisions with a wild
card I thought it was a great idea and still do, because there were lots of
situations where the teams with the two best record were in the same division,
and one of them got bumped from the playoffs.
Sometimes you get teams which come strong down the stretch and should be in the
playoffs although they might not have won the division.
Playoff games are simply a logical necessity arising when
>there are more than one set of teams playing unique schedules (that
>is, when there are more than one division). The question therefore
>isn't what is too few as a number of teams that should be admitted to
>the playoffs, but how many divisions there should be, and I submit
>that 8 is a ridiculous number because 1) 6 division games is not
>enough, in a 16-game season, to produce legitimate division champions,
>2) sub-.500 teams *WILL* make the playoffs about once every 2-3 years,
It never happened in the 70's and 80's (1982 excepted) when you had divisions
of four teams. Throughout NFL history, there have been 90 four team divisions,
and not one produced a sub 500 champion. Only one (1985 AFC Central) had a
.500 Champion when the Browns broke even. There was a tie in 1963 when the
Patriots and Bills had a 7 - 6 -1 record to win the AFL East. Only twice did 8
- 6 teams win a four team division, and only three times did a 9 - 7 team win a
four team division. That's 7 times out of 90 that a team one game or less
above 500 has won a four team division.
Since there are 8 divisions, there is a 56 / 90 or 62 percent probability (8
times 7) that you will have a 9 - 7 team winning a division in a given season.
I can live with that because I know there will be 11 - 5 teams who will be wild
cards.
>which is an outrage, 3) teams would see three rivals every year, but
>the other 28 NFL teams just once in a blue moon, and there are
>matchups that should take place more often--e.g., Buffalo-Cleveland,
>Buffalo-Pittsburgh, Jets-Baltimore, Kansas City-Houston,
>Jacksonville-Tampa Bay, Indianapolis-any midwestern team, and 4)--the
>most important--the more teams that are in the playoffs, the less the
>regular season means. The 49ers-Rams struggles this year meant little
>(other than a bye). Same for Packers-Bears and various matchups in
>the AFC East.
If you have an eight team division, it would end the concept of the
home-and-home series. I'm guessing with an 18 game season the teams would play
12 division games, where every team would play every other team in the division
at least once.
Like I mentioned before, you cannot sell an eighth place team.
>
>I'm not saying any of this will happen, just that it's the logical
>thing to do. Why, in 1967, did finishing ahead of three randomly
>determined teams suddenly qualify one to have a chance at the NFL
>World Championship?
>
>
The AFL from 1960 - 1965 had two four team divisions; if you put them into a
single 8 team division, doesn't it make the concept of a Championship game a
bit ridiculous, since one team already won the division?
The Philster
>
> You have a percentage in your head and you believe anything lower than
> that is "too few." I don't see how you can arrive at that conclusion,
> since all teams would have an equal chance of winning the division.
> There is no such thing as "too few." No two teams that play almost
> the same schedule (read: are in the same division) should go to the
> playoffs, since the team that is better between them has already been
> decided.
No it hasn't. It's all about matchups. Besides, teams don't play the exact
same teams as the other teams in their divisions each year.
Playoff games are simply a logical necessity arising when
> there are more than one set of teams playing unique schedules (that
> is, when there are more than one division). The question therefore
> isn't what is too few as a number of teams that should be admitted to
> the playoffs, but how many divisions there should be, and I submit
> that 8 is a ridiculous number because 1) 6 division games is not
> enough, in a 16-game season, to produce legitimate division champions,
Why not? It's not just about wins within the division. You have to win
outside the division as well to be any good.
> 2) sub-.500 teams *WILL* make the playoffs about once every 2-3 years,
> which is an outrage,
The only way that happens is if a division is won by a sub-.500 team. Where
do you get that ridiculous 2-3 year figure that it will happen?
3) teams would see three rivals every year, but
> the other 28 NFL teams just once in a blue moon, and there are
> matchups that should take place more often--e.g., Buffalo-Cleveland,
> Buffalo-Pittsburgh, Jets-Baltimore, Kansas City-Houston,
> Jacksonville-Tampa Bay, Indianapolis-any midwestern team, and
They see every team in the conference every three years and teams outside
the conference every four. You make it sound as if it will be more.
4)--the
> most important--the more teams that are in the playoffs, the less the
> regular season means. The 49ers-Rams struggles this year meant little
> (other than a bye). Same for Packers-Bears and various matchups in
> the AFC East.
>
The first statement you've made that makes a little sense.
Finishing a certain ranking in a division really means little unless you win
it.
> I'm not saying any of this will happen, just that it's the logical
> thing to do. Why, in 1967, did finishing ahead of three randomly
> determined teams suddenly qualify one to have a chance at the NFL
> World Championship?
I fail to see any logic in this idea.
--
The Philster
Hello
> Sometimes the two best teams in the NFL are in the same division, as happened
> last year with the Titans and Ravens. How about Jacksonville and Tennessee in
> 1999; should one of them have been kept out of the postseason although they
> were the two best teams in the AFC (who met for the AFC Championship). In 1997
> the Chiefs and Broncos were the two strongest teams in the AFC, and you believe
> one of them should have been kept out of the playoffs.
> This is a purists' attitude; when Baseball went to three divisions with a wild
> card I thought it was a great idea and still do, because there were lots of
> situations where the teams with the two best record were in the same division,
> and one of them got bumped from the playoffs.
This is the crux of the argument right here. If teams were in 8-team
divisions, playing 14 games in the division (and 4 outside), we would
have no idea whether the two best teams were in the same division,
even if they had the best overall records, since it would be
impossible to compare records of teams not from the same division, due
to the radicality of the schedule difference between divisions. This
is what I mean by the playoffs being a logical necessity--and nothing
more. Say Denver and KC finish 14-2 and 13-3 atop my 8-team version
of the AFC East, and Miami wins the 8-team AFC East at 11-5. Under
those circumstances, *****you could not say that KC at 13-3 is better
than Miami at 11-5, and therefore "deserving" of a playoff berth,
because they played almost completely different schedules.***** All
you know is that Denver is better--in the sense of more deserving (I
don't want to get into the term "better")--than KC, because they
played virtually the same schedules and Denver won more games. Maybe
the East was simply a much tighter division, causing it to be more
difficult for teams to rack up high victory totals, even though for
all we know the East may have the best 2 (or more, theoretically)
teams in the league, while the West had a bunch of cupcakes. To
decide whether the Dolphins or Broncos is the best overall, it is
logical for them to have a playoff game, since their regular season
records are not sufficient to compare them. No need to give the
Chiefs a chance, since we know they're not better than the Broncos,
(because the regular season would actually tell us something under my
plan) and if they're not better than the Broncos, then by definition
they can't be the best team in the conference, and hence cannot be
conference champions.
Your examples of Jacksonville-Tennessee '99 and Denver-Kansas City '97
work only because teams under the NFL's actual schedule play only half
their games in the division, and so it's possible to compare teams not
in the same division based on their records. You can say the Jags and
Titans were the two best in '99, but only because of the silly
balanced schedule that the league uses. That gets us back to my point
about divisions under the NFL's plan not meaning enough. The need for
wild cards is created artificially by splitting up the league so much
that a division could be lacking of a championship-caliber team while
another division has two or three. It's a gimmick.
The NFL knows this. But they don't care. They're not going to try to
logically justify their playoff format. That is, they wouldn't make
the argument against me that you did; they would just say, we want 11
playoff games because of the obscene revenues that they produce.
Period. Nothing about teams "deserving" wild card bids because they
had the misfortune of being in a division with a 14-2 team. They are
not that idealistic. They just want the $$$$$$$$$. That's all it's
about.
Which is fine by me. I'm saying we can have it both ways--my logical
playoff format, and the $$$$$$. Expand the season to 18 games,
creating 13% more regular season revenue right there, and really,
really hype the conference championships, hold them in prime time,
make them into mini-Super Bowls, rather than making them simply
another playoff round, as they are now, sharing the stage with
wild-card and semifinal games.
And yes, I am a purist, and I believe the wild card is ruining
baseball. In the NL last year, we would have had a Western race for
the ages--Houston, St. Louis, San Francisco, Chicago, and Arizona down
the stretch within a handful of games of each other, with just one
title available. As it turned out, there were three titles available:
the West, the Central, and the wild card, and what could have been a
great race became merely a good one. And look through the standings
and see how many Yankees-Indians races we missed in recent years. See
my post in rec.sport.baseball.
Hello
Say Denver and KC finish 14-2 and 13-3 atop my 8-team version
of the AFC West, and Miami wins the 8-team AFC East at 11-5.
The "West" was mistakenly replaced by "East" in the last post.
rob...@bestweb.net
subject in rec.sport.baseball, so I'm cross-posting from
rec.sport.football.pro, where this thread started. It could easily be
cross-posted to many other rec.sport.* groups, however, because the
philosophy of playoffs is germane to at least a great many.
There are 2 questions which can be asked:
(1) Which is the best team?
(2) Which is the champion?
However, those questions represent opposite poles, in that #1 is impossible
to answer, and #2 is trivial to answer.
Question #1 is unanswerable, first of all, because goodness it's not
sufficiently defined -- and even if it were defined, the necessary
comparisons could not be made in a way that's both fair and objective in any
circuit that has more than 2 teams.
Question #2 is trivial, also because champion is undefined but can be given
ANY definition. Anyone can design a procedure to determine a "champion",
and any such method is as defensible as any other. You even could pick a
baseball champion among entries as the team that wins a football
competition, and nobody can prove you wrong.
However, many people would like to have a procedure which answers question
#2 and arguably provides an answer to question #1. They're going to argue
about the answer to #1 anyway, so why not answer #2 and then argue about
whether #1 is answered?
Presumably we can take the goodness of a team to mean its propensity to beat
other teams. But at what point in time? One problem in determining the
winningest team in a season is the fact that the season takes a finite
amount of time. Do you weight all times during that season equally, or is
one particular time most important? The question is important, because
there are players and teams that will warm up or otherwise improve over the
course of a season, and players who will be injured over that time.
Another problem is determining how to weight matchups. Are all comparisons
equally important in determining winningness, or or some comparisons more
important than others?
If all games and all times are equally important, then it would seem the
fairest method of determining a champion that's also winningest would be
round robin -- or, if home field is a factor, double round robin. Major
League baseball could achieve that -- a balanced schedule in which each team
hosts each other the same number of times. The champion is whichever has
the best W-L after that.
But some could easily argue that the ability of a top team to beat up
also-rans hould not be weighted as highly as its ability to beat other top
teams. Plus the NFL season has too few games to play full round robin, let
alone double round robin. Hence post-season play.
If that's how things are to be weighted, the ideal would be to have each
team play each other, then weed out a few of the poorest performers, and
repeat the play-and-cut process over several iterations until a champion is
found. However, that could take years. The closest analog to that exists
in some leagues wherein there's a championship division and lower divisions.
Each season bottom teams in a bracket are relegated to lower divisions for
the next season, and top teams in each bracket are promoted. But that
reflects a situation in which team performance changes only slowly from year
to year.
Playoffs are a compromise between straight round robin and the relegation
method. The time factor is sometimes answered (as in baseball in Japan and
the 2nd, never-completed season of the WFL) by splitting the season into 1st
and 2nd half, determining a champion of each, and then playing them off.
Why that's any better than simply calling each half a separate season and
leaving it at that can only be answered by the question below.
There's still another question to ask:
(3) How do they make the most money?
That's going to depend on how much money-making potential there is to begin
with, and how patrons react. If "meaningless" games are still efficient
ways to make money, "meaningless" games should be played. If they're not an
efficient way to make money, then they shouldn't be played. How the fans
and sponsors are expected to react to the relative "meaningfulness" of games
determines such things as the ratio of regular season to post-season play.
(How fans react can be answered in part by the question posed above of how
highly one weights games between top teams.)
For instance, one could easily have in addition to championship playoffs,
an anti-championship. You could enter the teams with the poorest records in
an elimination tournament such that the winners are knocked out, to try to
determine the losingest team. If that were expected to make money, they'd
play it.
Robert
Ben Edelman
rob...@bestweb.net wrote:
>
>
> There's still another question to ask:
> (3) How do they make the most money?
>
Yup. That's all it is.
Mpoconnor7
>divisions, playing 14 games in the division (and 4 outside), we would
>have no idea whether the two best teams were in the same division,
>even if they had the best overall records, since it >would be
>impossible to compare records of teams not from the same division, due
>to the radicality of the schedule difference between divisions.
College Football teams play radically different schedules and sportswriters who
watch the games can compare and rank the teams pretty easily. A consensus vote
from a number of informed sportswriters or coaches is much more accurate than
the opinions of one writer, of course. Would you rather the NFL use a system
like the BCS to rank teams in the postseason? Neither would I.
You can also rate pro teams by comparing the linkages between the teams; the
mathematics for doing this is extremely complex and I don't even understand it.
This has been done By Ignatin and Barra in their "Football By The Numbers"
books of the mid 80's where they can state that team A is 6 points better than
team B, and team B is 3 points better than team C, and so on.
Dave Pooser
> Say Denver and KC finish 14-2 and 13-3 atop my 8-team version
> of the AFC East, and Miami wins the 8-team AFC East at 11-5. Under
> those circumstances, *****you could not say that KC at 13-3 is better
> than Miami at 11-5, and therefore "deserving" of a playoff berth,
> because they played almost completely different schedules.***** All
> you know is that Denver is better--in the sense of more deserving (I
> don't want to get into the term "better")--than KC, because they
> played virtually the same schedules and Denver won more games.
Hypothetically, let's say that KC handed Denver both of their losses,
so Denver is 0-2 against KC, but KC couldn't make up wins elsewhere
because star RB Priest Holmes missed three games with a knee injury.
Further, let's speculate that those three games were the only ones KC
lost.
1) Is it safe to say Denver is more deserving than KC, even though KC
thumped 'em head-to-head?
2) Is it safe to say that Denver is better than a healthy KC team, even
though KC went 13-0 with Holmes on board?
To me, that's the kind of situation the wild-card should address.
Denver won the division, sure, but KC might well be one of the best
teams in football. Give 'em a wild card and see whether they make some
noise.
In any wild-card system, you'll get some teams that just squeaked in to
the playoffs-- see the Jets and the Bucs, for instance. But they'll get
bounced quickly-- no harm, no foul. But you'll also have teams that
might be among the elite despite failing to win their division, and
those teams (like the Ravens of 2000 or the Titans of 1999) deserve a
chance to prove it; we as fans deserve a chance to see all the teams
that could reasonably be among the best take a shot at the Super Bowl.
--
Bubba Dave Pooser
Thank you, Playmaker, for all the great games--
Thank you Bullet, enshrined in our memories--
And thank you, Troy, for a decade of greatness.
Rowan & Martin
>There are 2 questions which can be asked:
>(1) Which is the best team?
>(2) Which is the champion?
>However, those questions represent opposite poles, in that #1 is
>impossible to answer, and #2 is trivial to answer.
Nonsense.
>Question #1 is unanswerable, first of all, because goodness it's
>not sufficiently defined
It certainly is sufficiently defined. The best team is the team
that wins.
>-- and even if it were defined, the necessary comparisons could
>not be made in a way that's both fair and objective in any
>circuit that has more than 2 teams.
The schedule and the playoff structure were designed to determine
which team is the best. The best team on any given day is the
team that won that game. The best team in any given year is the
last team standing and their reward is the Championship.
Your problem is that you simply don't like the way that the best
team is determined in pro sports. This means that you either do
not understand the nature of sport or you simply don't like
sport.
Too bad.
Go away.
cordially, as always,
rm
Vijay Ramanujan
Rowan & Martin <linu...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> In rec.sport.baseball rob...@bestweb.net trolled:
>
> >There are 2 questions which can be asked:
> >(1) Which is the best team?
> >(2) Which is the champion?
>
> >However, those questions represent opposite poles, in that #1 is
> >impossible to answer, and #2 is trivial to answer.
>
> Nonsense.
>
> >Question #1 is unanswerable, first of all, because goodness it's
> >not sufficiently defined
>
> It certainly is sufficiently defined. The best team is the team
> that wins.
And when two teams play twice and split? Is Oakland better than New York
or New York better than Oakland? Of course, the copout answer is
"Oakland is better becaues they won when it mattered", but that ignores
the fact that
a) it mattered the first time (when it meant playoffs or no playoffs for
the Jets and it meant 1st round bye and 2nd round home game vs. 1st.
round wildcard and 2nd round road game to the Raiders)
b) it's a matter of rewarding, then, the best by one not at all
universal definition
The point that he was (I would assume) that people do not agree on what
best is, and therefore it cannot be answered.
> >-- and even if it were defined, the necessary comparisons could
> >not be made in a way that's both fair and objective in any
> >circuit that has more than 2 teams.
>
> The schedule and the playoff structure were designed to determine
> which team is the best. The best team on any given day is the
> team that won that game.
On one day. That is the key. Even winning a Super Bowl does not mean you
were the best team - it only means that you were the better team on that
day. Another team could play better than you for 16 weeks of the regular
season and 2 weeks of the playoffs, but if your paths never meet and you
outplay them for one, final week then you are the champion. But that
doens't make you better.
Vijay R.
Rowan & Martin
>And when two teams play twice and split? Is Oakland better than New York
>or New York better than Oakland?
Oakland was better the day they beat NY and NY was better the day
they beat Oakland.
>Of course, the copout answer is "Oakland is better becaues they
>won when it mattered", but that ignores the fact that
>a) it mattered the first time (when it meant playoffs or no
>playoffs for the Jets and it meant 1st round bye and 2nd round
>home game vs. 1st. round wildcard and 2nd round road game to
>the Raiders)
>b) it's a matter of rewarding, then, the best by one not at all
>universal definition
>
>The point that he was (I would assume) that people do not agree
>on what best is, and therefore it cannot be answered.
No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport determines
which team is the best. Your biggest problem is that you think
that all teams have static values of quality. They don't. If a
team with a record of 0-15 beats the team with a record of 15-0
on the last day of the season it is because the 0-15 team was
better that day.
There is only one way of determining which team is "best" that
has any meaning in sport and that is through head to head
competition. On any given day any team in the league can
be the best.
What you are talking about is "best on paper." You are talking
about the team that you think _should_ be the best. Whether such
a team actually is the best depends on whether they win.
It's very simple. They keep score to determine which team is the
best in a particular game. And they keep track of how many games
the teams win over the season to determine which teams are the
best. And those teams playoff to determine which is the best of
the best.
Nothing else matters. If you don't like it, don't watch.
G'nite Judy,
cordially, as always,
rm
Vijay Ramanujan
Rowan & Martin <linu...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport determines
> which team is the best.
No, I simply don't agree that this has anything to do with "best", which
is why you keep having to qualify it with "best on that day".
> Your biggest problem is that you think
> that all teams have static values of quality. They don't. If a
> team with a record of 0-15 beats the team with a record of 15-0
> on the last day of the season it is because the 0-15 team was
> better that day.
That day.
> There is only one way of determining which team is "best" that
> has any meaning in sport and that is through head to head
> competition. On any given day any team in the league can
> be the best.
Yup, which is why we don't find out who is the "best" over the course of
the season.
> What you are talking about is "best on paper." You are talking
> about the team that you think _should_ be the best. Whether such
> a team actually is the best depends on whether they win.
No, I am talking about which one played the best football, overall. The
NFL season has 16 weeks. That is not "on paper".
Vijay R.
David Marc Nieporent
>> No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport determines
>> which team is the best.
>No, I simply don't agree that this has anything to do with "best", which
>is why you keep having to qualify it with "best on that day".
Actually, you (presumably from rsfp) don't understand that you're dealing
with rec.sport.baseball's longest-running troll and resident loon.
---------------------------------------------
David M. Nieporent niep...@alumni.princeton.edu
Vijay Ramanujan
David Marc Nieporent <niep...@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
> In article <vijayr-D670AD....@corp-radius.supernews.com>,
> Vijay Ramanujan <vij...@cybernex.net> wrote:
> > Rowan & Martin <linu...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >> No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport determines
> >> which team is the best.
>
> >No, I simply don't agree that this has anything to do with "best", which
> >is why you keep having to qualify it with "best on that day".
>
> Actually, you (presumably from rsfp) don't understand that you're dealing
> with rec.sport.baseball's longest-running troll and resident loon.
Thanks for the tip. I didn't even notice this was crossposted until my
2nd reply. I think I'll exit stage left.
Vijay R.
Hello
baseball newsgroup. I just don't see the justification for it.
Hello
cogent argument of your own. Are you a troll?
Hello
> -If you don't think the NFL's plan of 8 4-team divisions is a mistake,
> -consider that the Titans were the best this year of the three existing
> -teams that, with Houston, will form the AFC South next year, at 7-9.
>
> The mix changes every year, so their current records don't mean squat.
>
> BAJ
Here's another person completely missing my point. I'm not predicting
those teams are going to finish with the same records next year. I'm
just saying that it's possible to have all teams in a division finish
with losing records if there's only 4 teams in a division.
Mpoconnor7
>just saying that it's possible to have all teams in a division finish
>with losing records if there's only 4 teams in a division.
It is possible but rather unlikely. As I mentioned earlier, there have been in
NFL history 90 four team divisions and not one produced a sub 500 champion and
only one produced a 500 division winner.
Here is an example, with a hypothetical division with the four teams going 7 -
9 , 6 - 10, 5 - 11 and 4 - 12. The sum of wins and losses for all four teams
would be 22 and 42. If you remove the 12 common wins and 12 common losses
incurred in games played between the teams in the division, you would be left
with a 10 - 30 record when playing teams outside their own division. In 2001,
only three teams of 31 (less than 10 percent) failed to win more than 25
percent of their games (Detroit, Carolina and Buffalo) and over the past ten
seasons, only 41 of 297 (13.8 percent) teams from 1992 -2001 finished 4 -12 or
worse.
The odds that you would get four such teams and all in the same division is
13.8 to the fourth power, which is .000363, meaning it could be expected to
happen about once in 2753 divisions. And since there are 8 divisions in the
NFL, it should therefore be expected to happen once every 344 seasons.
Vijay Ramanujan
mpoco...@aol.comnojunk (Mpoconnor7) wrote:
> >I'm
> >just saying that it's possible to have all teams in a division finish
> >with losing records if there's only 4 teams in a division.
>
> It is possible but rather unlikely. As I mentioned earlier, there have been
> in
> NFL history 90 four team divisions and not one produced a sub 500 champion
> and
> only one produced a 500 division winner.
> Here is an example, with a hypothetical division with the four teams going 7
> -
> 9 , 6 - 10, 5 - 11 and 4 - 12. The sum of wins and losses for all four
> teams
> would be 22 and 42. If you remove the 12 common wins and 12 common losses
> incurred in games played between the teams in the division, you would be left
> with a 10 - 30 record when playing teams outside their own division. In
> 2001,
> only three teams of 31 (less than 10 percent) failed to win more than 25
> percent of their games (Detroit, Carolina and Buffalo) and over the past ten
> seasons, only 41 of 297 (13.8 percent) teams from 1992 -2001 finished 4 -12
> or
> worse.
> The odds that you would get four such teams and all in the same division
While I agree with you that it is not a likely scenario, your
probability calculation isn't quite right. You don't need every team to
have the sub 25% winning percentage outside the division, only that it
get there overall. The top team could win 30% out of the division (or,
theoretically, even 40% if everyone goes 3-3 in conference, an unlikely
event). Still unlikely, but perhaps slightly more likely than the 1/344
years.
Vijay R.
Mpoconnor7
>
>rm
>
Egads!?! The infamous r m has contaminated this newsgroup. Hide the women and
children, this is going to get ugly. Any of you people who know him from the
Baseball newsgroups should already be alarmed about this and taking appropriate
action.
Mpoconnor7
>years.
It might happen once every hundred years, not "every 2 or 3 years" as the
person who started this thread claimed.
Rowan & Martin
>> No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport determines
>> which team is the best.
>No, I simply don't agree that this has anything to do with "best", which
>is why you keep having to qualify it with "best on that day".
There is no "best" without a qualifier. That's the whole point.
>> Your biggest problem is that you think that all teams have
>> static values of quality. They don't. If a team with a
>> record of 0-15 beats the team with a record of 15-0 on the
>> last day of the season it is because the 0-15 team was better
>> that day.
>That day.
Of course it was better that day. On all the other days the
other team was better. That's the point. That's the best you
can do.
>> There is only one way of determining which team is "best" that
>> has any meaning in sport and that is through head to head
>> competition. On any given day any team in the league can
>> be the best.
>Yup, which is why we don't find out who is the "best" over the
>course of the season.
Yes we do. That's what the schedule determines. A team does not
play at a constant level. Only something inanimate, like a
robot, can do that.
>> What you are talking about is "best on paper." You are talking
>> about the team that you think _should_ be the best. Whether such
>> a team actually is the best depends on whether they win.
>No, I am talking about which one played the best football,
>overall. The NFL season has 16 weeks. That is not "on paper".
You are not thinking clearly. What do you mean by "overall?" At
the end of the game the best team won. And at the end of the
season the teams that were the best most often make the playoffs.
And the team that was the best most often during the playoffs
wins the Championship. And that's as close to being the "best
overall" that you are ever going to get.
That's all there is. Teams do not have some absolute value of
quality that is independent of game results. Some days a team
will play really well and can claim to be the best team in the
league. Other days the same team will stink and be the worst
team in the league. That's all there is. There is no "best
overall."
cordially, as always,
rm
Rowan & Martin
>>> No, _you_ simply don't understand the way the sport
>>> determines which team is the best.
>>No, I simply don't agree that this has anything to do with
>>"best", which is why you keep having to qualify it with "best
>>on that day".
>Actually, you (presumably from rsfp) don't understand that
>you're dealing with rec.sport.baseball's longest-running troll
>and resident loon.
That's a laugh. You're the 6 time winner of r.s.bb's official
Troll of the Year. And you're a lawyer to boot.
Keith Willoughby
> That's all there is. Teams do not have some absolute value of
> quality that is independent of game results. Some days a team
> will play really well and can claim to be the best team in the
> league. Other days the same team will stink and be the worst
> team in the league. That's all there is. There is no "best
> overall."
Surely one team will have generated more fan excitement than any other
over the course of a season, separate from their win-loss record?
--
Keith Willoughby
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older.
Rowan & Martin
Thanks for the tip? You're taking advice from The Nieporent?
The Nieporent has been trolling r.s.bb. for over 10 years.
Har.
The essence of competition in sport is to determine - through the
competition itself - which person or team is the best. The
person - or team - that wins the competition is the best, by
definition.
In your way of thinking a competition simply verifies that one
team is better than the other. Actually, the competition
determines which team is the best.
To say that one team is better than another team before those
teams have even played is ludicrous.
Think about it.
cordially, as always,
rm
Rowan & Martin
>Rowan & Martin <linu...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>> That's all there is. Teams do not have some absolute value of
>> quality that is independent of game results. Some days a team
>> will play really well and can claim to be the best team in the
>> league. Other days the same team will stink and be the worst
>> team in the league. That's all there is. There is no "best
>> overall."
>Surely one team will have generated more fan excitement than any
>other over the course of a season, separate from their win-loss
>record?
Certainly. Exciting sport is not necessarily winning sport.
People go to the park for the excitement, not simply to see their
team win.
cordially, as always,
rm
The Philster
That can happen in 8-team divisions as well. What's your point?
--
The Philster
Keith Willoughby
> In rec.sport.baseball Keith Willoughby <ke...@flat222.org> trolled:
> >Rowan & Martin <linu...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
> >> That's all there is. Teams do not have some absolute value of
> >> quality that is independent of game results. Some days a team
> >> will play really well and can claim to be the best team in the
> >> league. Other days the same team will stink and be the worst
> >> team in the league. That's all there is. There is no "best
> >> overall."
>
> >Surely one team will have generated more fan excitement than any
> >other over the course of a season, separate from their win-loss
> >record?
>
> Certainly. Exciting sport is not necessarily winning sport.
> People go to the park for the excitement, not simply to see their
> team win.
And those people will quite possibly define the best team to be that
which delivered the most excitement. Surely a real sports fan would do
that? Do you wish to deny them the opportunity to say "This year's Sox
were better than last year, much more exiting"?
rob...@bestweb.net
>I really don't like that you brought my football post into the
>baseball newsgroup. I just don't see the justification for it.
IIRC, I didn't bring your football post there; I didn't quote any of it.
You mentioned a discussion of the topic in rec.sport.baseball, and it made
perfect sense to discuss this in several rec.sport.* groups because the
principles are exactly the same, so when I composed my post entirely de novo
I used the same subject line (so as to continue the thread in
rec.sport.football.pro) but made it entirely of my own writing. Why
re-invent the discussion separately each time in different rec.sport.*
groups?
Robert
rob...@bestweb.net
>The essence of competition in sport is to determine - through the
>competition itself - which person or team is the best.
No, the essence is for someone to have a good time -- unless you're
gambling, and usually even then.
>The
>person - or team - that wins the competition is the best, by
>definition.
No, the winner is the champ, which is not "best by definition".
>In your way of thinking a competition simply verifies that one
>team is better than the other. Actually, the competition
>determines which team is the best.
>To say that one team is better than another team before those
>teams have even played is ludicrous.
No. "Better" being a matter of opinion, it's possible to make such
comparisons even if it'd be ludicrous for them to play each other. For
instance, a case can easily be made that a certain baseball team is better
than a certain football team, though nobody'd decide that between them on
the field.
Robert
rob...@bestweb.net
>> Vijay Ramanujan <vij...@cybernex.net> wrote:
Why don't we deal with the issues instead of people's reputations?
rob...@bestweb.net
>At the end of the game the best team won. And at the end of the
>season the teams that were the best most often make the playoffs.
>And the team that was the best most often during the playoffs
>wins the Championship.
Even if you define "best" as "most likely to beat another randomly chosen
team at any random time during a certain interval", that's not true if "most
often" means "more often than not". Suppose you have a 4-entry elimination
tournament (i.e. 2 rounds) in which entry A has a 65% chance of beating
entries B, C, and D, while entries B, C, and D have a 50-50 chance against
each other. Clearly entry A is the winningest under the cirucumstances, yet
A will win the championship of the tournament only 42.25% of the time if you
replay the tournament many times.
If OTOH "most often" means "more often than the others", then in cases like
the above you're correct.
Robert
Dave Simpson
> few; the proper ratio IMO is between 25 and 33 percent.
I'd go with eight teams.
The trick is to cull the truly better teams from all the others, but
to
raise the number of entrants into the playoffs if it provides too few
games.
Eight teams would make for two playoff rounds, then the
championship.
The pressure is there to enlarge the playoffs in order to broadcast
more games and enjoy greater advertising revenue, but I consider that
a poor
reason compared to the desire to most fairly have the best teams
compete
for the championship.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
> Having no playoffs is logically the best, but this isn't Soccer and everyone
> wants playoffs.
It's also impossible for every team to play every other team. Hence
you divide the field (the league) into subgroups (divisions). Note
that the NFL
doesn't use real divisions, which would involve exclusive or almost
exclusive
play only within the divisions during the regular season. (Additional
games
outside the division could be added to enlarge the schedule, which
would be
sought for broadcast advertising revenue.)
> I agree that the very best teams after the regular season
> should be the ones competing the post season, resulting in one of the best
> winning it all......but having only four teams making up the playoffs won't
> ever work because of revenue for more playoff games among more teams.
$$$
> I think the most you can go is 50% ratio for teams in the playoffs.....but it
> is a problem if you have sub 500 teams in there. The 25 to 33 percent is
> pretty sufficient.
Agreed -- OK to me too in theory for up to the entire top half, but
this is inferior to only admitting those teams who truly are among the
best, and is less desireable.
[...]
> I'd rather see all the teams in one table and the top
> 12/16 play in the postseason....but for that to work, traditional rivalries
> would have to be sacrificied leading to loss of revenue.
"Traditional rivalries" are for the lesser mentally endowed to
defend. Playing all in one "table" isn't possible, though it is
possible to dispense with the phony fixed "divisions" and go with real
divisions, seeding each as closely to evenly as possible. Then have
teams within each division play all other teams in the division, a
round-robin or double round-robin schedule (once home, once away with
each opponent). The top teams from each division would then be seeded
into the playoffs. The regular season, though "main," actually is a
preliminary tournament for the playoffs, which forms a second season
or tournament to determine the league champion. (With evenly seeded
divisions, each division comes as close as possible to approximating
the conditions of the entire league in miniature, which is why the top
teams are admitted to the playoffs, for they are the best teams by a
league-wide as well as divisional standard.)
Regrettably, there's too much emotional baggage and other
interference with pursuing the fairest and most logical structure of
competition for it ever to be likely.
Dave Simpson
M. Zaiem Beg
->>cordially, as always,
->>
->>rm
->>
->
->Egads!?! The infamous r m has contaminated this newsgroup. Hide the women and
->children, this is going to get ugly. Any of you people who know him from the
->Baseball newsgroups should already be alarmed about this and taking appropriate
->action.
Michael O'Connor is an alarmist.
Cordially,
;)
-M. Zaiem Beg
zb...@iglou.com
Rowan & Martin
Because the good old ad hominem is all that is left open to these
clowns - over the years they have all been routinely trounced in
debate over the issues.
cordially, as always,
rm
Rowan & Martin
>Even if you define "best" as "most likely to beat another
>randomly chosen team at any random time during a certain
>interval", that's not true if "most often" means "more often
>than not".
It is impossible to determine with any accuracy whether one team
is likely to beat another randomly chosen team at any random
time.
>Suppose you have a 4-entry elimination tournament (i.e. 2
>rounds) in which entry A has a 65% chance of beating entries B,
>C, and D, while entries B, C, and D have a 50-50 chance against
>each other.
It is impossible to determine whether one team has a 65% chance
of winning.
>Clearly entry A is the winningest under the cirucumstances, yet
>A will win the championship of the tournament only 42.25% of the
>time if you replay the tournament many times.
Teams do not play at a static level of ability. Game in and game
out every team plays at a different level of ability. It may
very well be that the team that is capable of playing baseball at
the very highest level is not capable of playing at a high level
very often. Which team would be the "best?" The team with a
losing record which, from time to time, plays the game at a level
that nobody else can approach? Or the team that consistently
plays only slightly better than average?
It is absolutely silly, frivolous and pointless to attempt to put
a static number on a team or player's dynamic ability to play.
Any team and any player on any given day will be the best in the
league. The teams that best their opponents over the regular
season the most often are the teams that make the playoffs. And
the team that bests its opponents in the playoffs is the last
team standing. It would be silly to say that any other team
could be better than this one. But silliness is the essence of
being a stat fan.
cordially, as always,
rm
Fred Goodwin, CMA
news:20020112051843...@mb-mr.aol.com:
> I was hearing talk of 16 teams in next years playoffs with the new
> re-alignment.
Where have you heard this? I've heard no such talk -- everything I've seen
or read says six teams in each conference: the four division winners, plus
two WCs. The top two seeds in each conference get a first-round bye, pretty
much like the current format.
--
Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
Skeptic's Creed:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."