2013 NFL Season Thread

[gunnar hendershow]

I agree with Meacon, I'm a big advocate of placing as much importance on the regular season as possible. The NBA and NHL regular seasons are, for the most part, jokes. Last year's NHL regular season was great because there wasn't enough time due to the lockout for teams to separate themselves. The NFL regular season has just about every team playing for something until around week 12 or 13, that's when they start dropping like flies. Divisions are a little silly because of the way the NFL schedule works out. If they managed a true round robin format, which would never happen, and just took the top 6 teams from each conference that would work better. I do not mind reseeding though, you can still leapfrog teams with better records by winning your division but you get penalized by having to go on the road.

College football has close to a perfect system coming in next year, you have to win your conference to have a shot at the national title. I like a 4 team playoff and I'd be fine with an 8 team playoff. You win your conference and you deserve a shot at the championship. Let's not award a mediocre regular season with a second shot is basically my attitude.

March Madness is the exception to the rule, you have like 350 schools in D1 basketball so at the end of the day only 20% or so make the tournament. That's the right percentage of teams who should be playing in the postseason.

Also, Midget, I have had more or less the same idea. NHL is onto something with the way they've realigned, smaller divisions are not better.

[Thrilla]

That's brilliant odds, might throw down €50 on that!

They're 9/4 to win with no spread. Green Bay and San Diego double gives 6/1 odds, I'm definitely gonna lose money at the weekend now. That's far too tempting for two teams riding a wave of momentum.

I've gone for an accumulator of Chiefs, Saints, Bengals, 49ers. May lump something on the Chargers +6.5. Also thinking of taking Gore and Lacey both to score a touchdown in GB/SF as if the weather stays awful, that will pretty much become a full on running game.

[VerbalPuke]

I'll always be a less is more guy. I want a four team college football playoff, four team baseball playoff, and twelve team pro football playoff. You start making it more than that and you're taking away the importance of the regular season.

Take the NBA for example. More teams make the playoffs than not. I think that's ridiculous. Why have an 82-game season to weed out only 14 of the 30 league teams? The NFL needs to start thinking with their heads and not their wallets. /oldfartwitholdbeliefs

If anything, the NBA should contract, but I agree with you there. I'm honestly not bothered by a division winner with an inferior record getting home field advantage over a wildcard with a better record. I do think there is something a bit fucked when Arizona at 10-6 is outside, while Green Bay is in at 8-7-1 (of course if Detroit had won their division there would be no complaint from me ). I remember when Seattle got in at 7-9 because of how bad the West was that year, and they did end up pulling off the upset over the Saints. Or the year the Pats missed the playoffs at 11-5. Yeah, it's odd how that all works but I kind of feel like oh well, that's just how it goes.

[TCO]

That's brilliant odds, might throw down €50 on that!

They're 9/4 to win with no spread. Green Bay and San Diego double gives 6/1 odds, I'm definitely gonna lose money at the weekend now. That's far too tempting for two teams riding a wave of momentum.

I've gone for an accumulator of Chiefs, Saints, Bengals, 49ers. May lump something on the Chargers +6.5. Also thinking of taking Gore and Lacey both to score a touchdown in GB/SF as if the weather stays awful, that will pretty much become a full on running game.

Hmm, I'm in a Playoff Pickem for money and I've gone almost all different teams than you! I think I just might end up doing a San Diego/Green Bay double. You can't double up on Anytime TD scorers in the same game unfortunately, but that'd be nice little double if you could!

There seems to be a decent bit of money to be made in doing an Anytime TD accy with the favourite in every game. That looks like McCoy, Green, Gore and Charles!

Gah, I have to seriously limit my bets or this will get out of hand!

[gunnar hendershow]

I'll always be a less is more guy. I want a four team college football playoff, four team baseball playoff, and twelve team pro football playoff. You start making it more than that and you're taking away the importance of the regular season.

Take the NBA for example. More teams make the playoffs than not. I think that's ridiculous. Why have an 82-game season to weed out only 14 of the 30 league teams? The NFL needs to start thinking with their heads and not their wallets. /oldfartwitholdbeliefs

If anything, the NBA should contract, but I agree with you there. I'm honestly not bothered by a division winner with an inferior record getting home field advantage over a wildcard with a better record. I do think there is something a bit fucked when Arizona at 10-6 is outside, while Green Bay is in at 8-7-1 (of course if Detroit had won their division there would be no complaint from me ). I remember when Seattle got in at 7-9 because of how bad the West was that year, and they did end up pulling off the upset over the Saints. Or the year the Pats missed the playoffs at 11-5. Yeah, it's odd how that all works but I kind of feel like oh well, that's just how it goes.

I don't want to derail this from NFL discussion, but the NBA would be a prime sport for promotion/relegation. That and MLB are the sports it could serve best in the US. Obviously it will never, ever happen but it's nice to dream about an 18-team top flight for basketball with the top 4 making playoffs, the bottom 3 being relegated. It would kill tanking dead, which is a serious problem in the NBA.

[VerbalPuke]

I responded to that in the NBA thread, as it's interesting but yeah, don't want to talk basketball in the NFL thread.

err...so I guess I'll give my playoff predictions.

NFC:

Philly over NO

GB over San Fran

Seattle over GB

Carolina over Philly

Carolina over Seattle

AFC:

Indy over KC

Cinci over San Diego

Denver over Indy

NE over Cinci

NE over Den

Carolina over NE.

I could be horribly wrong, but I see some upsets, and I have a feeling Peyton goes down again. Not that I'm anti Peyton, I'd be happy to see him get a ring again, but eh his track record in the playoffs is a bit spotty. The two AFC wild card games could go either way, though I feel strongest about Cinci taking down San Diego. Some might view Green Bay over San Fran as an upset, but I think Green Bay at home with Rodgers back could pose big problems for San Fran. On the other hand, San Fran could easily kick their asses and march all the way to the big game again.

[HC]

I'll give it a go:

Wildcard

Eagles over Saints (NO is shaky at home)
49ers over Packers(I hate to say that, but they have GB's #)
Bengals over Chargers(Dalton is shaky, but they always play well at home and San Diego is pretty iffy themselves)

Colts over Chiefs(They play down to their competition, but they play up to it as well. Plus, KC struggles with good teams.)

Divisional

Seattle over 49ers(Too loud, too loud.)

Eagles over Panthers (Upset! Carolina's not used to this, after all)

Broncos over Colts(Not this time, Luck!)
Patriots over Bengals(Dalton falls apart on the road. Brady does Brady)

Championships

Seattle over Philly(Too damn loud)
Broncos over Patriots(Blah blah blah cold weather. Peyton wins anyway)

Super Bowl

Seattle over Denver (Defense wins championships)

[Mick]

Mine's pretty much what VP wrote, with the excpetion of the championships and the Super Bowl:

Denver over New England

Seattle over Carolina

Denver over Seattle

Seattle may have a kick ass defense, but this team almost lost to the Bucs. I can't support someone that fell apart the way the Seahawks did. Plus I hate Pete Carroll

[DYSI]

Wildcard

Eagles over Saints
Packers over 49ers
Bengals over Chargers

Colts over Chiefs

Divisional

Seattle over Packers

Panthers over Eagles

Broncos over Colts
Patriots over Bengals

Championships

Panthers over Seahawks
Broncos over Patriots

Super Bowl

Broncos over Panthers

I really think it's going to be Broncos/Seahawks but I wouldn't mind a Panthers/Broncos Super Bowl either.

[DMN in the House]

During a long car ride back home last night, I thought about a potential playoff idea.

1. Four eight-team divisions, no more conferences. Divisions will be based on geography:

(Pacific Division: Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Denver, Arizona, Dallas & Houston

Midwest Division: Kansas City, Minnesota, New Orleans, St. Louis, Green Bay, Chicago, Tennessee, Indianapolis

Eastern Division: Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Cleveland, Carolina, Jacksonville, Buffalo, Pittsburgh

Atlantic Division: New England, Philadelphia, NYJ, NYG, Baltimore, Washington, Tampa Bay, Miami)

2. Top three teams, based on record, from each division go into the playoffs.

3. 3rd faces 2nd in 2nd's stadium. Winner plays against 1st place at 1st's stadium for the division championship (this preserves the division winner's bye week).

4. The division champions will then re-seeded based on new overall record (this rewards teams who crawled from 2nd/3rd into these playoffs with the chance of a home game later in the playoffs. Teams who look to finish first in the division during the regular season now have little reason to bench starters late into the season, as they need all the wins they can get to avoid being passed up.)

5. 1st place now faces 4th place, 2nd vs. 3rd. Winners face one another in the Super Bowl.

Your realignment destroys some of the most important rivalries in the NFL. That's a big reason why they don't realign, some of the divisions in the NFL have been basically the same since the 60s (the AFC West, for one), if not longer. Especially since you pulled Kansas City away from all of it's rivals, and the same for Dallas.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The Vikings are going to launch an independent investigation of Chris Kluwe's claims.

the Vikings announced that the investigation will be led by Eric Magnuson, a former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and Chris Madel, a former DOJ trial lawyer. Madel was involved in the investigation of the Fiesta Bowl for illegally forcing its employees to make campaign contributions, a probe that led to six guilty pleas.

[Meacon Keaton]

Jim Tressel is suppose to be interviewing soon with the Browns, and apparently Bob Stoops has expressed interest too.

[livid]

There's some question about the validity of the Jim Tressel bit.

[Pizza]

During a long car ride back home last night, I thought about a potential playoff idea.

1. Four eight-team divisions, no more conferences. Divisions will be based on geography:

(Pacific Division: Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Denver, Arizona, Dallas & Houston

Midwest Division: Kansas City, Minnesota, New Orleans, St. Louis, Green Bay, Chicago, Tennessee, Indianapolis

Eastern Division: Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Cleveland, Carolina, Jacksonville, Buffalo, Pittsburgh

Atlantic Division: New England, Philadelphia, NYJ, NYG, Baltimore, Washington, Tampa Bay, Miami)

2. Top three teams, based on record, from each division go into the playoffs.

3. 3rd faces 2nd in 2nd's stadium. Winner plays against 1st place at 1st's stadium for the division championship (this preserves the division winner's bye week).

4. The division champions will then re-seeded based on new overall record (this rewards teams who crawled from 2nd/3rd into these playoffs with the chance of a home game later in the playoffs. Teams who look to finish first in the division during the regular season now have little reason to bench starters late into the season, as they need all the wins they can get to avoid being passed up.)

5. 1st place now faces 4th place, 2nd vs. 3rd. Winners face one another in the Super Bowl.

Your realignment destroys some of the most important rivalries in the NFL. That's a big reason why they don't realign, some of the divisions in the NFL have been basically the same since the 60s (the AFC West, for one), if not longer. Especially since you pulled Kansas City away from all of it's rivals, and the same for Dallas.

I like the idea, but not his divisions. Geography doesn't really matter, just combine the AFC East with the NFC East, and so on. Preserves existing rivalries, creates new ones, and ramps up existing regional rivalries that don't get much play now like Jets Giants.

[Mick]

If you're going with four, eight team divisions, wouldn't it just be easier to combine each respective division?

Anyway, my realignment idea....

I will say first off that this will destroy rivalries. My idea is, at the conclusion of the regular season, to rank each team in the conference 1-16 based on records and needed tiebreakers. Then, with each division, they'll be assigned a team based on that ranking. For example, teams ranked 1, 5, 9, 13; 2, 6, 10, 14; 3, 7, 11, 15 and 4, 8, 12, 16. At the end of every season, they will be assigned again, creating dynamic divisions which should naturally change every year. From that point, with the playoffs, it's based on top 6 seeds per conference (oh yeah, the conferences remain the same ); with the highest seed having home field advantage over the lower side, and so on, like it is now.

The only exception is I want the Super Bowl played in cold weather stadiums, like Lambeau or even Michigan Stadium, and absolutely never in a dome .

[Meacon Keaton]

Leslie Frazier has told ESPN that he'll be joining the Tampa Bay staff as defensive coordinator.

[Mick]

And the rumor mill says Lane Kiffen may be offered the the position of WR coach.

[livid]

Man, I kinda like this "put all the shitty coaches on one team" idea.

[HC]

And the rumor mill says Lane Kiffen may be offered the the position of WR coach.

He doesn't deserve the position of towel boy.

[Thrilla]

That's brilliant odds, might throw down €50 on that!

They're 9/4 to win with no spread. Green Bay and San Diego double gives 6/1 odds, I'm definitely gonna lose money at the weekend now. That's far too tempting for two teams riding a wave of momentum.

I've gone for an accumulator of Chiefs, Saints, Bengals, 49ers. May lump something on the Chargers +6.5. Also thinking of taking Gore and Lacey both to score a touchdown in GB/SF as if the weather stays awful, that will pretty much become a full on running game.

Hmm, I'm in a Playoff Pickem for money and I've gone almost all different teams than you! I think I just might end up doing a San Diego/Green Bay double. You can't double up on Anytime TD scorers in the same game unfortunately, but that'd be nice little double if you could!

There seems to be a decent bit of money to be made in doing an Anytime TD accy with the favourite in every game. That looks like McCoy, Green, Gore and Charles!

Gah, I have to seriously limit my bets or this will get out of hand!

Swapped McCoy for Graham to take it from 5.8/1 to 7/1.