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Originally Posted by cdcox
You can't temporarily expand the playoff field because expansion is irreversible. Once you expand the field, there is no way you are going to shrink it later. It certainly has never happened in the NFL or MLB. I doubt it has happened in the NBA or NHL either, but I don't follow those closely enough to know.
Your contention that reallignment eliminated a WC spot is only true if one of the division winners has a worse record than the top team that misses the playoffs. Chances are that one of the teams that would have been a WC under the old alignment is a division winner now. I think we have plenty of data going back to 1980 that has shown that no WC team with a record poorer than 11-5 has ever made the SB. Only one team with that a record of 11-5 or better has ever been excluded since the expansion to the 16 game season: some '80s Denver team. That is plenty of evidence that the current system is working if you ask me.
But teams finishing with a 10-6 record and sitting out of the playoffs is the whole justification that Carl and Lamar have offered. So without the subjective 10-6 arguement, there is really no rationale whatsoever for expanding the playoffs.
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I don't see that as true. Numbers aside the object is to get the best teams into the playoffs and also create as much excitement as possible. The rationale is that there are more teams and more divisions but the number of playoffs spots are the same as they were before the expansion. I can't see it as bad but and I am pretty much a traditionalist about the NFL so I usually bock at change. I can see the need to examine the playoff scenario to see if a change might make it better. I will scoff at the notion that Hunt's and Peteron's only concern is just about finding a way to scab into the playoffs. Lamar Hunt could have just set fat with the riches his family provided and been just as well off as he is now. Probaby better off. He didn't do what he did for the money.
As far as I know I'e never heard anyone mention my concept of an NFL Playoff Weekend with three games each day giving it a kind of March Madness feel. If done right that could be sold and be very exciting for the fans. Might not work out but it seems plausible to me. The main thing is to look at it in fair light. If it don't pan out for the powers that be then fine.
PhilFree
