Posted on 05/23/2017 11:34:41 AM PDT by Phlap
I think part of the problem there is that some teams aren’t just protecting the point. They’re inferior teams looking to reach the OT period and then play through it to get to the shootout where they might stand a chance of winning. The Devils played that to perfection in 2011-12, riding all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals even though they wouldn’t have even been a playoff team without the current OT and shootout rules in place (they were 12-4 in shootouts that year).
I’d get rid of the divisions, and have each team play the other 15 teams in their Conference. Take the top 6 teams with the top two getting a first-round bye.
And now we have an 8th seed in the Stanley Cup Finals.
I like divisional rivalries though. There’s so much highly entertaining hate in the AFC North and NFC East, I want those teams playing each other twice a year, 3 times if I can help it.
Yep, that’s problem with shootouts. Survive and make them face your goalie.
It’s funny how little the standing mean to any the leagues other than the NBA. NHL teams go through such a long season with injuries and streaks and trades their points standing often has no reflection of the current team. A bad December can set you up to barely make the playoffs even if you’re great. The Preds have been great in the playoffs, winning 3 completely different styles of series. I favor them over anybody coming out of the East, maybe if the Pens were healthy I’d give them the edge, but not minor leaguers on defense and Crosby still clearly fogged up from that concussion.
You can't argue with Nashville's success, though. They swept a Chicago team in the first round that a lot of people were picking to win their second straight Stanley Cup.
And maybe it's just me and I'm exaggerating this, but it seems like we've seen more teams go on a strong playoff run in recent years after firing the coach in the middle of the season. What's that all about? Did Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin suck while playing for one coach last year, then suddenly find their skills again with a new coach?
It’s fun, but NCAA overtime is truly ludicrous. 17-17 ties end up with a final score in the 40s.
That and the cost to league/teams of officials, stadium staff and local LEO.
When the NFL is involved, it is ALWAYS about $$$$$$$
I've seen this movie play a few times. It's how my Giants won two Super Bowls with some pretty average teams in recent years.
Americans like definitive results, if they are meaningless.
There is nothing more arbitrary in the world than a single-elimination playoff tournament. Yet, we judge careers based on the NFL playoffs (and the even more insane NCAA tournament - a single elimination tourney for 18 year old by which we judge the careers of 50 year old men).
I’m a Steeler fan so I’ll take it, but I always think back to that 2005 playoff game where Carson Palmer blew out his knee on the first play of the game. You play four months of football in order to have your season essentially decided on one random play.
I always said, that if I was a GM, the first thing I do is find the best Offensive Line coach and make him the highest paid coach on the team. Because if you have a good offensive line, you are a contender, regardless of what you have at the skill positions.
The NFL used to be held up as an example of socialism that works. Now, it’s socialism that is socialism.
The “middle class” player in the NFL is gone. The slightly above average middle linebacker who plays 8 years in the league? Doesn’t exist anymore.
You are either paying that middle linebacker $25 million or he is some dude on his rookie deal, whose salary allows you pay the star cornerback $25 million.
Anyway, how many games would this new rule have impacted over the last ten years?
Well what parity does is spread out the talent. What folks forget about those dominant teams was how much the rest of the league just kind of stank. There’s a problem these days with bad divisions, but they only stay bad for a couple of seasons. Back in the hallowed dynasty days whole divisions stank for a decade or longer. At least now things cycle around, teams float up. It’s now actually a challenge to keep a team bad for more than 5 seasons (a challenge sadly half a dozen owners prove to be up to).
I’m really hoping the Cleveland moneyball experiment works. We know it can work since that’s basically how the Pats are built, the problem is so far nobody is trying to copy that part of the Pats. If a second team can at least get good by actually properly valuing players we might see the bottom of the league lift. Heck even Jerry Jones seems to have figured out high cost free agents aren’t a good plan under a hard cap, took him 20 years but if Jones can learn...
Change the scoring for field goals
yes, but your scenario is backwards; the point in football is to drive the ball towards the end zone, and the closer you get, the more a field goal should benefit you...line of scrimmage inside the 20, four points, inside the thirty, three points, inside the forty, two points, and 1 from forty to fifty...
I think that was true in the 90s. Far less so today. With 68 percent of snaps in the NFL now taking place in the shotgun, I think the offensive line is less important now than ever.
Except maybe in the playoffs. But the arbitrariness of the playoffs is not really something you should build your team around.
I do think good team Offensive Line play is something of a lost art. It’s now all about brute strength instead of technique.
Teams can afford to keep maybe two linemen over a period of five years. Moreover, the practice time in the NFL has been cut down to nothing in an effort to limit injuries/deal with CTE issues.
So Joe Bugel in his prime would have had Grimm for 10 years, Jacoby for 6, and a revolving cast of rookies and free agents at the other five positions. And then he would have had two hours a week in the season to really coach ‘em up.
The dirty little secret of sports is how random the results really are. An injury here, a bounce there. When you start looking at points differential you start seeing how small the gap between the good and bad teams really is, one score here or there is the difference between a “dominant” and a “bottom feeder”.
I wouldn't know, I don't watch the NFL either.
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