Dirty Dozen Make NFL Play-Offs

The NFL regular season ended yesterday with a flurry of games to determine which teams squeaked through to the play-offs. A few teams had won-loss records good enough to have settled the matter already, and others were so bad that the issue was where to take their vacation. Yet, nine teams still had play-off hopes before the starting kick-off, and that’s just too damn many.

In the good old days of American sport, or in European soccer to this day, there were no divisions, no wild cards, and the team with the best record was the champion. Unfortunately, there is not drama in a team beating the bejesus out of the opposition and having the title mathematically locked up with a month left in the season. Moreover, thanks to the business of sport, rival leagues crop up from time to time, and the result is a disputed “World Championship” (never mind that non-Americans aren’t invited, except for the Toronto Blue Jays). Thus, play-offs were born.

In American football, the Super Bowl was born out of just such a situation. The upstart American Football League took on the established National Football League, champion versus champion. After the merger, the Super Bowl stuck around because it was a money maker.

Divisions within the leagues also arose parallel to this, in part to keep costs down by focusing on regional play, and also to drive interest up because of regional rivalries. Unfortunately, this meant the best teams could be in the same division, resulting in play-offs that excluded competitors who warranted participation. It was possible to lost the division title yet have the second best record in the league.

To address this injustice, the wild card idea arose. This meant that a team needn’t win its division to participate in the final competition. Thus, because baseball adopted the wild card in recent years, the lowly Boston Red Sox became World Series winners this year despite finishing behind the New York Yankees during the regular season.

Now, however, the NFL has more jokers than wild cards. Originally, just one team from each conference (composed of divisions) won a wild card berth – for a total of two in all. Now, four teams in all get a wild card, and play an extra game, while division champions get a bye for the round. The result – two teams are in the play-offs this year that have 8-8 records, Minnesota and St. Louis. Meanwhile, Buffalo, Baltimore and Jacksonville stay home with a 9-7 record because they are in the other conference. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh and New England, the teams with the best records in the NFL, can’t both be in the Super Bowl as they are in the same conference. The only system that is worse is the college football BCS nonsense. Even pro wrestling has a better system.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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