This is the first in a two-part post from our newest blogger. In Part I he breaks down the issue, and in Part II he offers solutions.
by The Angry Mustache
Tebow Tebowing after he almost got Tebowed.
So Pittsburgh fans are kissing their season good-bye; Denver fans are worshipping their Messiah. As a fan, I have no dog in this race (not this season, anyway), but the NFL absolutely must do something about the travesty of the way home field advantage is awarded in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The last two seasons we have seen a pair of teams who have turned in mediocre-at-best regular season efforts (within divisions that were, again, mediocre-at-best) rewarded with a home playoff game.
As Bears fans will remember from the 2010 season, we were once the beneficiaries of this travesty. The Seattle Seahawks won the disastrously terrible NFC West (Rams, 7-9; 49ers, 6-10; Cardinals, 5-11) with a 7-9 record. Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints 11-5 record was only good enough to claim second place behind the NFC’s #1 seed Atlanta Falcons in the impressive NFC South (Falcons, 13-3; Buccaneers, 10-6; Panthers, 2-14). So of course, as logic would dictate, the 11-win team from a topflight division ceded home field advantage to the sub-.500 squad from the worst division the NFL has seen in quite some time, possibly the worst ever. (Logic.)
As you’ll recall, the Seahawks somehow managed to pull it out, and basically handed the Bears a game against the fourth-seed, 7-9 Seahawks in the Divisional round – a veritable second round bye. Meanwhile the top seed Falcons were saddled with the sixth – seed, 10-6 Packers. So the best division in the NFC got the short end twice; the Seahawks and then the Bears were awarded advantages they didn’t earn; and- given that the Seahawks (2-6 on the road) likely wouldn’t have emerged from the Superdome intact- the NFL’s product in the NFC Divisional round of the playoffs was diminished for not including the Saints (the NFC’s third-best team).
And now this season, the scenario repeated itself as the 8-8 Denver Broncos won the AFC West (the worst division in football this season) and got home field advantage against the AFC North’s (which sent three teams to the playoffs) second-place Steelers and their 12-4 record- the AFC’s third-best mark. The effect of home field going to the mile-high city this year- where the thinner air provides the Broncos with the NFL’s best home field advantage- was undeniably a factor against an aging, banged-up Steeler team. Hell, they didn’t suit up starting safety Ryan Clark, as the last time he played in Denver, the lower concentration of oxygen effected his sickle cell anemia causing him to lose his spleen and gall bladder, along with 30 pounds. As we now know, the Denver Tebows pulled it out in OT on a quick, 80-yard TD strike (I wonder if a hole in the starting secondary could’ve effected that play-call).
It’s a joke. I don’t know what pisses me off more- the fact that Brady and Belichick just “earned” a second round bye (like the Bears last year), or the fact that we’re all gonna have to listen to the week-long, sloppy blowjob the media is going to lavish on Tebowner.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not really feeling sorry for teams that failed to win on the road against inferior competition. This is the NFL- this is the playoffs- and if you can’t get yourselves hyped enough to win a road game against a team that finished 4 games behind you in the standings, then you obviously don’t deserve to win the Super Bowl. Likewise, I’m not foolish enough to guarantee that the outcomes would’ve been reversed had the games been played in Pittsburgh or New Orleans. No, it’s not that good teams have to deal with added adversity. Rather, what steams me is that the current system rewards mediocrity. Why should a seven-or-eight-win team get the advantage over an eleven-or-twelve-win team? Quite simply, they shouldn’t.
The problem is the divisional alignment. When the NFL expanded from 30 to 32 teams by adding Jacksonville and Carolina in 1995, six five-team divisions became eight four-team divisions. In my opinion, the smaller division size greatly diminished the significance of winning a division. Being the best of four teams just isn’t any guarantee that you’re any good. Let’s face it, the 2010 NFC West and 2011 AFC West were a pair of toilets; the Seahawks and the Broncos just happened to be the most well-formed turds in their respective bowls.
So, how to fix the problem? I have three solutions that I’ll go over in Part II tomorrow.
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