One and done. This season, the Patriots won 14 out of their 16 games while defeating every AFC contender along the way. They beat both the Bears and the Packers, the last two teams left standing in the NFC. After Week 17, most analysts and fans agreed that New England was the best team in the NFL this season. Yet one bad game, and they have been deemed unworthy of being called just that. One loss trumps 14 wins. It almost doesn't seem fair. Is it?
Joe Posnanski addressed this in his Sports Illustrated column earlier this week. He points out that a somewhat unexplainable increase in Divisional Round upsets means that the best teams through the first seventeen weeks of the season are often not in the championship games. Whichever team wins the Super Bowl this year is guaranteed to finish with a worse record than the 14-3 mark the Patriots had. Are we crowning the wrong champions? Do we need a different system?
In his article, Posnanski cites the BCS as a contrast to the playoffs. There's no question that college football rewards regular season play more than any other American sports league. However, given the enormity of it's league and the limits of its schedules (Oregon and Auburn didn't have one common opponent this year), it probably needs a playoff more than any other sport. And far be it from me to suggest the BCS as an alternative to any system, working or not.
However, a perfect contrast to the playoffs does exist. It's just not in America. To find it, you'll have to travel across the pond to witness the immensely popular European soccer leagues. For decades, federations like the English Premier League, Spain's La Liga and the Bundesliga in Germany have attracted the world's best players and captivated the weekend attentions of their nations, all without any playoffs whatsoever. Each team plays every other team in their league twice (once at home, once away). After the final week, whoever has the best record is crowned champion. That's it. No arguments over schedule strength, no losing teams hosting a playoff game, and no worrying about overtime rules in the championship game. It's as fair a system as you could ever create.
The NFL actually used this system in its early years. The team with the best record after the regular season would be crowned champion (although schedules weren't close to uniform, as teams would go bankrupt and fold on a weekly basis). In 1932, the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans (soon-to-be Detroit Lions) tied with the best record and had an unscheduled playoff to determine the champion. The popularity of that game spawned an annual championship match, which gradually expanded to the full-blown playoff system we have today.
With the size of the NFL as it is now, adopting an EPL-like system is impossible (each team would have a 62-game schedule). But say it were doable. Would we even want to make such a change? Chelsea won last year's EPL title in it's last match, not with an epic win over runner-up Manchester United, but with a 8-0 thrashing of cellar-dweller Wigan Athletic. Could you imagine if this NFL season culminated in a Patriots blowout in Buffalo?
Looking back, the most vivid images we have of the NFL are playoff moments. No playoff system means no Manning to Tyree, no Music City Miracle, and no Immaculate Reception. No, the playoffs aren't fair. The best team often doesn't win. But as the league recognized back in 1932, we as fans are willing to sacrifice a little bit of fairness for a lot of drama and excitement. After all, isn't that why we watch sports in the first place?
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