2011 NFC West: Another Division Champion Without a Winning Record

Call it bad timing, call it a bad division, call it another excuse to bring up the bad idea of playoff re-seeding...but I am calling it right now.  The winner of the NFC West won't have more than eight wins.

At different times over the last nine years, bad timing has hit several divisions.  The AFC West was won by the San Diego Chargers with a .500 record in 2008.  The New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons both had losing records a few seasons ago, and their division has had a revolving door at the top spot.

The law of averages finally caught up with the NFL following the 2002 realignment.  Having four teams in each division does create some great rivalries and makes the playoff structure cleaner for six teams.

There is also a downside to small divisions, and having a team with a losing record was bound to happen at some point.  

16 teams had losing records in 2010, up from 12 the prior year.  Over the last 10 years, though, the NFL has averaged 14 teams with a losing record per season.  Extrapolating that figure, the odds of having four teams with a losing record is only about four percent.  While that seems too small to be realistic, it does mean that once every 28 years the NFL should expect to see a team win a division with a losing record.  

On the flip side, the NFC West has fared well in the playoffs, representing the NFC in three of the last 10 Super Bowls.

Rebuilding

It isn't pretty in the NFC West right now, as all four teams are in a rebuilding mode.  They may be at different stages, but 2010 wasn’t the first time a division had a winner by default.   

The San Francisco 49ers are almost in Year 10 of their rebuilding project, and might have finally found part of the answer with head coach Jim Harbaugh.  But college coaches have not fared well in the NFL, causing many 49er fans to be cautiously optimistic.

The St. Louis Rams have been rebuilding since 2005, and appear to be ahead of the rest of the division.  They have a franchise QB and no major holes to fill...the WR position could use some help, but once Donnie Avery is back and Mark Clayton re-signs with the team they will have decent talent at the position.  They still have some work to do, but they should win eight games this year.

The Arizona Cardinals lost too many pieces of their Super Bowl team too fast.  They have a lot of work to do on defense and at the QB position, not to mention needing to find a way to convince Larry Fitzgerald to stay in the desert.  They could be back in 2012, or headed down the path they've been on most of their franchise lives.

Then there are the Seattle Seahawks.  The problem with Seattle is they've been rebuilding since 2006...but the rest of the division was so bad in '06 and '07 that it wasn't clear to their former GM, Tim Ruskell.  He led one bad draft after another (who else thought Chris Spencer would be a better pro than Logan Mankins, or that Josh Wilson filled a bigger need than Ryan Kalil).  This led to a lack of talent across the board.

I won't spend time rehashing how they lost Pro Bowl Guard Steve Hutchinson to the Minnesota Vikings, or let Pro Bowl FB Leonard Weaver walk because Jim Mora and Greg Knapp didn't feel they needed talent at the position. 

Seattle was able to field a very good team at times last year, thanks to over 285 roster moves in Pete Carroll's first 12 months.  But the team had virtually no depth, and the loss of Red Bryant seriously undermined their defense.  Add in losing Colin Cole and Brandon Mebane for periods of time, and Lofa Tatupu and Marcus Trufant struggling through injuries all season, and it isn’t hard to see how they ended up with seven wins.

They may have won the division by default, but come playoff time they had many of their players back and healthy.  Their reserves also had time to get familiar with the new system, making them a much better team than what was reflected by their record.

Schedule

The schedule rotation couldn’t be less friendly to the NFC West in 2011.  They face off against the AFC North and NFC East, which creates two big issues for the division. 

Both of those divisions feature strong opponents; at least six of the eight will be competing for the playoffs.  Depending on the draft and free agency, all eight could be quality opponents.  This will add stress to the prevailing talent issues facing the NFC West teams.  

The other problem facing at least three NFC West teams is travel and early games.  The NFL has made strides to ensure that east coast teams won’t travel to the west coast more than twice per season.  However, statistics show that it is difficult for west coast teams to travel east and play morning games.

At this point there has been absolutely no traction with Roger Goodell to have west coast teams play the afternoon game.  He has stated there isn't significant evidence of an early start adversely impacting west coast teams.  I’ll provide more information on this in another article, but it does exist. 

The NFL could adjust the start times with relative ease.  In Week 2, for example, Seattle is at the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first time slot (10:00 AM PT).  Meanwhile, the late games (1:15 PT) feature the Houston Texans playing against the Miami Dolphins, the Chargers versus the New England Patriots, and the Cincinnati Bengals at the Denver Broncos. 

At least the NFL got it right with San Diego…but would it be that difficult to move the Miami or Denver game to the early time slot?  CBS has two other games to choose from for their late broadcast.

Seattle has five early games, with the 49ers playing four this season.  The Cardinals, who spend half of the year in the Pacific Time Zone, have them both beat.  They are scheduled to play six games in the early time slot.  The Rams don't count unless they end up moving back to LA (sorry, St. Louis...I don't want that change any more than you do.

Re-Seeding is an Overreaction

The NFL has been set up to achieve parity, which is a good thing...lest we have a situation like Major League Baseball where money commands wins.  Fans should buy pennants, not teams.

Granted, seeding the playoffs based on overall records might keep a team with a losing record out of the playoffs at some point in the future, but it eliminates the value of divisions and undermines rivalries.  It also fails to address that some divisions have harder schedules than others. 

Last season, the NFC South had three teams competing for the playoffs.  In large part, their records were artificially inflated thanks to playing the weak NFC West.  Yes, they also faced the AFC North, but two of those teams were not competitive last season.

Changing the seeding to strictly the best record likely would have led to New Orleans gaining the No. 2 seed and a first round bye.  While the Saints fans would have much preferred that to losing to the “worst playoff team ever,” would that have been equitable? 

Not at all…the Chicago Bears played a tougher schedule and earned the second seed by winning their division.  So while re-seeding might have allowed a division's third place team into the playoffs over Seattle, it would have been most unfair to the Bears.

Every major sport guarantees the division winners make the playoffs.  The idea of a playoff is to find the best overall team and crown it champion (take note, BCS), not to ensure that the eighth-best team in the conference makes the postseason.

Practicing the idea of first do no harm, the NFL will survive despite another team without a winning record hosting a playoff game.  But look out in 2012…the NFC West will be back and making a push for the Super Bowl.