NFL playoff expansion? Please no....

[Deus Irae]

That's because the NFL knows that people like you who say "I'll lose more interest in the playoffs if they do this" are full of mularkey. You'll follow football just as much if they do it as you would if they don't.

My sports history has proven otherwise.

 

[Wolfpack]

My sports history has proven otherwise.

You've made roughly 34,000 posts to this forum over the past 7 years. So please don't tell us all how you could just let your interest in the sport diminish over something so tiny. Like I said, the NFL knows that the people like you who complain the loudest are the ones who aren't going anywhere.

 

[Raymond]

I am adamantly opposed to a 32 team playoff.

Let's simply agree all 32 teams make the playoffs now......

The playoffs start week one September.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Problem is Patsfans posters are not the target audience.
Wildcard week this January featured truly awful games unless you're a fan of the winning team. Those with no dog in the hunt were bored. Click!

But the target audience is the low information football viewer who will tune in to see the additional local favorites play.

 

[Zeus]

We all want a playoff system that rewards good performance during the regular season. Teams with 10 or more wins should generally be included in the playoffs while teams with 8 or less wins should be excluded.

It would be a pretty easy analysis to go back over the last ten years and see how various alternatives under consideration would have performed. Without doing the work, my guess is that we'd find that the current system performs pretty well.

The 2008 Patriots are the only 11 win team in recent memory to be excluded. There have been some 8-8 playoff teams but these have been division winners, an outcome that is unavoidable in the current format where division winners are guaranteed a spot. We're not seeing 8-8 or 7-9 wild card teams but would likely encounter this if the playoff field were to be expanded.

 

[Frezo]

You've made roughly 34,000 posts to this forum over the past 7 years. So please don't tell us all how you could just let your interest in the sport diminish over something so tiny. Like I said, the NFL knows that the people like you who complain the loudest are the ones who aren't going anywhere.

It doesn't matter if he and many others like him watch or not. We are not the NFL's cash cow. Think about the current KFC commercial where the dumb blonde, (no offense to blondes), says, "Chicken go boom." THAT'S the crowd they want to appeal to. The NFL sees losing us and adding the chicken go boom crowd as addition by subtraction. They want to ramp up fantasy football to generate interest in more teams and dumb down the sport to the point to where fans think a 3-4 is the alignment that comes after the 1-2.

I believe that announcers have been told to not complicate the game by referring to sets, schemes and alignments, but to instead concentrate on ball washing any player(s), mostly QBs, with a recognizable name. Remember Gruden's first two games when he was Mr. technical and how overnight he turned into Mr. ball washer? That wasn't his choice. It was the NFL's. During a game this year I heard Collinsworth say, "Not to get too technical...", when he made a statement about defensive alignment. It was the only one I recall him making all season. This has to be totally obvious to anybody here that watches football.

Player safety? Why do you think the NFL is all over it? It's because they can't have an 18 game season if too many players are on IR. They know darned well that if they throw a few more dollars at the players they'll accept an 18 game season and so will the chicken go boom crowd. Face it, hard core football fans are a dieing breed and the NFL couldn't care less.

 

[Deus Irae]

You've made roughly 34,000 posts to this forum over the past 7 years. So please don't tell us all how you could just let your interest in the sport diminish over something so tiny. Like I said, the NFL knows that the people like you who complain the loudest are the ones who aren't going anywhere.

You know nothing about me. You're wrong on this subject. In fact, you probably couldn't be more wrong if you tried to be. I'll leave it at that.

 

[edgeofepic]

I think the only thing the NFL should expand would be to bring back some type of springtime "NFL Farm League" like what they had in the 90s with the World League of American Football. But instead of putting it in Europe they should just have 4-8 cities throughout the US in 2nd tier cities (for example, maybe a team in Hartford, CT.)

The league would play a 6-8 game regular season then a couple weeks for playoffs and finally a championship game in week 11. Each NFL team would be allowed (and required) to play 10 players in the league. These can be draft picks, rookie free agents, players with under 2 years of NFL experience, etc. Heck, they could even be old guys trying to make a comeback.

I think NFL fans would support it, especially if ticket prices were family friendly. Teams would have their own uniforms but wear the helmet of the NFL team they represent (think: Pro Bowl).

Having more experienced players will enhance the game, offer teams more depth to compensate for injuries, etc. Moreover NFL fans would have at least some type of football to look forward to rather than the emotional black hole we all experience after the SB ends.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

even if they had a 32 team playoff..i would still be at every pats game i could go to and buy all the gear...but please don't ruin the playoff system NFL

 

[mgteich]

How many low information patriot fans would tune in if we were a wildcard team?

But the target audience is the low information football viewer who will tune in to see the additional local favorites play.

 

[Joker]

Since Goodell has been ushered in to voice the wishes of the owners, we have witnessed the near obliteration of NFL football as played for more than 5 decades...I admit I'm a die hard fan of the product still...but I'm getting very suspicious that the entire demographic is being played for sukkers by the greed of this Fraternity of 32.

I STILL have not read nor heard ANY valid reason WHY that particular ref crew, headed by THAT ref, was given an AFC Championship game. I know of no business whereupon the performance of an individual was so reprehensible that that employee issued a public apology and THEN that very same employee was sanctioned to perform the same duties at a later date. If the NFL is an above board operation, how does THIS man get that game? It makes no sense from a strictly business point of view.

If however, we are being sukkered and this thing called the NFL is nothing more now than a step below the WWE, then it all becomes clear. Then the unbelievably anal retentive "discipline" decisions by Goodell since 2006 aimed at disabling, damaging and denigrating in the press those NFL teams whose success rate falls outside of the NFL's own "parity!!" declarations begin to make sense...and as one sees the sweeping under the carpet of the vile, totally disgusting, degenerate behavior that vomits forth like a broken sewer pipe from a team situated in the biggest market in the country, it starts to become clear. These "matchups" have become nothing more than closed door marketing decisions built on demographic data. The target audience is all that matters now...NOT the game. Not the integrity of the league. It's just become one huge treasure bath for the 32 Caesars who rule the world of football.

20 years ago, if I was going to wager on this game tomorrow I'd bet SF big...by at least ten points. Tomorrow I think the game will be close with all kinds of dramatic "plays" in the 4th quarter. Last week I would have guessed Ravens, but the public outrage that has arisen over Lewis and his history, I think, has moved the Goodell Cabal to make it 9er's...by three....and Lewis will fall toi his knees and praise God....by this summer he will be primetime of NFL Today on ESPN...everybody wins.