Play To Win the Game?: How the NFL Can Learn from English Soccer

Well, the talking heads have talked and talked about the Colts pulling Peyton Manning and most of their starters last week and gifting the Jets a win that kept them alive in the playoff race.

The Jets may receive the gift that keeps on giving this week as well. The Jets will wrap up the NFL regular season as their game with the Bengals has been moved to the Sunday Night game this week.

The Bengals may be in a position to play for nothing Sunday night. If the Patriots win their game at 1 p.m. vs. Houston, the Bengals will be locked into the No. 4 seed and will have nothing to play for. Even if the Patriots lose, the Bengals will know who the No. 5 and No. 6 seed are in each scenario and can basically choose their opponent. 

If the Bengals take the night off in either case, the Jets will just need to beat the Bengal JV squad to advance to the playoffs.

Is it fair that the Bengals and Jets have a bit more insight into their playoff destinies because NBC declared it so?  Not in my opinion.  If you are into conspiracy theories, you could say the NFL had a hand in this to get one of the NYC market teams into the playoffs to help ratings.

NBC could have easily have chosen the Dallas-Philadelphia game which has the division title on the line, so both teams would have the incentive to win the game.

The fairest thing for the NFL to do is to take a cue from the English Premier League or the group stages of the World Cup. On the final match day of the league or group, all matches start at the same time. 

Despite a lackluster finish at the top of the table (with the champion already decided) four teams entered the final two hours of the season not knowing if they would face relegation to the second tier of English soccer, the Coca-Cola Championship.

Hull City, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Newcastle United all watched the scoreboards while playing their final match of the season to figure out if they needed a win, draw, or could still survive relegation with a loss.

If Hull City knew prior to kick off that Middlesbrough and Newcastle had already lost and that they were safe, the drama and meaning of the match would have been sucked out completely.

So in Week 17, all 16 games start at the same time. The game time would have to be after 3 p.m. Eastern, at least to accommodate the West Coast, but I'm sure the pregame shows would love an extra hour or two to discuss every playoff scenario and to hype for hype's sake.

Television would probably have some objections at first, but if the NFL became a tad more liberal in their rules, it could be worked out. Each network (CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC/ESPN) would be allowed to show two games, one on a network feed, one on a cable affiliate (FOX and FSN or FX, NBC and USA or MSNBC, ABC and ESPN, CBS and Spike). 

NFL Network would also take one game, so nine of the 16 games would be on the air nationally. The Chicago/Detroit and San Francisco/St. Louis games of the world could still be shown in local markets.

The up-to-the-minute drama would be crazy.  Imagine the playoff bracket in the AFC changing everytime a touchdown was scored this week. Red Zone Channel might explode trying to keep up with all the action.

If the NFL and TV insisted on keeping 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. kickoffs, at least hold off on announcing the game times until Week 16 is complete. That way, the 1 p.m. kickoffs could all be games with little to no meaning (like the appetizer before the main course). 

The 4 p.m. games would be all the games with playoff implications. There should be no Sunday Night Football in the last week, just like there is no Monday Night Football.

Hopefully everything will play out right and there will still be some drama in the 2009 regular season come 7 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday. But if there isn't, don't say it couldn't be helped. Because there is clearly a way it can.