From: gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: Re: Wild cards
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:29:32 GMT

ar> Ashutosh G. Rege
gs> Gary Strand

gs> Sorry, but SF loses because with SF and Atlanta both at 10-6, but SF losing
    *both* games to Atlanta, that's reasonably fair. Why should one 10-6 team
    who beat another 10-6 team *twice*, in the *same division*, have to miss 
    the playoffs? I recall some 49er fans whining to an incredible degree last
    season because Atlanta won the 17-14 Atlanta game with a "Hail Mary". 
    Folks, that's the breaks.

ar> Its unfortunate that the level of argument is so mediocre in this group 
    that even a rational, well-thought-out analysis is met with cries of 
    "whiner" or ad hominem attacks or cliches. 

  If you read what I wrote, carefully this time, you note that I didn't say
  either John or Calvin were whining. Rather, I pointed out that last season
  had more than its share of whining from 49er fans, on top of what they did
  in 1990 after SF lost the NFC Championship game. I recall a rather lengthy
  and flamethrowing thread in which some (small) number of 49er fans said that
  SF should go to the playoffs over Atlanta since 1 lucky TD pass at the very
  end of a game shouldn't count that much, and because they finished the sea-
  son with 6 strong wins. Sorry, still doesn't persuade.

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?

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
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro