Nfl Playoffs Format

Baseball 2011: Too Many Sideshows

Unless your name is Jimmer, in light of a potential NBA lockout and the threat of a canceled season, Thursday's NBA draft is about as attention-grabbing as wearing white at Wimbledon. There's little movement in NFL labor talks. U.S. Open hero Rory McIlroy is taking the next few weeks off. And an octet of octopi vying to succeed the late Paul, who correctly predicted all of Germany's games during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, is getting more attention than the American squad preparing to contend in the upcoming Women's World Cup.

That leaves baseball, which should be top of mind for U.S. sports fans this time of year. Yet a controversial realignment proposal, a handful of errant MLB owners, and a cranky octogenarian manager are currently garnering more attention than double plays and strikeouts.

Over the past 15 years, baseball has grown from roughly a $2 billion industry into a $9 billion one. Nearly 1.65 million fans at ballparks across the U.S. just turned out for a weekend of interleague play—the league's biggest attendance weekend since September 2008, "and September is when everybody is playing for keeps," notes the s Peter Schmuck.

"Fans coming out in these remarkable numbers demonstrate the popularity of interleague play," said MLB Commissioner Bud Selig in a news release on Monday. "I remain optimistic that our attendance numbers will continue to climb, with summer beginning tomorrow and five of the six divisions separated by 1 1/2 games or less."

If baseball's 30 owners get behind new realignment proposals being discussed by Selig and his staff, interleague games will become more commonplace. MLB is looking at diving into two 15-team leagues in which the top five teams in each league make the playoffs—a format that is much closer to the NBA and NHL than to baseball's current postseason design. That realignment would also correct MLB's current schedule imbalance, culminating in six divisional races and a wild card slot. The National League comprises 16 teams, the American League only 14—meaning a team from the NL Central division now has a one in six shot at making the playoffs, while a team from the AL West has 25 percent chance.

In order to even out the National League and the American League, more interleague games would have to be incorporated into the season-long schedule (a move that's bound to be popular with baseball fans), and one team would obviously have to move from the NL to the AL. The two teams in the NL believed to be the most likely to change leagues are the Houston Astros , currently in the middle of a sales transaction, and the Arizona Diamondbacks . But Diamondbacks President and Chief Executive Derrick Hall told the last week that he "doubts his club would have to make the move.

NFL should change its overtime format for playoffs — Maine Sports ...

Hey Patriots fans, get over it.

The Jets backed up their boasts. Don’t worry, the Jets won’t beat the Steelers.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has one major attribute that Patriots QB Tom Brady doesn’t: Mobility.

Roethlisberger can improvise with his quick feet.

You can have all the receivers covered and get a good pass rush only to have the quarterback find a seam and scramble for a first down.

It’s demoralizing to a defense.

Roethlisberger is surprisingly quick for someone who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 241 pounds.

The Steelers also have two game-changing defenders in linebacker James Harrison and safety Troy Polamalu.

It’s going to be a Steelers-Packers Super Bowl.

By the way, the NFL has changed its overtime format for the playoffs.

It used to be a strictly sudden-death format: First team to score wins.

Here is the new format: If the team (Team A) that receives the kickoff in overtime scores a touchdown, the game is over.

If it doesn’t, the opposing team (Team B) will get the ball and will have a chance to match or exceed Team A’s point production.

For example, if Team A kicks a field goal, Team B can win with a touchdown. It could extend the overtime with a field goal. If it doesn’t score, it loses.

If it is still tied after the first possession for each team, it goes to sudden death.

Here’s a better format: No matter what Team A does with the opening kickoff, Team B should receive an opportunity to get the ball.

Why shouldn’t Team B at least have a chance to tie it, even if it concedes a touchdown?

Team B would still have to equal what Team A did in order for the overtime to continue.

If it exceeds what Team A does, it wins.

If they equal each other on the opening possession, it goes to sudden death.

And, under my format, they can’t kick the extra point at any time. They must go for the two-point conversion.

The reason they changed the format is that 59.8 percent of the teams that won the coin toss wound up winning. And 34.4 percent of them won on their first possession.

My format reduces the importance of the coin toss because the team that loses the toss knows it will still have at least one possession to tie it or win it.

Now for changes that are being discussed in NASCAR: They are looking at simplifying their points system.

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