10 Reasons the NFL Playoffs Are Way Better Than CFB Bowl Season

Did you know that the College Football Bowl season already began with last week's barn-burner between Wyoming and Temple? I didn't think so.

Sure, there are always plenty of great games in this seemingly endless list of bowls, and they don't always have to be BCS bowls or the National Championship Game. One of the greatest football games I ever saw was the 2001 GMAC Bowl between Byron Leftwich's Marshall Thundering Herd and the ECU Pirates. 

Still, the college bowl season can't hold a candle to the NFL Playoffs. 

Here are 10 reasons why. 

No. 10: No Playoff Layoff

The NFL season is longer and far more grueling than the college football season. And maybe it should be that way since they are professionals and college teams feature "student athletes." 

But for eight of the 12 NFL playoff clubs, there is no hiatus between regular and post season. Even the four clubs that earn first-round byes have only one week off. That almost always prevents teams from being rusty at the start of the playoffs, and it makes for more quality football. NFL playoff games don't usually have a quarter of "feeling each other out" or "knocking off the rust" like so many bowl games do. 

Furthermore, that setup often brings out the best in teams. That's one of the main reasons why the 2005 Steelers, 2007 Giants and 2010 Packers won the Super Bowl. Not only did they play three playoff games in three weeks to get to the Super Bowl, but their playoffs really began several weeks earlier—in must-win situations. 

Think about how long of a layoff LSU and Alabama are going to have before suiting up for the National Championship Game—more than six weeks. The rust vs. rest debate went bye-bye after about three weeks. 

And I am well aware of the reason why there is often a very long gap between a college regular season and the bowl games: finals...or whatever. But it still gives the NFL a huge edge. 

No. 9: A Regular Schedule

Maybe this is nit-picking, but you literally need a play bill to keep track of what's going on during bowl season.

Games can be played basically any day, Monday through Sunday, at noon, at 5 p.m., at 8:30 p.m, at midnight...and on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, TBS, ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3, ESPN 360, ESPN the Ocho, Lifetime, Oxygen and The Golf Channel. Well, maybe some of those aren't accurate. 

The NFL keeps it fairly simple:

• Wild Card Weekend: two Saturday Games, two Sunday Games
• Divisional Round: two Saturday Games, two Sunday Games
• Championship Sunday
• Super Bowl Sunday

And, aside from that Wild Card Saturday, CBS has the AFC games as usual, and FOX has the NFC games. 

No. 8: Familiar Matchups

To some extent, I can appreciate the appeal of the bowl schedule. 

Often there are rare matchups of historic programs, like this year's Georgia-Michigan State showdown or Michigan vs. Virginia Tech. And the Notre Dame-FSU game does spark memories of that classic showdown in 1993.

But more often than not, the games just seem to make such strange bedfellows, and unless they are epic games, they are so off-putting to watch. Rutgers-Iowa State? Penn State-Houston?

Over in the NFL, when we get matchups like Jets-Patriots or Steelers-Ravens or, like last year, Bears-Packers, it adds so much more because we know those are hated rivals and even more is on the line. Georgia Tech and Utah won't be terribly compelling to watch from a rivalry standpoint. 

No. 7: No Flipping Back and Forth

This reason probably dovetails with No. 9 on the list, but it's still a separate complaint about the CFB schedule.

I know that some people fondly recall the "old days" where people would stack three or four televisions together in the same room so they could watch all the New Year's Day bowls going on at once. Picture-in-Picture, the remote control and TiVo made that a bit simpler.

But I'd so much rather be dialed in to one game than flip back and forth to see tidbits of what's going on. That's impossible to do in the college bowl setup because New Year's Day traditionally features a dozen or so games, and they can't be perfectly staggered to allow each game to be viewed at once. 

Still, the NFL again has the edge here because you watch the one Wild Card game on Sunday at noon and nothing else. Then you can watch the Wild Card game on Sunday at 4 p.m. and nothing else. The same for the next week and the Conference Championships. Aside from perhaps a few minutes, there is no overlap and you get to see everything live. 

No. 6: Cold Weather

Now this entry isn't nearly as cut and dry as some of the others, but if you had to compare the NFL to college, weather plays a bigger part in the playoffs than the bowl season. 

Snow and cold are just inextricably linked to football. It's the quintessential physical-natural environment.

Certainly there have been some memorable snowy and cold bowl games: Notre Dame vs. Houston in the 1979 Cotton Bowl or Oklahoma State vs. West Virginia in the 1988 Sun Bowl. But more often than not, because the games are played in neutral, hand-picked sites like Arizona, Pasadena, Dallas, Miami, Jacksonville, New Orleans (Dome), etc., the conditions are pristine.

In the NFL, that's less often true. Sure, a few teams have domes, and occasionally playoff games are hosted in San Diego, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay or inside. But with Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New England, Buffalo, Green Bay, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and two teams in New Jersey capable of hosting games outdoors in January, weather becomes a far bigger factor. 

No. 5: Less Gaudy Corporate Sponsorship

In NO way can I defend the NFL when it comes to its out-of-control marriage to Corporate America. Stadiums—most of which are named after international companies—look like billboards and there's an "Official X" of the NFL, whether it's "The Official Beer of the NFL," "The Official Jackhammer of the NFL," "The Official Lug Nut of the NFL," "The Official Toilet Paper of the NFL" and so on.

But at least their corporate sponsorship ends at some point. (I write that, of course, with great hesitation because very soon we could have "The Rice Krispies NFC Championship Game" or "Super Bowl XLIX Presented By John Deere.")

The same obviously cannot be said about the Bowl season. It's bad enough that a truly iconic game like the Rose Bowl or Orange Bowl now has corporate sponsors in the title, but at least Vizio, Tostitos, FedEx and AllState are major name brands. For there to actually be a "Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl" and a "Meineke Car Care Bowl" is pretty absurd and really drains the prestige of the games. 

No. 4: No Moral Victories

The old adage about the NFL's postseason is that only one team ends the season on a winning, high note. Only the Super Bowl champion gets to say they won their final game. And that's the way it should be. There should only be one champion of the 2011 season. 

And while there will be a "National Champion" declared at the end of the 2011 college season, there's also going to be a "Rose Bowl champion," a "Sugar Bowl champion," a "Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl champion," a "New Era Pinstripe Bowl champion" and so on. 

The NFL's playoff system brings a finality to the season that the college season really doesn't. 

No. 3: Home Field Advantage

Granted, the Super Bowl is an exception, but for the most part, the playoffs reward teams who have achieved more by granting home games in the postseason. Division winners always get a home game, the two teams with the best records get a bye and a second-round home game, and the team with the better record gets to host the conference title game as well.

For the bowls, virtually every game is on a neutral site—unless you count LSU in the Sugar Bowl, UCLA in the Rose Bowl and a few other cases. 

And even worse than not awarding a home game to teams is the fact that occasionally teams are awarded pseudo-home field advantage based on something as frivolous as fan bases. How often do you hear "That program travels well, so they go to the Fiesta Bowl"? What does that have to do with anything? 

No. 2: Mediocre Teams Need Not Apply

Granted, there are some exceptions, like the Seahawks last year, the Chargers in 2008 and the 1985 Browns. But better than nine times out of 10, it takes a winning record to earn a spot in the NFL postseason. More importantly, it usually requires a 10-win season (63 percent winning percentage) to earn a spot.

That's not the case in world of college bowls.

Marshall, Arizona State, Purdue, Pitt, Ohio State, Florida, Mississippi State, Wake Forest, Texas A&M, Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Illinois are all 6-6. 

And if that's not enough to sway you, the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl should. Illinois (6-6) will take on UCLA (6-7), the second team with a losing record to earn a bowl spot since 2001. 

At least those three teams in the NFL who had non-winning seasons all played teams with excellent records, lending some merit to the postseason. 

No. 1: NO BCS DEBATE!

Although the debate can be had—take the 2007 Patriots, for example—in the end, we all have to agree on who "The Best" team in the NFL is. The team that hoists up the Lombardi Trophy is inarguably, unequivocally the champions of the league that particular season.

We almost never can say that in the world of College football—largely because of the bowl season.

Auburn wasn't the "undisputed" champion in 2010. TCU finished undefeated, beat a previously undefeated team in their major bowl and earned a vote in the Coaches and AP polls. 

The same was true about Boise State in 2009, Utah in 2008, Georgia in 2007, Boise State again in 2006 and so on.

The NFL might not be a perfect setup, but it's light years ahead of the BCS nightmare. Just ask Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State.