Let me fulfill your fantasy (football)

[CortJstr]

Ho ho, I must disagree with you here, though.  The college overtime system is brutal and sometime ponderous, but one thing you cannot knock it for is fairness.  That game is going to be settled on the field if it kills us all.  The pro system drives me nuts; I think at a minimum each team should be guaranteed one possession. 

This is how it worked in high school and I never understood why they don't scale it up. One possession each followed by sudden-death if necessary.

[littlefallsmets]

I mean, even just an eight-team playoff. Any more than three rounds and you're probably radically altering season-length, any less and you're still gonna deal with the occasional year a legit team doesn't get into the mix.

None of "the four big bowls" get screwed, you rotate a championship into one every four years, the semi-finals into two and whoever had the championship last year gets one of the quarter finals the last year and then...

Three other bowls get quarter-finals? Make up new ones if you want or... take the three most tradition laden second-tier bowls if you like? Like... I dunno... the Cotton and the Peach and the Gator Bowl? Whatever you like.

Then, not ONLY do those seven bowls all gain varying degrees of "significance" but... every other bowl is suddenly a bit more viable because they're all pretty much on equal footing as opposed to, like, twenty-eight bowls that mean NOTHING, two that kinda sorta mean a little and one that SHOULD mean everything but doesn't.

Unless you have a more-than-two-team playoff, you've got the worst of both worlds... you've not ONLY lost the old ways of "a lot of bowls potentially matter because the system of bowl match-ups is so goddamn byzantine" but you're also still lacking an actual unified championship like in any other sport.

So, today, the championship game can still be undermined by one or two other "BCS" bowls making the number 3 or 4 team look so good...  or by making an undefeated mid-major team look good by giving them one tantilizing high-profile win at the end of the year... that the "BCS Championship" is functionally meaningless.

I mean, you could even still throw the major conferences a bone insofar as the top eight tournament would be... like... the conference champions from conferences with championship games and then fill it out with the highest ranked teams after that or... all the major conference champions and then fill it out with the highest ranked teams after that or... all the major conference champions and all otherwise undefeated teams and then the highest ranked or...

There's a lot of ways to do it, clearly.

At ANY rate, there'd still be arguements, of course, but at least at that point, you're almost assured that you're not going to go into a championship playoff without the very best three or four teams all in the running and... that's what really matters.

People wanna argue over whether Such and Such U is #8 or #9 in the country, it'll still happen but... it'll harm the legitimacy of a championship volumes less than whether one of the best two or three teams is left out of the equation.

It'd be one of those "healthy debates" as opposed to a bad one.

This is why I love the long haul of the baseball season... you've got 162 games to sift out the good and the bad and... why there should really only be the LCSes and the WS in baseball. The weekly nature of football demands a lengthy playoff system and... the enormity of college basketball does as well.

But you've got 30 teams, you've got 162 games, most questions should be answered.

In basketball or hockey, they've got 82 games, that's more than enough, too.

[Nabubrush]

The college overtime system is brutal and sometime ponderous, but one thing you cannot knock it for is fairness.  That game is going to be settled on the field if it kills us all.

You know the law: Two teams enter, one team leaves.

[robot_god]

Before these NFL playoffs start in a few minutes, I'd like to take this time to present the award for the Touamb Pick 'Em Championship to The Mayor, Mr. Carlos Delvaca.

There was one week where I forgot to finalize my picks, and after that I stopped picking, but even if picks continued, he likely would have won.  Congrats.




In other news, my preseason Superbowl pick was a Manning Bowl, and I still stand by it.  However, I went through the games one by one and decided the most likely outcome will be Ravens vs. Seahawks.

[Lister]

I favor a variation of the NFL OT system.  Basically, sudden death once both teams have had a possession.  None of this short field crap.  Play football on the whole field.

On another note, Indy's offense is freaking scaring me in this first quarter.  They're not getting past New England or Baltimore, but wow are they moving the ball well.

[Nabubrush]

Ravens vs. Seahawks.

I refuse to take such a pessimistic view of life.

Bolts v. Saints - it just feels right.

[KeithHernandez]

Fuck Manning.  Fuck the Chiefs.  Go Anyone who is not Dallas, KC, NJG, or INDY.

[KeithHernandez]

Awesome.  Great game!!

[Carlos del Vaca]

I'm picking Eagles-Ravens in the Sooper Bowl (aka Carl's Alternate Birthday).  Yay bird teams!

[Nabubrush]

Good luck with the job search, Marty.

[Sub_Topical]

DITTO'D

The one game I make time to soaker up and it turns into dumb-ass penalties, ball security errors and WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK THE PATS WERE GOING TO SHOOT FOR GOING INTO THE HALF YOU GRIZZLED INCOHERANT BASTARDOS!

Great fuck*ng season right in the crapper.

I guess I'd like to see an Indy - NO super bowl now. At least it'd be an exciting offensive game.

Pats - Bears...boo to that ass.