Could This Be What Goodell Really Wants? Part II - The Quickening

So what would a 16-team playoff system have looked like this year?

In the NFC:

New York (8) at Atlanta (1): Rematch of 34-0 Atlanta rout three weeks earlier. Oh boy!

Chicago (7) at San Francisco (2): Bears didn't deserve it after going 3-5 to finish.

Minnesota (6) at Green Bay (3): Vikes deserved a shot the way they played down the stretch.

Seattle (5) at Washington (4): Most compelling game of the weekend. Good theater.

And in the AFC:

San Diego (8) at Denver (1): No one in America wanted the 7-9 Chargers playing in January.

Pittsburgh (7) at New England (2): Steelers 8-8. Good TV ratings, bad for the game.

Cincinnati (6) at Houston (3): We want more playoff teams after seeing Cincy the last two years?

Indianapolis (5) at Baltimore (4): Good, marquee Luck-Lewis duel.

TV question: How would you play eight playoff games in one weekend? Or would you? One league source told me a couple of weeks ago there's a chance an eight-game first round would be spread over two weekends, if it ever happens. Or maybe three per day on Saturday and Sunday, with two of the games pushed to Monday night, a la the first weekend of the season on ESPN.

It's all extremely speculative, of course. It's also an extremely bad idea.

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lamafist said:

Again, that's fine for your personal conception of natural law. It's just not actually the law of the land, and the history of mining safety is a perfect illustration of that. No industry has had to continuously do (and spend) more to improve the level of occupational health and safety it offers its workforce.

(And the military is an entirely different thing altogether. I'm pretty sure it would never be legal for the NFL or any mining operation to draft you into its service.)

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Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

It's 100% clear we do not need to expand either the length of the season or the number of teams making the playoffs.

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Prefect said:

Peter King pointed out what the 16 team playoff would look like:

The extra two teams that would have gotten in there this year certainly wouldn't have been worth it.

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lamafist said:

I'm pretty sure it would never be legal for the NFL to draft you into its service.

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ATippett56 said:

The NFL abolished the draft?

Shut down the Draft Forum!

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mayoclinic said:

Back when the replacement ref saga was at it's height, I posted the following thread:

Could This Be What Goodell Really Wants?

It was part tongue-in cheek, but clearly the NFL was willing to sacrifice game quality and possibly player safety for a power struggle with the refs and revenue.

Now we've finished Wild Card weekend, with the 16 game season having drawn to an agoniing but exciting close in which we've seen some of the following:

- The Ravens nearly collapse due to injuries, but pull themselves together and make the final 8
- Minnesota thrillingly upset Green Bay to make the playoffs with Adrian Peterson almost breaking Eric ****erson's rushing record, only to go out with a whimper against the same Green Bay team a week later with a backup QB starting
- Robert Griffen III lead Washington past Dallas into the playoffs, while clearly not at full strength, and then collapse injured against Seattle the following week playing on a gimpy leg, with what looks like a serious leg injury.
- 3 very boring playoff games featuring at least 3 teams that didn't look particularly playoff-worthy

Meanwhile the Commish continues to foster grandiose ideas of further expanding the season and further expanding the pool of playoff times, thus increasing the attrition that occurs during the regular season and/or diluting the quality of playoff games, all the while increasing the likelihood of injuries. All because it adds games and increases revenues, while keeping costs relatively flat.

The NFL season has already become as much about who is the most adept at band-aiding their roster together as who is the most adept at building a roster in the first place.

Would playing 2 more games really have added anything to the NFL season other than to utterly beat the crap out of teams that are already pulverized? Would adding 2 or more teams to the playoffs add any quality games, and do anything other than continuing to wear down teams that are already exhausted?

Do the Commisioner and owners really give a damn about player safety unless it costs them revenue?

Feeling kind of cynical today.

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Patsrock said:

I think people always forget this when it comes to adding games, playoff teams etc. That Goodell just can't do it, he needs 24 owners to approve changes.

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mayoclinic said:

Do the Commisioner and owners really give a damn about player safety unless it costs them revenue?

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lamafist said:

Anyway, even without getting into the players' best interests, I think it's pretty clear that expanding either the regular season or playoffs would be bad for the NFL's product.

At present, I think the NFL has a pretty good balance between having a long enough season to be a satisfying investment of our attention, while not being so long that too many playoff contenders enter as shells of the teams they were when they earned their post-season berth.

A team's injury luck is already a big factor in their chance for success. Adding more games and more postseason teams just makes is more likely that an entirely mediocre team will make the playoffs and end up going to the super bowl just because they happen to have stayed the healthiest.

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Cassanova792 said:

I don't get why everyone is so against expansion. I for one am totally for it. Stop acting like you guys have any sort of personal relationship with any of these NFL players. They are not your kids, they are not your family, they are not even your friends, they are just athletes we watch on TV and get paid millions of dollars to play a sport they love. Yes it sucks it will increase the chances of injury, but teams can and will adapt to it, further emphasizing the need for team depth.

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mayoclinic said:

Who said anything about treating the players like friends?

My concern is for the game of football. It's hard enough to get quality teams on the field in the second half of an NFL season. Between the salary cap and the roster limit and the injury rules, there have been games where we've been pushed to the max in terms of our secondary, or worse, our offensive line. That puts guys like Brady at risk, which puts out team and our legacy at risk. You want to see Brady go down with another knee injury and retire because we have to put some scrub OL in because we're scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to squeeze another game or 2 in? I don't. And while the players will be all too willing to throw their bodies in the line of fire now, at some point there will be lawsuits, just like there are now from former players who were all too willing to throw their bodies around, jeapardizing the future of the game.

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mayoclinic said:

Some of the things that came to mind in resuscitating this thread topic:

1. The grind of the NFL season takes an enormous toll on players and teams. Guys are so big and the game is so brutal, it just seems like teams are hard pressed to sometimes field a lineup by the end of the season. We've seen before that the teams that are successful are the ones that are resourceful in dealing with injuries, or the ones that are lucky in avoiding them. It makes for unpredictability - which the NFL seems to like - but it deteriorates the quality of play. Adding more games, whether in the regular season or in the playoff, would only further add to the problem and dilute the quality of the product.

2. We've seen players throw themselves in the line of fire and risk injury, and get treated like heroes in the media for it, but at what cost? Sure, they're well paid, but NFL careers are short, and some of these guys are risking their careers by rushing back. Robert Griffin has already had 2 ACL injuries now. How many more will he have, and how many will it take before he's a shadow of the player he is now? And who's going to give a damn about him when he can't do the things he does now? Anyone want to bet that he's going to be walking around much at age 60? More games is just going to cause more attrution and more injuries.

3. The NFL already has trouble fielding 12 playoff-quality teams, and that's not just this year. There's usually 1 or 2 runts in every playoff litter, and while there is an occasional upset (Arizona making it to the Super Bowl, or even Denver upsetting Pittsburgh), blowouts are more common. The performances by Cincinnati and Minnesota were fairly embarrassing. Indy wasn't a whole lot better. Boring games. Not a product to be particularly proud of.

Meanwhile the salary cap stays flat, and is projected to stay flat even when TV revenues go up in 2014. The NFL wants to expand into Europe, expand the schedule, expand the playoffs, expand, expand, expand. But the quality just can't handle it.

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Cassanova792 said:

I don't get why everyone is so against expansion. I for one am totally for it. Stop acting like you guys have any sort of personal relationship with any of these NFL players...

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