Bleacher Report - Articles by John Newman

How Should NFL Playoffs Be Seeded?

John Newman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:18:23 -0400

There's been some discussion in various quarters lately about the fairness of NFL playoff seedings—in large part because an 11-5 Patriot team did not make the playoffs last year and an 12-4 Colt team had to travel to San Diego to play an 8-8 Charger team last year.

Currently, the division winners in each conference get the top four seeds, ordered by overall record, with tiebreakers if necessary. This guarantees each division winner at least one home playoff game.

The two remaining seeds in each conference are the two non-division winners with the best overall records. This can lead to a team with a better overall record than a division winner not making the playoffs—as in the case of the Patriots last year—and also lead to a team with a better overall record playing at a division winner's home stadium—as in the case of the Colts having to travel to San Diego last year.

Is this fair? Or should the division winners and the top two remaining teams be seeded by overall record? Or should we just ignore division winners and grab the top six teams in each conference by overall record alone and seed them accordingly?

Let's think about this for a second. If we're not going to assign any value to winning a division, why have them? There's no point to have divisions if winning one is meaningless, right?

So what would life be like in an NFL without divisions?

First of all, without divisions, why have division games? To be fair you'd have to rework the schedule somehow. Currently the 16 game schedule is split into 12 games against conference foes, and four games against teams from the other conference. You could maintain that split, I suppose, but instead of basing it on division, base it on some other parameter.

The NFL is big on parity, you could make the schedules based on the way teams finished in the conference the previous season. The NFC Champion would play the top 4 teams in the AFC and the second through 13th finishers in the NFC, for example, and all the other teams would be seeded going into the season based on where they finished the previous season.

Or you could just do some kind of random schedule, or a schedule that rotates over 16 years or something else.

But you'd no longer have those yearly home and away wars against your division rivals.

Why not? Because it's not fair for Minnesota Green Bay and Chicago to get to play Detroit twice every year, while Dallas doesn't get a break going against the Giants, Skins and Eagles twice every year. At least that's what Cowboy fans would be thinking. And they'd have a valid point, as long as Detroit totally sucks anyway.

And if you lose those rivalry games (Cowboys/Eagles, 49ers/Rams, Packers/Bears, Steelers/Ravens, Titans/Colts, Chiefs/Raiders, etc), you lose a lot of what makes the NFL so fun.

For years the Saints and Falcons were the sad sacks of the league, but the rivalry between those two teams in the two games they play each year, has always been as fun and intense as any in the league, even when both teams sucked.

The year Dallas went 1-15, their one win came against the hated Redskins. The year the Redskins won the Super Bowl in a strike shortened 1982 season, their one loss came against the despised Cowboys. Packers/Bears is the oldest rivalry in the league, Packers/Vikings has been full of strange doings. Broncos/Raiders involves owners, coaches, players, cheerleaders, waterboys and catering staff.

These rivalries, in large part, have made the league what it is today.

You just can't get rid of them.

And by the same token, you have to reward teams that win their division, because that makes winning the division important, and keeping that important is key to maintaining those rivalries.

And to the 11-5 playoff-less Patriots, and the road traveling 12-4 Colts, all I have to say to them is: Tough, stop bellyaching and win your damn division next time.

The Big East Looms Over The Sweet Sixteen

John Newman — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:55:32 -0400

March Madness is upon us and to few people's surprise the Big East is dominating. The 16-team behemoth of a conference sent seven of its members to the NCAA tournament—three of them No. 1 seeds—and has gone 11-2 in the first round with Pitt, Louisville, UConn, Villanova, and Syracuse making it to the Sweet Sixteen.

By contrast, the ACC and Big Ten, both of which were also given seven slots in the tourney, haven't fared as well.

The ACC has two teams in the Sweet Sixteen with North Carolina and Duke advancing, but had four first-round losers in Clemson, Boston College, Wake Forest and Florida State. Maryland lost in the second round.

The Big Ten also has two teams advancing with Purdue and Michigan State surviving to play another day, but first-round losers were Ohio State, Illinois, and Minnesota. Wisconsin and Michigan fell in the second round.

There wasn't much argument that the Big East was the best conference in the country going into March, but did the selection committee really think that the ACC and Big Ten were as deserving of seven invitations to the dance as the Big East?

Seven first-round losers between the two pretty much put that notion to rest.

Maybe it would have been better to give another slot to the Big 12, which has three teams, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma in the Sweet Sixteen and went 7-3 over the first two rounds.

And all of the six Pac-10 teams minus Cal won their first-round games—which is what you would expect of a major conference. Arizona State, UCLA, USC and Washington succumbed in the second round leaving only Arizona to advance.

As bad as the Big Ten and ACC performances over the first two rounds have been, at least they had teams that were thought highly enough of to get in. The SEC only sent three teams, two of them, Mississippi State and Tennessee were shown the door in the first round, and LSU was sent packing in the second in the most disappointing showing of any major conference in the tournament.

The howls of outrage from the Mountain West have faded away to whimpers after their only two teams invited to the dance were both bounced out in the first round.

But still you have to wonder, is having a super conference like the Big East really good for college basketball? Is it possible that the ACC and Big Ten were over-represented this year because no one wanted to admit those traditional powerhouse conferences were outclassed by the Big East this year?

Is it really necessary to have 16 teams in one conference? You can't even schedule everyone to play the same teams twice, not if you want to have a tournament and a few non-conference games.

And wouldn't it be better for both Memphis and basketball in general if Louisville was still in Conference USA? The same argument could be made for other teams in the Big East.

A conference like the Big East has the real potential to suck the oxygen out of the room for every other conference in the country. The Big East's performance in this year's tournament is only going to accelerate the flow of money to the Big East to the detriment of everyone else.

That's not a good thing.

Break up the Big East.

Dolphins Disaster: Miami, Cam Cameron Doomed by Draft History

John Newman — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:20:20 -0500

Bill Parcells made his most important move immediately upon taking over in Miami—firing GM Randy Mueller and bringing in a competent personnel guy in Jeff Ireland.

This week, the inevitable happened when coach Cam Cameron lost his job. Being associated with a 1-15 disaster was too much for the first-year head man to overcome.

But the root of the Dolphin's problems this year wasn't Cameron—it was a history of atrocious personnel decisions, especially on draft day.

In the last five years, the Dolphins have had 37 draft picks, and while nine of the players selected occupied starting roles this year, that's misleading.

In truth, the only player the Dolphins have drafted in the last five years who could start for most teams in the league is Ronnie Brown.

Ted Ginn, the No. 9 overall pick in 2007, started all season but hardly set the NFL on fire, finishing with 34 catches. Ginn isn't the kind of player who will ever be a No. 1 receiver in the pros.

Three other starters are no more than run-of-the-mill offensive linemen: Vernon Carey, Samson Satele, and Rex Hadnot.

Three more start on defense: Channing Crowder at linebacker, Jason Allen at free safety and Matt Roth at defensive end. None would start for a solid NFL team.

Little-used fullback Reagen Mauai is a starter in name only. Brandon Fields, finally, is a punter.

Other recent draft picks still on the roster include John Beck, a project at QB; Lorenzo Booker, a rookie RB who had only 28 carries for a team in desperate need of a running back; Paul Solaia, a DT with benchwarmer written all over him; and perennial backups DB Travis Daniela, T Anthony Alabi, LB Derick Pope, and WR Derek Hagan.

This is hardly an inspiring group of young talent around which to build a team.

In today's NFL, the draft is key to success. In five years of drafting, you need to get at least a couple of Pro Bowl-type players. The Dolphins got none.

You should also get at least 10 solid starters in those five years. The Dolphins at most got five.

And you need to get role players out of the late rounds—players who stick around and compete to make the team better, and can fill roles on special teams.

Amazingly, of the Dolphins' 37 draft picks in the last five years, seven never even made it onto a regular-season roster anywhere in the league, nine are completely out of football, and six are on other teams.

My point?

The seeds of this disaster were sown long ago. Cam Cameron was doomed from the day he was hired.

And the Tuna has his work cut out for him.