NFL Playoffs

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Well, we're down to the last 4 teams - Steelers, Ravens, Eagles, and Cardinals. What's everyone's pick?

I'm a Steelers fan, so I'm definitely rooting for them. I think the best two remaining teams are the Steelers and the Ravens, which means in a sense the Super Bowl is this weekend. I am confident that whichever team wins between the Steelers and the Ravens will go on to beat whichever team wins from the Eagles and Cardinals.

I guess my ideal Super Bowl as far as entertainment value is concerned would be Steelers-Cardinals. Although I'd be fine with Steelers-Eagles as well. I would definitely root for the Cardinals if they play the Ravens in the Super Bowl. I do not know what I would do in the event of a Ravens-Eagles Super Bowl, as I do not particularly like either of those teams - I guess I'd probably root for the Eagles.

 

I think the Ravens-Steelers game should be pretty good. The teams are well matched and it could go either way. Winning three games against another team in a season is so improbable that I'll go with the Ravens.

Cardinals-Eagles is a crap shoot. Neither team has been consistent for extended periods all season. I think (hope) emotion will carry the Cardinals.

Cardinals-Ravens in the Super Bowl. My sentimental choice would be the Cards -- but I think you're right, this year belongs to the AFC.

 

That's actually a myth - unless you think a 61% chance is impobable. In the Super Bowl era, there have been 18 times that a team has swept a divisional opponent in the season series, and then the two teams met for a 3rd time in the playoffs. In those matchups, the team that swept the season series went on to win the third meeting 11 times.

If you want to see all 18 previous matchups take a look at this link.

 

I stand corrected. Perhaps the Steelers have a chance....

 

Go Steelers! Heck, I remember starting a thread a few years ago when the Steelers were going to the Super Bowl and it got pages worth of replies. Have all the football fans left SP?

 

Steelers fan, right here. I was born in Pittsburgh. I'll die in Pittsburgh; just remember to bury me in black and gold.

The only thing I don't like about the Steelers going to the Super Bowl is that every jagoff here in Pittsburgh is going to make their own "Super Bowl Song". They play that crap on the radio and it's awful! You don't even want to turn the radio on in the car; it really gets that bad. I was just wondering if they do this in other cities too?

 

Ofcourse not. I have bought a new tv Just for it. I am not even American but am a fan. I was in favorite for the Steelers too.

My biggest problem is time difference. The superbowl starts here around midnight so I had to take monday off from work. I will be watching until the sandman comes. Re-run in the morning.

I still have an Admirals Jersey of Warner from his days here.

 

A Pennsylvania Super Bowl would've been sort of cool and I have liked the Eagles ever since they drafted McNabb (yes, before they were good). However, I'm still pretty excited for the Cardinals and Kurt Warner. Getting the chance to watch Larry Fitzgerald one more time will be a treat, as well as watching the entire Steelers defense.

 

I am a football fan but have not had time to watch any of the games, and I didn't go out of my way to cut other things (like schoolwork, haha) out because the Pats didn't make it.

 

I completely agree. I too was raised in PA, I too used to hear all the Steelers songs whenever they went to the Super Bowl, and I too found them awful to listen to. "

I.... have a fee-ling ... Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl!" Yeah, yeah, give me a f'ing break.

Don't think for a minute that sentiment is unique to the European NFL fans. Super Bowl Sunday is practically a national holiday in the US, and I imagine the Monday after the Super Bowl is the most called-off day from work of the year.

 

One thing that I have been thinking about lately, seeing as American Football seems to be by far the most popular sport in the states how come the season is so incredibly short? Is there no financial incentive to crank out more games and possibly more teams? The argument that the game is so tough that the players can't handle more games is pretty darn lame. Has there been moves to expand the NFL? Or could it be that there is such a big interest just because there are so few games making the pleasure a bit more exclusive? Kinda like the World Cup in football once every four years which is huge compared to the world cup in icehockey that is played every year which is not so huge even among the hockey fans.

 

Actually, joacqin, the NFL does gradually expand, both in number of teams and number of games. 40 years ago, the season was 12 games, and there were just 16 teams. 25 years ago, the league had expanded to 26 teams playing a 14 game schedule. The current format has 32 teams playing a 16 game schedule. The latest team occured probably about 10 years ago, when Cleveland was awarded a new franchise after the old franchise left Cleveland for Baltimore. When Cleveland got another franchise it resulted in an odd number of teams, so the following year another team was added, this time in Houston.

Currently, there is no talk about expanding the number of teams, but there is talk about expanding the number of games played from 16 to 18. The way it currently works, the football season is about 6 months long. All teams play 4 "preseason" games. These games help coaches decide which players make the team, and also help get players into game shape. But preseason games do not count towards a team's regular season record. Next, all teams play 16 regular season games (over the course of 17 weeks - every team gets one week off during the season). Finally, the postseason lasts four weeks, but the only teams that can play four more games are the ones that make it to the Super Bowl. So the whole season lasts 25 weeks, during which time all teams play at least 20 games, and at most 24 games. The proposed rule change would increase the number of regular season games by 2, but it would also reduce the number of preseason games from 4 to 2. So while there would be more games that count, there would still only be 20-24 games played by the teams each year.

So seeing as how it lasts about half the year, I don't think the season is really that short. You basically have football throughout the entire months of August-January, with the Super Bowl usually happening on the first Sunday in February. That is pretty comparable to the other major sports in the US. Baseball runs from April-October, so 7 months long. Basketball goes from November-May (7 months) and just like in football where the championship game is played in February, the NBA Finals can spill over into June.

Do European sports league have longer sports seasons for their leagues than this?

 

NFL players take some nasty injuries at time, if the season was much longer many players wouldn't have time to properly recover before the next season. Not to mention if it was any longer there would be increased chance for said injuries. Also, the off season adds anticipation...fans get REALLY into the Free Agent signing period and the NFL draft(when they draft the upcoming college prospects).

with all that said

PITTSBURGH'S GOIN TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!

 

Well, the European football season runs through roughly 10 months. From August to June. So there are 32 teams? Why do not all teams play all teams? That would give 30 games but it is usually polite to let teams play each team both at home and away. The English Premier League has 24 teams, they each play each other twice so that is 46 games for the league alone, then there are the different domestic cups which adds probably another 10 game on average the top teams are also in the international tournaments and depending on how good you do there you can play 20 international games.

I do not know, just seems like football is such a big thing in the US that only giving the fans 16 games a year seems a little cheap. Again, the argument about injuries and recovery is pretty darn lame. What kind of ballerinas are the football players? Hockey is as rough and they are playing plenty of games and hockey player even tend to last longer than football (soccer) players due to them not playing all that muh per game with the switches and such. Kinda like American football, 15s of action, five minutes of waiting around. Injuries will come in all sports though but just get bigger rosters. The top European football teams have squads with 30 players, they try to have two almost equally good players on each position.

Hm, actually on a personal level I kinda like the NFL approach, fewer games makes them ore exclusive and helps build anticipation but I am a pretty casual sport viewer but if I was a real fan and really enjoyed my sports I would kinda like longer seasons and more games and not to mention if I was an owner. Making 10 million on one game or making 9 million per game on three games, the choice wouldn't be hard. The drive in other sports is to "flood" the market it seems, kinda admire the NFL for not caving in to the almighty dollar.

 

I don't really have statistics to show it, the American football players take a far worse beating than hockey or similar. I'd say there is pretty much no way to play any more games without negative consequences.

The idea to shorten the pre-season also upsets me, because that is where so many under-the-radar types get their chance to make a team. Leave it the way it is.

 

Leave the number the way it is. One sport goes over into the other.

 

Well, if each team were to play the other 31 teams twice per year, it would take 62 weeks to complete the season - which would be kind of difficult in that there are not 62 weeks in a year.

But to answer your question more directly, the league is broken down into divisions, and teams within the same division do play each other twice per year. The remaining teams are played on a rotating schedule, so it's not like the teams you play are the exact same year after year. Here is the list of teams that the Steelers played this year but won't play again next year:

Giants, Redskins, Eagles, Cowboys, Patriots, Colts, Jaguars, and Texans.

So fully half the teams the Steelers played this year they won't play again next year. Your schedule is also modified based on how well you did the previous year. The "strength of schedule" is factored in so that the best teams have to play a few other of the best teams regardless of how the schedule rotation works out. The downside of this rotating schedule is that some teams you'll only play once every few years.

EDIT: Perhaps it's an American thing - baseball is another example of a US sport where each team does not play all the other teams every year. In fact, up until about 10-15 years ago, baseball was split into two leagues and the only time teams between the two leagues played against each other was in the World Series. So unless you made the WS, you would not play ANY teams in the other half of major league baseball. Now that there is limited inter-league play, you at least get to play those other teams - again on a rotating basis - so you will only play some other teams on certain years.

 

But isnt there a gazillion games in baseball? Like 4-5 games per week? My impression is that baseball and american football have taken two distinct paths to marketing. Baseball is flooding the market to the point of saturation while fooball is keeping the supply limited to drive up the value of each individual game.

As for football, they could play two games per week that would cut it down to 30 weeks + finals. Anyhway, I just started this cause I have fond it odd that American football, the biggest sport you guys have only have 16 games per team and season. It just feels like awfully little especially if you would be a real fan.

 

Baseball plays 162 games per year - so roughly 10 times the amount the play in football, and they STILL don't play every other team. (And yes, typically they play 5 games per week.)

 

That would be fantastic if they would play twice a week for the thirty weeks. The only problem is that they would have to increase the team roster size to 100 and even then I doubt they would have enough players to finish the season.

I don't remember who said it, but football isn't a "contact" sport, it is a "collision" sport. The level of violence may be unequalled by any other legal sport. I'm including rugby in that comment as rugby is violent, but it is tamed by the lack of protection the players wear. When a tackle hurts the tackler as much as the one tackled, tackles aren't as violent.