Dallas Cowboys owner/general manager/president/player personnel (snicker) guru Jerry Jones Friday, on 105.3 The Fan ESPN radio in Dallas/Fort Worth, revived one of my least favorite ideas regarding the NFL: Expanding the playoffs.
Jones argues that giving teams that were .500 an opportunity to reach the postseason and, possibly, the Super Bowl creates excitement.
“From the standpoint of looking at how exciting it is for a city or a community to be involved in the playoffs and the fact that you can have a team that might have literally operated at .500 or in that area … you can have that team win the Super Bowl,” Jones said. “That makes a big case for adding a couple of more cities or communities that have NFL teams to make the playoffs.”
This argument may be a bit self-serving from Jones. I was in attendance at the last playoff game the Dallas Cowboys actually participated in, a 34-3 whipping at the Metrodome at the hands of Minnesota in 2009. Under Jones’ lead as, cough, cough, general manager of the Cowboys, an expanded playoff may be the only way his team qualifies in the near future (though a two team expansion would not have helped him in any of the last four seasons).
But as Jones was finishing his speech on the radio, Vince Lombardi, who actually stood for excellence, just rolled over in his grave. Back in his day, the championship was decided by pitting the best team in the Western Conference against the best team in the Eastern Conference. Don’t win your conference? Don’t play for the championship.
That is pushing for greatness. That is requiring a team to accomplish something before they get to play for the big prize.
Photo credit pkeleher via Wikipedia
Jones, and any other owner, commissioner or media mouthpiece trying to push for greater inclusion in the postseason, is contributing to the watering down of the greatest time of year of the greatest sport in existence.
Jones, in my opinion, is grossly, grossly wrong.
We’re going in the wrong direction as a country when it comes to rewarding simple participation in many of our daily activities. College football, for example, has in recent years had to allow sub-.500 teams into its postseason to fill the requirements for the three-dozen “Who Gives A Crap” Bowl games that fill ESPN’s airwaves leading up to the holidays. There is some really bad football getting played by really average-at-best teams before any of the real bowl games start.
And if the NFL follows through on expanding the playoff, it will be joining the “Let’s Reward Mediocrity” club.
Rewarding .500 teams with an opportunity to go to the postseason is rewarding mediocrity. I hate, hate, hate the idea. As is often said about our criminal justice system that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to convict one innocent civilian, I believe it is better to leave a good team out of the playoffs than it is to allow in one mediocre participant.
The argument may have a bit more merit being pushed this season by Arizona, a truly solid team that ended the season on a high note and finished out of the playoffs largely due to being in the same division as Seattle and San Francisco.
But for every Arizona, there is an 8-8 or 9-7 team that performed in mediocre fashion throughout the regular season that has no legitimate claim to being cheated of a postseason berth that would make the playoffs under an expansion scenario.
The playoffs should be for great teams to chase the Lombardi Trophy. It’s my belief that to even receive the right to be in the discussion for being considered great, a team should win at least 10 games. In the last 10 years, only six double-digit win teams have been denied a playoff spot while the “next team in” would have been a single-digit game winner in 14 of 20 cases.
| Year | Wild Card team | Wild Card Team | Would have been next |
| 2012 | |||
| AFC | Indianapolis (11-5) | Cincinnati (10-6) | Pittsburgh (8-8) |
| NFC | Seattle (11-5) | Minnesota (10-6) | Chicago (10-6) |
| 2011 | |||
| AFC | Pittsburgh (12-4) | Cincinnati (9-7) | Tennessee (9-7) |
| NFC | Atlanta (10-6) | Detroit (10-6) | Four teams tied (8-8) |
| 2010 | |||
| AFC | Baltimore (12-4) | New York Jets (11-5) | San Diego (9-7) |
| NFC | New Orleans (11-5) | Green Bay (10-6) | Two teams tied (10-6) |
| 2009 | |||
| AFC | Baltimore (9-7) | New York Jets (9-7) | Two teams tied (9-7) |
| NFC | Philadelphia (11-5) | Green Bay (11-5) | Atlanta (9-7) |
| 2008 | |||
| AFC | Indianapolis (12-4) | Baltimore (11-5) | New England (11-5) |
| NFC | Atlanta (11-5) | Philadelphia (9-6-1) | Three teams tied (9-7) |
| 2007 | |||
| AFC | Jacksonville (11-5) | Tennessee (10-6) | Cleveland (10-6) |
| NFC | New York Giants (10-6) | Washington (9-7) | Three teams tied (8-8) |
| 2006 | |||
| AFC | New York Jets (10-6) | Kansas City (9-7) | Denver (9-7) |
| NFC | Dallas (9-7) | New York Giants (8-8) | Three teams tied (8-8) |
| 2005 | |||
| AFC | Jacksonville (12-4) | Cincinnati (11-5) | Kansas City (10-6) |
| NFC | Tampa Bay (11-5) | Washington (10-6) | Two teams tied (9-7) |
| 2004 | |||
| AFC | Denver (10-6) | New York Jets (10-6) | Three teams tied (9-7) |
| NFC | St. Louis (8-8) | Minnesota (8-8) | New Orleans (8-8) |
| 2003 | |||
| AFC | Tennessee (12-4) | Denver (10-6) | Miami (10-6) |
| NFC | Dallas (10-6) | Seattle (10-6) | Minnesota (9-7) |
Now, I’m not naïve. This is probably going to happen. Jones and his mediocre Cowboys aren’t the only team arguing for playoff expansion. Commissioner Roger Goodell made clear in October that he is in favor.
But let’s call it what it really is: a blatant money grab – another way for billionaire owners to become bigger billionaire owners, regardless of how watered down the product becomes in the process.
Do you know what would really create some excitement in those communities? If their football teams actually played well during the regular season and won more than half their games.
Jones may be right about creating excitement for single, individual first-round playoff games. But in the big scheme of things, what he’s really doing by expanding the playoffs is rewarding mediocre teams for participating at a mediocre level during the regular season.
I, for one, do not want to see more .500 teams in the playoffs. I do not want to see .500 teams getting hot in January and claiming the Lombardi Trophy in February. I may be in the minority, but if it were up to me, the league would do the following to actually improve the postseason:
- Require nine wins – make a team win more than half its games. If a team doesn’t win more than half its games, it’s not allowed in the playoffs. Some division doesn’t get a team in the playoffs that year? Too bad. The 7-9 Seahawks from 2010? The win over New Orleans never would have happened. Don’t care. That was a bad team that didn’t belong in the playoffs. Replace division winners with sub-.500 records with the next best team available (such as the 10-6 Arizona Cardinals this season). If there are no more teams with at least nine wins, the conference goes from six participants to five for the season.
- Let wild card teams host – if a wild card team has a substantially better record than a division winner playing on wild card weekend, let the wild card team host. Let’s make the distinction two wins. This year’s 12-4 San Francisco team is going on the road to Green Bay, which won the NFC North at 8-7-1. In my world, Arizona should replace Green Bay in the playoffs anyway, but if we are forced to endure an 8.5 win team in the playoffs, at least force them to go on the road and win in a hostile environment.
Others will counter with an argument about Cinderella stories. What about the Giants in 2011 that went 9-7 but beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl? While I’d prefer to see teams required to actually win double-digit games to get to the playoffs, they achieved the minimum nine victories I would require for participation, so they can keep their Lombardi Trophy.
But did you know that they are the only single-digit winning team to ever win the Super Bowl? So why water down the postseason more? Why continue to recognize mediocrity with anything more than season-ending coverage by local media of those players packing their belongings and heading out onto the road?
I have no problem with Cinderella stories. You can still have them under a scenario that requires some level of greatness in order to make it into the postseason. Just make sure Cinderella won 10 games before putting on her glass slipper.
If this playoff expansion passes, I would suggest removing Lombardi’s name from the Super Bowl trophy and renaming the championship game. It would be, at that point, better named after one of its chief proponents. We can call it the Jerry Jones Trophy and rename it the Mediocrity Bowl.
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Anyone remember the Playoff Bowl? The runner-up of the Western Conference versus the runner-up of the Eastern Conference. I believe Lombardi called it “a loser’s bowl for losers”. And that was when his Packers were playing in it.
I understand the money grab, but at what point does it backfire? The Green Bay Packers needed an extension to sell a playoff game at Lambeau Field. They flirted with a blackout of the biggest market in the state. I realize there were a number of factors including the short notice and the sub-zero temperatures (cough, cough). Still, what happens when it is two 8-8 teams? How are those going to sell? That leads to home market blackouts, with a big hit to TV revenue. And what will be national TV market be like for such a game? The NFL needs to realize the benefits of scarcity. They can’t expect to have a schedule like the NBA and still bring in the same per-game revenue they get now.
I do disagree with changing the benefits to the division winners. Divisions matter. They need to matter. Those rivalry games count for more than just “I don’t like these fans because they live on the other side of the river”. The playoffs add meaning to the rivalry. It occasionally means a mediocre team makes the playoffs. It means a good team has to travel.
Yeah, my ideas will never happen, particularly the one about seeding a division winner out of the playoffs. I do believe division winners shouldn’t be guaranteed to host a playoff game if the wild card team has proven to be multiple games better. Look at this year. The Pack at 8-7-1 would have been 4th in the NFC West. Their “reward” is making the playoffs. But there’d be no harm done, in my opinion, forcing them to go to San Fran instead of getting to host. The ideas were admittedly a bit of a stretch. Just trying to counteract what I think is a really, really bad idea – expanding the playoffs – with some ideas that I think actually have merit. Just my opinion.
I agree with you in not wanting to expand the playoffs. It does reward mediocrity as you say. I really don’t want to see average teams in the playoffs. I would not want to see the team that I support (Green Bay) in the playoffs if they were mediocre (like this year). It just increases the likelihood of terrible games in the playoffs, where one team is really dominant over the other, and this would be at the time of year when the NFL would want to put its best games on show.
I don’t want to watch teams that did not win enough games during the regular season go on and win the Trophy.
If the playoffs were to expand by two teams per conference then half of the league would be in the playoffs. It would water down the regular season. Why worry about losing a game when you all you have to do is be in the top half?
Playoffs can work. I believe the college game needs a playoff system, but it has vastly more teams and fewer weeks to play meaning that there is not enough body of work available to separate the top teams. On the other hand, I agree about culling a lot of the bad bowls in that system.
I do disagree with you about the divisions. Winning a division should mean something. Part of the problem with the re-seeding idea is that the schedules are not identical. A wild-card team from one division may have a good record because it’s paired with a bad division in one or both conferences.
Part of the problem, I think, is the sense of entitlement that society has. I do believe that we are entitled to some things as humans, some basic rights for example, but not to everything. Last year for Christmas my daughter was given a shape sorted that proclaimed `Excellent!’ every time she put in a block correctly. It’s great that she was gaining coordination, but I don’t think she needs praise every single time. Then there are students who get very upset when they don’t receive an A for an essay that did not meet the criteria.
That’s not well worded at all, but I hope you get the idea.
Source = Packers.com
Good grief, seriously? Two of the hottest teams in the league? This isn’t the NCAA basketball tournament. There are only 32 teams in the league and 16 games in the season. How a team plays throughout the season matters.
Arizona is the only of those four teams that can stake a legit claim to having gotten a raw deal. But even they finished in third place in the NFC West. Chicago had one of the worst defenses in the history of the league and lost four of its last six games when the playoffs were there to be claimed. Pittsburgh lost its first four and six of its first eight. Baltimore had two chances to lock up the last playoff spot and not only lost both but got blown out. The entire body of work matters and none of these teams had an inalienable claim to a spot in the postseason.
Anyone who says otherwise might as well just forgo the entire postseason and just print up ribbons for every team that made it through the entire season.
The way the league has tweaked scheduling, we nearly have the same effect as an expanded playoff. But in a meaningful way.
There were two games in the final week that decided division championships. Win and in, lose and go home. It does’t get much better than that. Adding a new loser’s round takes away from that. Tune in for the Bears-Packers! Not that it really matters, the loser will earn a second tier wildcard anyway. Thrilling!
Being hot at the end of the season shouldn’t matter if you were terrible in the first half of the season. The regular season would lose a lot of interest by making the games less meaningful if the playoffs were expanded. If Pittsburgh and Baltimore were added then the AFC would have had two teams in that lost half of their games.
From nfl.com
After two NFC wild-card teams traveled on the road to face teams with lower regular-season records, there was some rumbling regarding reseeding teams for the playoffs based on record rather than a division championship.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t see any changes coming on the playoff format.
“I don’t think there is momentum for that,” Goodell told former Associated Press White House correspondent Ben Feller in an interview at the 92nd St. Y. “I would probably disagree. There may be momentum in the media, that happens when you see San Francisco going to Green Bay, but one of the premises we start with every season is that your first objective is to win the division. And when you win the division, you should have a home game.”
Goodell said the NFL wants teams to make winning their division the first concern.
“We’ve discussed this for decades in the NFL and we believe that’s the right priority,” he said. “And when you do, you should have that home game. I don’t see the owners pushing for a big change in that, and that’s ultimately where it has to come from. I know this has been discussed in the media, but I don’t see that happening.”
Goodell believes one change the NFL could make is to expand the playoffs.
“That is under serious consideration,” he said. “We think it’s one of the great things about the NFL, besides the fact that it’s unscripted. Every team and their fans start the season with hope. You mentioned the fact that for 11 straight years we’ve had a team go from last to first, that’s unique to professional football and the NFL, that doesn’t happen in other sports. And that’s because we have such a competitive league and we want to keep that.”
Boknows, there is little doubt in my mind that it is coming. I know my voice isn’t going to stop it. But I’ll scream from the top of my lungs off of every mountain top about what this is – not a way of raising excitement in NFL communities, but a watering down of the playoffs and a blatant money grab.