Report: League Pushing Hard for 3/16 Schedule & Extra Playoff Week

[lobachevsky]

Don't like it. The postseason is fine as it is. I can't imagine how they can add another week to it. It's already effectively five weeks (incl SB bye week) long as it is. Anything further and it just makes the regular season look like the 'special guest' local band warm-up before the gig for the band you actually want to see.

Depends on how it's done.

I suppose they'd then have to add a 7th seed - have a semi-wild card weekend where 6th plays 7th, then the normal playoffs as we see now starts (sort of how it used to be and how it is in MLB, but with an extra week on top). They could maybe add an 8th, but you'd probably then have to re-jig the playoffs around a lot. The system works fine as it is, as there's enough chance from 1st to 6th to win it. Doing it that way probably condemns 6th/7th seed and/or 8th seeds to just participants - 1st seed may only have to play 3 games to win a SB, whereas a 6th/7th has 5 games. Or on the other side, the top seeds go from having a bye week to having a holiday.

You could add a 7th seed & have 2 play-in games the week before, or add 7th & 8th seeds & have 4 play-in games the week before (with 5th & 6th seeds), or you could add 7th & 8th seeds & simply eliminate the bye week for the top seeds. Don't think the latter would fly--you'd eliminate most of the incentive to fight for a high seed, & (more importantly) unless you threw an extra week in there anyway, you wouldn't get much $$ benefit.

Either of the first 2 ideas expands on the tiered benefits of higher seeding: 1/2 seeds get 2 weeks off, 3/4 seeds get 1 week off, and either 5 seed also gets a week off, or 5/6 seeds get no rest. Adding an 8th seed would also ensure the top 6 seeds of a home game (week P1, 8 at 5, 7 at 6; week P2, higher winner from P1 at 4, lower at 3; etc.) whereas just adding the 7th seed would get the 6 seed a home game but not the 5 seed (which gets a week off instead).

My money's on adding 7/8 seeds & an extra week. Could be worse.

[Tolucaraven]

Ravens are toast today.