NFL changes format for the playoffs and Super Bowl. That’s a future newspaper headline. Lots of talk at the NFL Owners meeting and the buzz in Roger Goodell’s office for the last few years has been about the extension of the playoff schedule to include more teams. There really is no need to add more teams. Unfortunately, the current NFL scheduling system is wrong. The season is too long. The preseason is a joke and meaningless to teams and fans. The Super Bowl format is flawed. The Big game should be a “best of three” game series. Win two, don’t play the third, but this one and done does nothing to really determine who the season Champ was. All it does is tells us who the best team was on that day. That “Given Sunday”.
Football needs change of format
Football needs to ditch the one game Super Bowl format and embrace a series tournament like other professional sports. Every year, we all wonder a bit if the best team of the NFL season actually was the Super Bowl Champion or was it just one of those “Any Given Sundays”.
Any Given Sunday
This year Seattle won the Super Bowl doing what no other team in the league had been able to do, BLOW OUT the Denver Broncos 43-8. I believe this is a clear case of “Any Given Sunday”. Denver got steamrolled, no doubt and no argument. But I have also witnessed 18-2 bashings in baseball or 125-62 bruisings in the NBA from bottom division teams on teams that eventually went to win that year’s World Series. Anomalies happen in life. Every Dog has it’s day. Now before, Seattle’s 12th man flies to Las Vegas to torch my house and hang me in effigy, I am NOT saying Seattle is a bad team. I am NOT saying Seattle is the Dog who had it’s day. I didn’t say they don’t deserve the Lombardi trophy They damn sure did. They earned it. They were the best team on February 2nd 2014. What I am saying is that Denver is and was the better team in 2013. No team in NFL history put up the box scores week in and week out that Denver did. They were a scoring machine. Peyton Manning was on fire. It’s running game at times looked unstoppable. Every one of their receivers scored 10 TDs. Insane stats, every game all year long. And it doesn’t deflect any from the amazing job that Pete Carroll and the Hawks did to neutralize that offense and then drive a stake right into John Fox’s mending heart. but they did it ONE game. Not an entire season or even a series.
If I was Commissioner
My argument is this. The NFL wants more revenue. I get that and I am all for it. I love the NFL. I love what Pete Rozelle envisioned and I love the work Roger Goodell and the other commissioners have done to bring us this amazing product. The salary cap has made a more balanced league with the aim for league disparity and fairness across all markets. I love it and the salary cap adds another piece for the fans to snack on. The contract signings during the pre and post seasons. But this talk of bringing lower seeded teams into the playoff picture and giving them a chance to be crowned Super Bowl champs is a terrible idea. It’s already bad enough that a 8-7-1 team like Green Bay could make the playoffs after winning their division. What’s next, will we have 6-10 teams in the Super Bowl one day against 14-2 teams because they lucked out during a playoff game because of an “Immaculate reception” or a David Tyree “The Catch”. Will a bad referee call or two cause a last ranked team a chance at a Superbowl? Cause all that will do is create a Super Bowl Sunday mismatch that will not draw more fans, it will draw less fans if the anomaly doesn’t happen and the true result of a lopsided blowout occurs. A couple of years of “David vs Goliath” football in the Super Bowl with a transparent result where the favorite team destroys the underdog will only serve to distance fans from the big game. If not careful, The Super Bowl could follow Boxing when the result is obvious that fans tune out rather than tune in.
People hate change in general
I can hear the screams now. Oh no, someone wants to change an institution!! Get out the flamethrower and light it up, this guy is crazy. No, I’m not and neither is this conversation. It’s an archaic system. The NFL has evolved to 32 teams. When the Super Bowl was introduced in 1966 there were 15 teams. We have twice as many teams today and with talk of expanding the league to possibly Los Angeles, internationally to Canada and London, England, it could be growing. The last few years the NFL has talked about dropping the Pro Bowl, eliminating or shortening the pre-season, extending the regular season and expanding the amount of teams that make the playoffs. Everyone seems to be just looking past an obvious alternative.
Series format is the better mousetrap
Let’s join the other three major sports leagues in the format they have used for decades. The SERIES format. Let’s get rid of the preseason, let’s junk the last two games on the regular season calendar. That’s six games gone. Now we can substitute a series type format. We could have a three game Super Bowl. Best two out of three. They could have a double elimination set up for the playoffs. Just spitballing here. But let’s be honest. the Super Bowl doesn’t give us a real indication on who was the best team for the season. Again, as I said, it’s an indication on who was the best team on “Any Given Sunday”.
Is “one and done” the right format?
Think about all the fluke plays and bad calls that turned previous Super Bowls. Think about the Immaculate Reception, The Catch, The blackout during the Ravens-49ers game. The List goes on. Lots of events change the outcome of a game. What happens in this past years Super Bowl if the Center doesn’t launch the ball over Peyton Manning’s head into the end-zone for an opening play safety. That two possession difference at the start of the game, great field position for Seattle and a two point head start got that snowball rolling and it kept gaining speed and Denver didn’t have a chance to get out of it’s way. I know the argument that these events are what make football great. Well, if that was the case, then the other sports could go to a one and done format. No need for the Best of Series like they play now.
Life is about change
The NFL wants to expand and increase revenue. The NFL Players Union wants to keep the status quo so the injury rate doesn’t increase in proportion to the amount of games played. The fans hate the meaningless preseason, the games are terrible and more of a tool for teams to internally evaluate their talent. The fans hate the Pro Bowl, because players play at half speed because there is nothing but bragging rights for the winner. The NFL tried changing things up by using a fantasy system this year. Great idea I thought but the fun was in the picking of the teams in my opinion and the game again really didn’t matter to many fans and was second rate to the process. So, it’s time for a change in thinking.
Summary
Eliminate the pre-season, the teams can self-evaluate in training camp, no reason to broadcast meaningless games except for revenue. Eliminate games in weeks 15 and 16 since, most years, those games are the ones where most of the teams are not playing for anything and are already playing their second and third rate talent for next season evaluations and benching starters to prevent injury. Institute a 14 game regular season coupled with a double elimination series format for the playoffs. And finally a three game series for the Super Bowl. The nuts and bolts can be ironed out. But this conversation is long overdue.
More Hype and better contests
Imagine a team one game away from playoff elimination and the excitement and build up surrounding the next one. Imagine a Super Bowl, where both teams are tied up 1-1 going into the tie breaker game. Both teams now having two games under their belts against each other. Against studied opponents. Now that to me is exciting. Imagine the fun in one month of three big games played. Imagine the amount of betting. Imagine the advertisements. Imagine how happy the networks would be with the ratings of three Super Bowls. I can not think of one negative or reason why people would object except the same people who are afraid of anything in life changing. Wouldn’t there be a clearer case for who is the real season champion based on a series format?
Originally the Super Bowl was called The SuperGame. Let’s bring that definition to life by instituting the Series format for the most viewed sport in the world.
JibbJabber 