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| The Super BCS system will keep party crashers like these from stealing a championship. |
The BCS released its bowl game schedule this week, and it was followed by the annual uproar from college football fans everywhere. The fact that the sport's governing bodies refuse to create a playoff system in the face of so much public opposition is simply laughable. Fifty years from now, I'll explain to my grandchildren that there was a time when college football didn't have a playoff, and they'll look at me like I'm crazy. Then I'll grumpily tell them to take their hover pods over to the kitchen to help the iMaid cook dinner.
I don't need to tell you what a college football playoff would be like. Hundreds of sportswriters make the perfect case for that dream tournament every year. Instead, since this is a pro football blog, let's explore the opposite. What if the NFL didn't have a playoff system? What if Roger Goodell created the Super Bowl Championship Series, whose title game simply pitted the two teams with the best records against each other? What would change? Just imagine...
There are many improvements that will come with the Super BCS system. First off, it will clear up the confusion of the regular season. Under the old 12-team playoff system, 28 of 32 NFL teams would still be mathematically alive in the playoff race right now. Even if you cut out the longshots, you still would have 17 teams in the hunt. But now with the Super BCS, only 16 teams are mathematically alive to make the championship game. And only seven have a realistic chance of finishing among the top two teams. Forget about the dogfight between Oakland and Denver in the AFC West, because neither of them can hope to catch San Francisco and Green Bay. And ditto for the Giants and Cowboys, whose NFC East battle this Sunday night is as meaningless as the Rams-Seahawks tilt on Monday. Now you don't have to hurt your head thinking about all those December playoff-clinching scenarios.
And it's no secret that the Super BCS committee is praying for the 49ers to win out, because heaven forbid we have a tie for the second best record. How would we settle that? Well let's first throw out Houston, who played a weak schedule. Besides, they can't win a championship with a backup quarterback anyway. And yes San Francisco has looked good all year, but how can anyone put them above a Baltimore team that beat them on Thanksgiving? The Super BCS computers also give the Ravens bonus points for beating the Steelers and Texans, two other teams in the Top 10. But then what do we do with the Patriots, who never played Baltimore and whose three losses have all come against quality opponents? The Saints are the hottest team in the league, but how can we put them in the title game again when they already lost to the Packers in Week One? Who would want to see that rematch? Either way, this is going to cause some controversy. Let's just hope the Niners finish out strong and avoid this mess.
However, even if a team doesn't get voted into the Super Bowl, their season can still be considered a success. The great thing about the Super BCS is that it puts any team that finished with eight or more wins into a bowl game leading up to the championship. How about the Lions versus the Titans in the Mercedes Benz Bowl, or the Cowboys versus the Bengals in the Music City Bowl of Nashville? And wouldn't it be cool to see the Giants play the Jets for the MetLife Bowl trophy? Who wouldn't tune in to that?
Some fans may miss the epic moments of playoffs past, but it's more important to get the two best teams into the championship game. Didn't it irk you last year when Aaron Rodgers and the Packers crashed the party that should have been reserved for the Falcons and Patriots? Thankfully the two best teams of 2009, the Colts and Saints, made the Super Bowl that year. Even Viking fans would admit that Brett Favre's NFC Championship game interception was a mere formality. Sure, the Cardinals-Steelers Super Bowl of 2008 was pretty good, with memorable plays from James Harrison, Larry Fitzgerald and Santonio Holmes. But wouldn't the game have been better had the Giants and Titans played instead? And we can only wonder if the Cowboys would have pulled the same upset of the undefeated Patriots that the 2007 Giants did. Unfortunately, Dallas was never given that chance. Well you can now breathe easy, because the Super BCS will ensure that every champion is determined fairly.
Yes, the Super BCS does away with much of the drama of the regular season. It brings more controversy and leaves fans angry. It turns must-see playoff games into meaningless exhibitions. And it does away with much of the excitement and memorable moments that come from a championship tournament. But by following college football's model, the NFL is moving back to a precedent that was established decades ago. In the 1950's, bowl games were the best thing for football. It's not fair to dismiss them now for frivolous pursuits like television ratings, office brackets, and Twitter trends. Just ignore all that criticism and opposition you hear. The Super BCS is here to stay.
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This playoff system has everything to do with why people watch sports, and less to do w/ what's fair and makes sense in sports. And it goes to your bias of a playoff system. I'm not saying a playoff system isn’t more fun to watch, but I don’t think it's what the sport should really mean.
ReplyDeletePeople don’t watch sports to watch everything come out fairly. People don’t want teams to get what they deserve. What people want is a great story, and the best kind of story for everyone is when someone gets what they don’t deserve. Like their own lives, people want someone to get something they don’t deserve (ideally them). Its only human nature, people have high aspirations, but life is tough and frustrating and annoying, its great to get something when you don’t deserve it. The GB Packers didn’t deserve to make the playoffs last year, but they did because of weird tie-break rules, etc, etc. You can say the same thing about the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006, who won 84 games in the regular season and won the World Series.
The Truth is the only system that has it right is the BCS. They have a system that whatever league you're from (never more true than this year), the two best teams will always play in the finals. Baseball doesn’t have that. The Yankees and Red Sox, if they both won 150 games in the regular season, could never face each other in the World Series.
Nobody complained when baseball had 1 National League and 1 American League, and the “playoffs” were the World Series. Maybe you can say there were less teams then, but let's be honest, in college football there are only like 10 teams playing for the BCS championship anyway. Then college football gives you something extra, which is the “Bowl Games” where you get to play a bunch of interesting cross conference matchups you would normally not see. Now I know how that stuff is selected is all based on money and is unfair, but that's a different conversation.
We live in a sports world today where regular season performance is way undervalued. I’ve been saying for the last 5 years that the number 1 seed in the NBA playoffs should get all 7 games at home. That’s why you have cases like Dallas losing to Golden State a few years ago. Dallas won 65 games in the regular season and GS won 44, and they win one game on the road and now they have home court advantage. It's ridiculous. The NFL gives 1 and 2 seeds byes, and I love that and they get home games, so I think it’s the most fair.
If you want to give fans story lines and feel good stories, etc, etc then playoffs are great. Playoffs are great for ratings, for fun, for excitement, but they aren’t for what the sport should truly stand for, which is rewarding those teams that play well all the time. Look at what the Lakers did in the second half when they were winning those championships: they had a “turn it on when you need it” attitude.
Sure hate on the BCS, say you don’t get the playoff system, but you do get a playoff system. You get a 2 team playoff at the end of the year and I honestly don’t remember a year recently where the 2 best teams didn’t play in that game. Don’t tell me anything about Stanford or Oregon or Oklahoma State. Tell me what the Vegas line would be if Oklahoma State played Alabama on a neutral field, and you know who belongs in that game. People just love bringing up the well they “could," well they deserved “a chance”. Sports should be about rewarding performance, and nobody does that better than the BCS.