From: rege@bongo.Berkeley.EDU (Ashutosh G. Rege)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: Re: Wild cards
Date: 15 Oct 1992 23:21:49 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: bongo.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Oct15.222932.23723@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
 >ar> Ashutosh G. Rege
 >gs> Gary Strand
 >
 >gs> Anyway, until someone can come up with a system where teams are divided in
 >    such a way so that their relative position can be measured by a method 
 >    that's better than the NFL's divisional and common-opponent formulae, I 
 >    suggest we quit the whining.
 >
 >ar> Your counter-whining aside, the argument is not that the Falcons didn't
 >    deserve to be in the playoffs, it was that the 8-8 Jets and the 9-7 Rai-
 >    ders (or was it the Chiefs ?) didn't. The Eagles and Niners should have
 >    replaced both these teams, it certainly would have made for a better cal-
 >    iber of game.
  
 >  How do you know? Besides, that would slant the playoff teams too heavily
 >  toward the NFC. Whom would the Eagles and 49ers played? The AFC would have
 >  been left with only Denver, Houston, Buffalo and Kansas City, the NFC would
 >  have had Washington, Dallas, Philly, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta,
 >  *and* San Francisco. What would the matchups have been?

    You're slightly incorrect (as was I in my earlier post) : 
      the Eagles unfortunately wouldn't have made it since the Niners 
      beat them head-to-head. My scheme allows for a maximum of 5-7 
      imbalance which is not all that bad. Its not perfect, but better
      than letting 8-8 teams into the playoffs.

    As for the matchups, they're simple : if the teams split evenly
    between the conferences, the arrangement remains the same. If
    not, then one of the two floating wildcards is treated as part
    of the other conference, using some tie-breaking scheme (which
    shouldn't be hard to come up with) else use a coin-toss.
  
 >ar> Now, as for a better system, it is simple:
 >    Have 2 wildcards for each conference instead of the present 3 and have two
 >    "floating" wildcards for the best teams of the remainder in the league.
 >    These will be determined by criteria similar to those used presently (i.e
 >    record, head-to-head ,common opponents etc.).
  
 >  What's the point of having conferences and divisions if their "boundaries"
 >  don't mean anything in the end? Two random teams may not have even played
 >  each other, in which case you're really stretching for a comparison. The
 >  current system isn't perfect, but it's better than indirect methods of
 >  determining which team is better. We know that transivity doesn't apply in
 >  the NFL, and your system (at one point or another) would rely on it.

 >Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are

   Unlike baseball, football allows for inter-conference games, so 
   there is a definite basis for comparison. The 'boundaries' are 
   less meaningful than in baseball for that same reason. 

   Incidentally, I don't see what you mean by "the cuurent system
   is better than indirect methods". As the system stands presently,
   it is _indirect_ methods which are being used. E.g. is
   a 10-6 NFC Central team better than a 9-7 NFC East team ? I'm sure
   many NFC East fans would beg to differ. And when it comes to tie-breaks,
   if the two teams haven't played each other, then it IS indirect
   comparison in the tie-breaking criteria. (Two random teams from
   the same conference may also not have played each other. In fact, 
   for a 5 team division, 8 games are played against their division
   opponents, 4 are typically played against some non-conference
   division, and 4 against some conference teams.)

   Your transitivity remark is even stranger because I'm not proposing
   anything in my selection criteria that the NFL doesn't use already
   (i.e. record, head-to-head, common opponents and so on). 

   Ashu Rege