EWB Sports Discussion #2

[sahyder1]

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days and with the recent failures of teams with first round byes I can very much see it being implemented in the near future. I think the first round bye has run its course. In this day of the salary cap and the parity that exists I think the playoffs can improve by changing the bye system. I think rust plays a big factor in the early demise of the top ranked teams. Most of the 1s and 2s pretty much always rest their guys in the 2nd half (if they even play) of week 17 and then with the bye that is a lot time on the sidelines for guys who've spent the previous however many weeks playing week after week.

Originally my idea was that you would add two more wild card teams to make it a nice round number of 8 per conference in the first round. 1vs8,2vs7, etc and then continue on with the top remaining seed facing the lowest remaining seed in the next round. But I couldn't get the TV aspect of it to work as it is pretty hard to fit 4 games on TV per day. So I went to plan B.

I want to add one more playoff team per conference and go with 7. The #1 overall seed in the conference would get the bye and the others play each other with the lowest remaining seed playing the top seed in the Divisional round. The NFL gets to add two more high revenue games. We see two less potentially rusty teams and it separates the #1 seed from the rest. I am not the biggest fan of the current system because why should the 2nd seed get the same reward as the first seed? Not the best idea in the world I'll admit....but I see it as an upgrade.

If you're one of those that would like to see the system changed....toss out another scenario. I just hope this works out better then the baseball thread.

[Zaz]

No one's replying because you didn't add 'Discuss.' at the end.

[Lowerdeck]

If you expanded to 16 teams, that's half the league. We'd probably see a couple .500 or below teams getting in on the regular.

14 is almost as bad. But this year it would of helped the Pats get in the playoffs. So we can go with that.

[sahyder1]

NBA and NHL carry more then half their teams into the playoffs. People care more about the NFL so the extra games would be an easy sell.

[Lowerdeck]

I really did wish though that the NBA and NHL cut down their first rounds to best of five series. And cut down on the travel days between games.

[sahyder1]

I really did wish though that the NBA and NHL cut down their first rounds to best of five series. And cut down on the travel days between games.

I don't mind it in the NHL but NBA first rounds that are best of 7 and last for two weeks absolutely suck.

[Lowerdeck]

I really did wish though that the NBA and NHL cut down their first rounds to best of five series. And cut down on the travel days between games.

I don't mind it in the NHL but NBA first rounds that are best of 7 and last for two weeks absolutely suck.

The NBA is by far the worst. MLB with their best of fives taking a week and a half is bad too.

[Plubby]

I don't like a system where you can drop a game at home and just be...done, that's why I think the NHL's 7-game system works well.

[Hajjhowe]

I think the NFL system is fine. This is just a weird year, and most season at least 3 of the 4 teams with byes will get through and almost always two of them meet in the post-season. Teams with 10+ wins almost never miss the playoffs either, and this is a historical fact since the added Wildcards. I think people are just overreacting to a somewhat fluky year, people weren't nearly as upset when the Browns were 10-6 and didn't get a spot, but it's just the way it goes sometimes. Adding extra teams cheapens the value of making the playoffs and I like that it isn't more than half the teams in the league making the post-season. Makes the regular season that much more important, makes you need to win your division that much more and I have always approved of the 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality.

[JStarr]

Like I said in the other thread, the only problem I have with six teams is automatically making the division winners 1-4. Your two best division winners as 1 and 2, great. From there, straight record, homie. Team goes 12-4 and gets stuck behind a 13-3? Well, it's not terribly fair to make this team travel to play a worse team in the worse team's house. Or, you can get the seed, but homefield could be decided by record. One or the other, but it makes the regular season a little less meaningful if you can be the second-best team in your conference and be sent 2000 miles away to play a team that squeaked in from a shitty division.

NBA should be a similar system. Sure, you can be seeded 3rd and have a 6th seed as an opponent...but if they're better than you, you're going to their house. Win more games or deal with it.

[TheArsenal]

More regular season games, and more franchises. Thats the answer.

[sahyder1]

An idea that had been reported is a 18 game regular season. Two less preseason games. The idea appearantly is to move Super Bowl weekend to the Presidents day weekend.

[Lowerdeck]

An idea that had been reported is a 18 game regular season. Two less preseason games. The idea appearantly is to move Super Bowl weekend to the Presidents day weekend.

I couldn't see the Super Bowl going that far back. It wouldn't make sense either. If you replace the preseason stuff with regular season, the reg. season ends on the same date. So where's the extra weeks?

[sahyder1]

What they want do do is start the season a week or two later. I gotta go find the article that someone in WFAN had referenced a month or so ago.