Sign in to follow this  
Jim Phaserman

National Football League Playoffs

Recommended Posts

A while back, I was offered a job as a sportswriter for a website. While touched by the thought that someone considered my writing abilities that good, I had to decline, as the time constraints on me wouldn't allow such a thing. However, that doesn't mean I don't have time to keep myself up-to-date on what's going on in the NFL. with this year's Playoff race, few things are certain. Noone quite knows for sure who, for example, will win the NFC North. Certainly contenders are the Packers and the Vikings. Barring total breakdowns of either or both teams, both could make the playoffs. but the NFC North is such a close division, it makes one wonder, why not just declare the Indianapolis Colts the NFC North Champions? After all, the Colts have beaten all 4 NFC North teams, two of them were beaten in a rather resounding fashion. but, wait, the Colts themselves are likely candidates for the Playoffs in their division. As the year comes to a close, there are a few things beginning to show up. Like, for instance, in the AFC. There will likely be a team with a .687 Win Percentage (That's 11-5 for those of you who aren't good with numbers) Watching the Playoffs. in the NFC, it is possible to have a team with a .500 or LOWER Win Percentage in the Playoffs! about the only things for certain as to who's going to the Playoffs are the Eagles and the Falcons in the NFC, and the Patriots and Steelers in the AFC. It is entirely possible that we could have one team in the Superbowl with only One loss, and the other with as many as 8! What is this league coming to? Can anyone sort out the Madness? Oh, and let's not forget the teams that are shocking EVERYONE! Like, say, my Hometown boys, the San Diego Chargers. Where did they come from? And what about the Giants? A good pick at the start of the year to win something, they have dropped 5 of their last 6 games, and Little Ely isn't doing a good job of living up to his brother's benchmark...And then there are the Bears. a Playoff contender, bearly, they could force an interesting set of circumstances should Green Bay win the Division. if Green Bay wins the NFC North, they would likely get the 3rd spot in the playoffs. Should the Bears somehow make it in, they would probably get the 6th Spot. Now, here's where this gets interesting. the Packers and Bears play at Soldier Field on January 2nd, the last game of the regular season. the first week of the Playoffs, the 3rd Seed and the 6th Seed play each other, with the 3rd Seed getting home field advantage. So, it is possible that the Packers could play the Bears one week in Chicago, then the Next week in Green Bay! Will someone please sort out the Madness? :laugh::laugh:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've long ago gave up trying to figure out all the possible playoff formulas. Once the divison winners are determined, I no longer really fret about who gets the wild card spots. Although, as you pointed out with the Packers and Bears, it opens up a whole list of possible match ups that at the beginning of the season, no one would have thought about twice. The Packers and Lions played just this scenario a few years back. The Pack beat the Lions in one of the last two games of the season and thten turned right around and had them at Lambeau for a first round playoff game. I personally don't give much thought to the mediocrity excuse with the NFC this year at all. To me, it just shows that more teams are in contention for the playoffs and thus more fan interest in the league as a whole since more cities and teams have the real possibility of making some noise in the playoffs where anything can happen. Case in point, the 1999 viqueens. 15 and 1 in the regular season only to lose to the Falcons on a last second field goal to end their Super Bowl dreams, again. Don't worry so much about how the playoffs are going to be seeded and just enjoy the games leading up to the playoffs. It's going to be a great post season.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Right now there's only one team oin the Playoffs, and they made it in a full 3 weeks ahead of every other NFL team.

 

Who would that be?

 

The Philadelphia Eagles of course lol

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I will say this much: There is a chance that MY two favorite teams, the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers (of all teams) could end up in the Superbowl. I would have serious issues watching that game. I'd be rooting for a tie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For NFC I would like to see either the Eagles or the Packers. Mainly because the Eagles have been on a roll since last season, and the Packers....well they are a family favorite, and have been since before I was born.

 

AFC... though it is wishful thinking, especially at this point in the season I kinda hope my home team makes it into at least the Wild Card after being absent from the playoffs in the last couple years. And that is Jacksonville.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm still hoping for a Eagles - Patriots Super Bowl..This could be the year that it happens..

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Alright folks, here it is, to the best of my knowledge, the NFl Playoff seeds

 

 

 

AFC

 

1. Pittsburg Steelers

2. New England Patriots

3. Indianapolis Colts

4. San Diego Chargers

5. New York Jets

6. Denver Broncos

 

NFC

1. Philly Eagles

2. Atlanta Falcons

3. Green Bay Packers

4. Seattle Seahawks

5. St. Louis Rams

6. Minnesota Vikings

 

1st Round Matchups:

 

Saturday:

AFC Wildcard Playoffs

Chargers v. Jets (San Diego, CA)

 

NFC Wildcard Playoffs

Seattle v. St. Louis (Seattle, WA)

 

Sunday:

 

AFC Wildcard Playoffs

Indianapolis v. Denver (Indianapolis, IN)

 

NFC Wildcard Playoffs

Green Bay v. Minnesota (Green Bay, WI)

 

Steelers, Patriots, Eagles and Falcons all have 1st round Bye.

 

Steelers and Eagles both have Homefield advantage throughout.

 

Steelers and Eagles will also draw the lowest seeded team entering 2nd Round.

 

Patriots and Falcons will draw 3rd seeded team entering 2nd round.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I'm disappointed that the Packers lost today. I was really looking forward to the Eagles playing them in the NFC Championship game.

 

None of the other games surprised me. Saturday's games were good, down to the wire.

 

I'm just hoping my Eagles can come out after a couple weeks of resting and smoke the Vikings.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
'm just hoping my Eagles can come out after a couple weeks of resting and smoke the Vikings.

295644[/snapback]

 

Woo hoo! The Vikes embarassed the "cheddarheads"! Now its off to play the vaunted Eagles, who won't be soaring as high w/o the T.O. in their ranks. But I don't think the outcome will be any different. As much as I'd love to see an upset, the Eagles are too good a team for the 8-8 Vikings. The win over the Pack was fueled by a lot of emotion, a desire for revenge. I don't see how they can drum up that kind of energy, even with Moss and Crew wearing the afros. <<< very odd! Good luck to both teams! :waaaa:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well my Eagles did it on Sunday so they get a 4th try at getting to the Super Bowl. I feel much better about their chances this year then I have in the past. But as they say, on any given Sunday any team can beat any other team. So I'm not counting my Super Bowl chickens before the Eggs hatch lol.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Congrats, VBG! The Eagles played a good game. The Vikings did not have there "A" game that day, tho not to take anything away from the Eagles. It could have been a more entertaining game had the Purple Gang put out the kind of performance that downed the Pack last week. Oh, well. There is always next year. Good luck to your team. They will need to be in top form when they play the Steelers next week! :laugh:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm still hopeful for a Eagles/Patriots super bowl this year..Chances of it are pretty high this year... :laugh:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What I'm looking for in a few weeks is the Eagles and Patriots in the Super Bowl. I promise not to ban you SpaceTigger if the Eagles don't win, I also promise to try not to gloat a lot if they win.

 

You should probably expect a portal story on it though if they do. lol

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why doesn't Los Angeles have an NFL team???

 

It's a massive market just waiting for someone to come along and exploit it.

 

They could build a decent stadium and join the league. It's a wealthy enough city.

 

They could call themselves "LOS ANGELES UNITED" or something, which would symbolise the need to attract all sections of LA society, like Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and so forth.

 

With enough financial backing and the biggest sponsors, in addition to the revenue generated from ticket sales and merchandise etc.....they could, in theory dominate the sport.

Edited by The King

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What I'm looking for in a few weeks is the Eagles and Patriots in the Super Bowl. I promise not to ban you SpaceTigger if the Eagles don't win, I also promise to try not to gloat a lot if they win.

 

You should probably expect a portal story on it though if they do. lol

297106[/snapback]

 

:laugh: Sounds like a lot of fun VBG.. Be an awesome Portal Post and game..Just one more game to get thru.. :blink:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Why doesn't Los Angeles have an NFL team???

 

It's a massive market just waiting for someone to come along and exploit it.

 

They could build a decent stadium and join the league. It's a wealthy enough city.

 

They could call themselves "LOS ANGELES UNITED" or something, which would symbolise the need to attract all sections of LA society, like Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and so forth.

 

With enough financial backing and the biggest sponsors, in addition to the revenue generated from ticket sales and merchandise etc.....they could, in theory dominate the sport.

297108[/snapback]

 

 

They used to have two teams, the Raiders (Now back in Oakland) and the Rams (Now in St. Louis) I can't remember why the NFL abandoned Los Angeles, but they've had their shot. though the Bears could move out there, and I wouldn't have a problem. That way I'd get the Packers games every sunday.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, it could be caused by a number of factors.

 

The teams would need an image that would appeal to a very large number of fans.

 

They would also need local government support for taxes, stadium construction, infrastructure etc...

 

Good contacts with local schools, universities etc for recruitment (if it works that way in Grid Iron?).

 

They would need to build grass roots support from the area.

 

Creating a "new" team from scratch may be wise, as simply attracting an existing team may not appeal to the LA fans who may need their "own" team so to speak.

 

Unless of course, the people of LA simply don't like Grid Iron?

 

It's something that happens in American sports that doesn't with football (soccer) in the rest of the world.

 

This idea that teams "move" from one city to another.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Well, it could be caused by a number of factors.

 

The teams would need an image that would appeal to a very large number of fans.

 

They would also need local government support for taxes, stadium construction, infrastructure etc...

 

Good contacts with local schools, universities etc for recruitment (if it works that way in Grid Iron?).

 

They would need to build grass roots support from the area.

 

Creating a "new" team from scratch may be wise, as simply attracting an existing team may not appeal to the LA fans who may need their "own" team so to speak.

 

Unless of course, the people of LA simply don't like Grid Iron?

 

It's something that happens in American sports that doesn't with football (soccer) in the rest of the world.

 

This idea that teams "move" from one city to another.

297117[/snapback]

 

 

Well, the NFL isn't creating any more teams, 32 is the max. and It is likely that both teams wanted a new stadium, and the tax payers didn't want to pay. More likely, though, with the Raiders, Al Davis preferes Oakland. I dunnow about the Rams. Recruiting in the NFL is done through the NFL Draft and Free Agency. the draft is kind of like a military draft, but a bit different. it's a 7 day thing, each team gets something like 3 picks in each of the 7 rounds. they pick from all of the college players who graduated or declared themselves eligable after 3 seasons in College, as well as Minor league players, CLF and NFL Europe players. undrafted players and those players who's contracts have expired go to Free Agency, where anyone can have em, so the recruiting thing isn't a reason at all.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

LA will one day have another team. As it is right now though California has 3 teams already. The San Francisco 49ers, the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers.

 

To give a short history of the NFL, up until 1995 there had been 28 teams in the NFL. At that point 2 new teams were formed bringing the number up to 30. THe way the league was divided up at that time was with 2 Conferences. The American Football Conference (AFC) which is composed mostly of teams that were once part of a completely separate league (The AFL) and the National Football Conference (NFC) which is composed mostly of teams that were part of the original NFL. The 2 leagues merged in 1970 setting up the 2 conferences AFC and NFC.

 

In the conferences there are divisions, until 2002 there were 3 divisions in each conference. The East, West and Central divisions. In 1995 when the league was expanded to 30 teams that made it possible to have an even number of teams in each division, 5 teams in each division. That's important because of game scheduling.

 

To go backwards for a moment, in 1995 the Cleveland team (named the Browns) moved away from Cleveland to Baltimore. Cleveland is the site of one of the original NFL teams and was formed by one of the NFL's most highly thought of "founding fathers". So for NFL fans, as well as Browns fans it just wasn't "right" to not have a team in Cleveland. So in 1999 the NFL approved an expansion team for the city of Cleveland, which brought the total number of teams to 31 and made one division have 1 too many teams.

 

In 2002 another expansion team was approved and awarded to another NFL city that had lost their team to Tennessee, Houston. This brought the total number of teams to the current number of 32. At that point the league decided to do a realignment. The AFC would have 16 teams and the NFC would have 16 teams. The divisions would be altered slightly and some teams shuffled to new divisions to make more geographic sense. The Arizona Cardinals for instance were moved from the NFC East to the NFC West because that made more geographic sense. Some teams that should have been moved for that reason were allowed to remain in their old division because of long standing interdivisional rivalries. The Dallas Cowboys could have been shifted to the NFC West or South but were kept in the NFC East because of their rivalries with the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins and the New York Giants.

 

With the realignment 2 new divisions were created and 2 were renamed. The divisional breakdown was now North, South, East and West with 4 teams in each division. Scheduling the games is based on a simple formula and this number of teams in this many divisions makes that formula work properly.

 

So, after all that we come to the question of Los Angelas getting a team. There's 2 ways for L.A. to get a team.

 

1. An existing team that wishes to move moves to L.A.

2. The NFL expands again

 

Situation #1 is the most reasonable option since the number of teams is even at 32 and the number of teams in each division is even at 4 each and the game scheduling formula is dependent upon that structure.

 

Situation #2 would happen only if the NFL decided that they "HAVE" to have a franchise in L.A. and the benefits outweigh the problems that it would cause and no teams wish to relocate.

 

The way I see it, to do option #2 the NFL would have to expand to 36 teams within a very short time frame in order to keep the structure of the league stable. Expansion to 36 teams is possible, but I don't think likely.

 

So that leaves Option #1, moving a team to L.A. Which the league is interested in doing. In fact there has been talk that the NFL will build a league owned stadium In or very near L.A. and use that to try to lure a team into moving. The 2 teams that I have heard mentioned most often are Minnesota (their owner wants to sell the team) and the Arizona Cardinals, though they have only been in Arizona for about 20 years after moving from St. Louis (St. Louis is the city that the last Los Angeles team, the Rams moved to).

 

As for market and financial considerations those are all there of course and are a big reason the NFL wants a team back in Los Angelas, but there are problems that would come with just putting a brand new team there.

 

The league had 2 opportunities to put a team in L.A., once in 1999 when they added the Cleveland Browns and again in 2002 when they added the Houston Texans. But since they opted for those other 2 cities it leads me to believe that L.A. isn't (or at least wasn't) a big priority.

 

Sorry for the long winded "NFL History" lesson, and believe it or not this is the short version but the question is actually a pretty complicated one.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The 2 teams that I have heard mentioned most often are Minnesota (their owner wants to sell the team) and the Arizona Cardinals, though they have only been in Arizona for about 20 years after moving from St. Louis (St. Louis is the city that the last Los Angeles team, the Rams moved to).

297160[/snapback]

 

VBG, its been announced in the local news about a possible sale of the Vikings by current owner Red McCombs to either Reggie Fowler, an Arizona businessman, or to Glen Taylor, owner of the Timberwolves NBA franchise and a Minnesotan. It will be interesting to see how this develops as it would cetainly affect Coach Mike Tice's status. And perhaps Randy Moss. Former Viking Cris Carter allegedly said on Sirius radio that " [a]s a matter of fact, I'm going to go on record and say that Randy Moss has played his last game in Minnesota..." . So there could be major changes with the Purple Gang by August.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The 2 teams that I have heard mentioned most often are Minnesota (their owner wants to sell the team) and the Arizona Cardinals, though they have only been in Arizona for about 20 years after moving from St. Louis (St. Louis is the city that the last Los Angeles team, the Rams moved to).

297160[/snapback]

 

VBG, its been announced in the local news about a possible sale of the Vikings by current owner Red McCombs to either Reggie Fowler, an Arizona businessman, or to Glen Taylor, owner of the Timberwolves NBA franchise and a Minnesotan. It will be interesting to see how this develops as it would cetainly affect Coach Mike Tice's status. And perhaps Randy Moss. Former Viking Cris Carter allegedly said on Sirius radio that " [a]s a matter of fact, I'm going to go on record and say that Randy Moss has played his last game in Minnesota..." . So there could be major changes with the Purple Gang by August.

297550[/snapback]

 

I hadn't heard of the possible sale but I know he wants to get rid of the team. I'd really hate to see them move from Minnesota though. I'm not a Vikings fan but I like the NFL as it is and hate to see a community lose something they've supported for so many decades.

 

As for Randy Moss, I think it would be in the Vikings best interest to get rid of him. He was passed over in the draft for the simple fact that he was a trouble maker. There's no denying his talent but at some point the talent doesn't matter. Culpepper needs to be their leader and that won't happen while Moss is there.

 

On Tice, I don't know if he's a good head coach or not. He's an ex-Terp so I have to like him but I just don't know if he has what it takes to be a successful head coach in the NFL.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

as much as I don't like the Vikings, if they move, and are moved OUT of the NFC North, I will be muchly upset. it just won't be the Black and Blue division without the Vikings. and for the record, I won't shed even one tear if Randy Moss is cut from the Vikings. To be honest, I may even throw a party.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The way I see it, to do option #2 the NFL would have to expand to 36 teams within a very short time frame in order to keep the structure of the league stable. Expansion to 36 teams is possible, but I don't think likely.
Yeah, it probably would not be likely because that could cut into scheduling of the games. True it would cut down on the number of repeated games.. a specific match up happening twice in one season. But those are necessary in determining the standings in the division.

 

 

as much as I don't like the Vikings, if they move, and are moved OUT of the NFC North, I will be muchly upset. it just won't be the Black and Blue division without the Vikings.
:yes: I happen to like the Vikings, but I do agree it would stink to see them out of that bracket.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It'll be the Patriots -- count on that!

 

The playoff should be interesting -- if they can play it. It's going to be another Snow Bowl. We're getting a big storm, 1-2 feet of snow with blizzard conditions in southeastern Mass. -- right where Gillette Stadium is. :P

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It'll be the Patriots -- count on that!

 

The playoff should be interesting -- if they can play it.  It's going to be another Snow Bowl.  We're getting a big storm, 1-2 feet of snow with blizzard conditions in southeastern Mass. -- right where Gillette Stadium is.  :P

297651[/snapback]

Yeah, but the game is being played in Pittsburg..I still have confidence in the Pats though..Is it going to snow in Pittsburg too ?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this