I'm not a Pats fan, but the SB I would most like to see is NE vs. SFThink about it. Two of the most successful franchises in NFL history, have won a combined 8 SBs, but have never met in one. The Patriots era appears to be closing, Brady won’t play much longer, while a new 49er era might be beginning. Bellichick is the longest-tenured coach in the NFL, and despite some shady practices, arguably the best. Harbaugh is a rookie who is the hottest thing in coaching now. You couldn’t ask for a more intriguing coaching matchup.
After GB, these two teams have the best regular season records. They have arguably been the most consistent teams in the NFL to date. Each has lost just three games, by a grand total in each case of just 15 pts. Neither team has played a really bad game.
The AFC’s most potent offense vs. the NFC’s best defense. Sixteen Pro Bowlers. And more than a title is at stake. If the Pats win, Brady joins Bradshaw and Montana as the only QB to win four SBs, and it would be his 17th postseason victory, surpassing Montana. If the 49ers win, they join Pittsburgh as the only team to win 6 SBs. With an unblemished record in the big game, something none of the other sixteen teams that have played in more than one SB can claim.
As usual, besides cold windy and bad weather conditions, the numbers are up as "never" before:
25,3 PPG = 14,1 % above this season´s regular Season Avg.
387,8 Y/G = 11,8 % above...
To give you an idea of how much these numbers have gone up over time: The 49ers this year averaged 23.8 ppg, putting them in the middle of the pack. But that was more ppg than the 1988 49ers, the Montana-led juggernaut that won their 3d SB. Granted, that was not their best regular season, but I don’t think any of those 49er teams in the 80s ever averaged 30 points or 400 yards per game for an entire season (very close in 1984). This year, three teams did it.
While I do think the 49ers and Giants deserved to win - they worked harder and played better on Sunday - a large part of my thinking says the best two teams in the NFL this year were without question the Saints and Packers. But because the teams they played matched up very well against them, and each had a few off plays, they are staying home. It just seems odd, disappointing to me. It's dropped my interest level down for the rest of the season a bit I must say.
I have to admit, the NYG won the game rightfully. It´s just sad that the regular season seems more and more meaningless since they made the 8-Division-Format...That´s what it makes it so hard to swallow. 1 game washes away all 16 games before.
BCS-bashers take note. Playoffs have their problems, too. For all the problems with the BCS, history counts for a lot, as I think it should when you are trying to identify the best team for the WHOLE SEASON, not just the last 3-4 weeks. In the current playoff system, you can play pretty poorly much of the season, sometimes even have a losing record, and still get a shot at winning it all. In the BCS, you have to play very well just to get a shot.
I think the problem with the NCAA system is not the BCS per se. I think the problem is that there are so many teams, and most of the best ones not only don’t play each other, but often don’t even play common opponents. Hence it is very difficult to judge their relative strengths. But this being the case, a playoff system would not work much better.
A playoff system would probably involve sixteen or eight teams. That is a large enough number so that no team that could be legitimately considered the best would be excluded. But it also would be large enough to ensure that a team with a relatively poor regular season record got into the tourney, where it could get hot or lucky and knock off one of the favorites—just as in the NFL. A four team playoff system might avoid this, but then you would have complaints that someone’s favorite team didn’t get in. For example, this year you would have LSU and Alabama, for sure, and presumably OK State. What would the fourth team be? Stanford? Got beaten soundly by Oregon. Oregon? Lost two games. Boise? Soft schedule. IOW, a large field increases the role of chance and getting hot at the right time; a small field runs the risk of excluding a deserving team.
In contrast, the NFL consists of just 32 teams. In any season, some of the best teams play each other, and every team plays several common opponents with respect to any other team. This makes it much easier to judge relative strengths, and for this reason it seems to me a BCS system, or a system with BCS elements, would work better.
For example, this year GB would have been given one of the championship berths, based on its record, while the other would have gone to one of a handful of other teams—NE, NO, SF, and maybe Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The choice would be based to a large extent on W-L record, but also on head-to-head (bye bye Steelers), common opponents, and strength of schedule, as to repeat, these are factors that can be evaluated much more accurately in the NFL than in the NCAA.
An alternative that would also reduce the role of chance and similar factors would be to reduce the playoff field, say, to four teams. Again, GB would be one of the teams, while the other three would probably be chosen from the pool of five I mentioned above. There could still be upsets, but any team that played really well for all or most of the season would be invited to the dance, and fewer games means less role of chance.
I realize, of course, that these suggestions will never be seriously entertained. Beyond how many fans feel about a system like this, it would result in fewer games, and fewer games means less money. End of discussion.
So how could the current 12-team, 3 or 4 round, playoff system be improved to reduce the role of chance and of short but timely hot streaks? How about a handicap? For example, if the 8-8 Broncos are going to be allowed into the playoffs, they should not only have to beat the 12-4 Steelers (and in Pittsburgh, not Denver, for God’s sake), but by a significant margin, say 10 points. The idea is, if you play poorly much of the season, you should not be given a level field with someone who played much better. You have to do more to prove that you belong, to move on.
If this somehow seems unsporting, requiring a team not simply to win, but by a certain margin, take note that a handicap system like this already exists in the NFL, in the tie-breaker rules. These rules begin with head-to-head, then proceed through W-L records in division and conference, and common opponents, but eventually, if those don’t settle it, they end up, at the very bottom of the list (just above the coin toss) with total net points. This amounts to a handicapping system.
For example, once Philadelphia went into the final game of the season with Dallas leading the Cowboys for the division by one game. The situation was such at the time that Dallas not only had to beat Phil to win the division, but win the game by 25 pts. It turned out that a Dallas win would even all the tie-breakers rules down to total net points, which Phil led by 49 going into the game. (Not surprisingly, Dallas didn’t accomplish this. But they did win the game, and amazingly, they did lead in that game by 25 pts at one time, before the Eagles came back).
If net points can be used in some cases to determine which teams make the playoffs, why can’t the same reasoning be extended into the postseason? If a rule like this had been in play this year, it would have affected just two of the games played so far, Pitt/Denver, and GB/NYG. The latter is particularly interesting. The 17 pt Giant margin suggests they would have satisfied any reasonable handicap. But if the Packers had known that they only had to cut the margin to 10—in other words, that they trailed only by a TD late in the 4th quarter—it would have changed their strategy and maybe allowed them to pull out the game.
But suppose they hadn’t; suppose they lost by 17? While an upset was not prevented, I think we feel better about it. As it stands now, I think many fans, like Alpe and Foxy, have a bitter taste in their mouth. The Packers had a brilliant season destroyed by one poor game. But what if all they had to do was lose by less than 10 points, and they couldn’t even manage that? Isn’t there a sense then that justice was done, that the Packers really weren’t a championship team if they couldn’t even stay close?