(Note: this post regards two discussion that take place here and here)
Ok, here we go.
First I reference post 30.
1. So you use words like “screwed up” and “mistake” but you don’t advocate changing the system. Fine, but certainly you can see why I would have been confused about your position. It is true, you didn’t advocate a change I suppose. I assumed you did because of the words you used. I don’t apologize that for that. You were inarticulate.
2. This one is my fault for a typo. Point 2 in post #23 should have read:
“You now say that seeding by playoff result is the fairest system, however, In the original debate, that idea was suggested, and I found it an acceptable middle ground between my proposal and the current system. You responded at the time “Leave the draft how it is, and change the playoff system. OR change nothing.
and Just because some team wins their division and gets a home game doesn’t change their status in the grand scheme of things, which is that they (teams like San Diego) are not yet equal to teams like Indianapolis. Your system would change the meaning of the draft
Again, what you said at the time is the opposite of what you say now
3. The same conference doesn’t always lose or gain slots. This year, the AFC (who won the Super Bowl and had a better head to head record than the NFC) lost a slot. Even in extreme years, the whole conference doesn’t suffer, just one or two outliers. The effects on the whole conference are overstated. Again, it only effects the top 6 teams in the conference, and even then not uniformly. Some of those teams actually gain slots.
4. I’m sorry I was unclear. Let me rephrase:
You said you believe that the best way to determine a team strength, and therefore slot them for the draft was by regular season record. The NFL has declared that regular season record IS NOT the best way slot teams for the draft. They now say that where a team drafts in the playoffs is the best method to determine a team’s “strength”.
5. You are assuming the whole conference would be weaker proportionally because of my plan. That’s not how it works, however. My plan would punish SOME teams in the conference, but not most. Most teams would continue to draft just the same as they always did. This isn’t a conference wide penalty. It only really affects the draft status of about 4 teams, typically having records between 8-8 and 10-6. The best and worst teams in the conference will have all the same methods of improvement available to them in exactly the same way as always. So your assumption that if the NFC is weaker that every single team in the NFC is weaker proportionally isn’t based on anything. Again, this problem isn’t unique to my plan but is shared by the plan the NFL adopted as well
6. My reason for making you repeat yourself is that you were unclear. You used pejorative language to describe the seeding system. That naturally lead me to think you didn’t support it.
Now your response to my arguments:
1. Who cares about the Colts/Chargers example? Stop thinking in specifics here.
The NFL that’s who. They changed the whole system because of the Colts/Chargers. It’s totally valid to use that game as a poster child for the error of seeding by record. The league agrees with me, not you.
The seeding system allows this to happen. You cannot deny this flaw. So mirroring this system in the draft WILL allow a better team to draft before a lesser team on certain occasions. Drafting by record will allow this to happen at a far lesser rate than drafting by seed.
Guy, again, it’s not about who’s better by record. Record doesn’t always show who is better. It’s about who is closer to the Super Bowl. My plan measures how close teams are to the Super Bowl before the playoffs and slots them. The NFL plan measures how close teams are to the Super Bowl after the playoffs and slots them. Drafting by record ignores the playoffs, and pretends that how many wins you have is the same as how good your team is.
Furthermore, drafting by record would never piss anybody off, whereby your system would be reviled by every 10-6 division winner who just lost their prospective player to the 13-3 wild card team that just drafted.
Dude, this is crazy. I’M REVILING THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM RIGHT NOW! The original system lets teams that beat my team at home in the playoffs draft 10 slots higher! It lets teams that got to play at home draft before teams that had to play on the road. IT SUCKED! And guess what, the NFL changed it. Under the new system, that 10-6 team that won a home game in the playoffs will still have to draft after the 13-3 that lost on the road in the Wild Card round. Drafting by record never pissed anyone off? Cute
3. Again, I’ve conceded that there will be a loss of slots in extreme years due to my plan. The NFL plan has the same flaw. My plan wasn’t ‘ridiculous’ because of it.
4. No, I never changed my original plan. Here’s what I wrote in the blog post:
The final twelve slots should go to playoff teams first by seed, then by record (to slot the NFC/AFC disparity). So the highest that a division winner could draft would be 24 and the lowest a wild card team could draft would be 23 (unless they made the Super Bowl).
I can see how that might have been unclear, but note the words “unless they made the Super Bowl”. It was always my intention to preserve the 31/32 slots for the Super Bowl winners. I never said anything different, and included those in my run down of who would draft where. I’m sorry you misunderstood. It was stated, but not clearly.
Let me be clear:
1. My plan doesn’t worry about team strength. I don’t use pythag, or playoff wins, because I’m not worried about how good teams are. I’m worried about how close they are to the Super Bowl.
2. I feel I can do this because the best ways to measure team “strength” are hard to pin down. You are worried about team strength which you related directly to wins and losses. I believe team strength isn’t best reflected in wins and losses, and therefore it isn’t easily measured and CANNOT be considered a slotting plan.
5. If my plan will never pass because of the conference imbalance issue, how come a plan with the same ‘problem’ did pass?
My plan wasn’t based on an “unmeasurable intangible thing”. It was based on seeding derived from the regular season. The new NFL plan recognizes the intrinsic value of being in a weaker conference by saying: an 8-8 playoff team doesn’t get to draft in their normal slot. They have to move down. If they win a playoff game, they have to move down even further because they got closer to the Super Bowl than a 13-3 team that lost in the first round. Again, I slotted based on where teams started, the NFL does it by where they finished. Both plans do the very things you say would NEVER happen.
6. The Colts Chargers issue isn’t tired. It prompted the league to change the system. You don’t have to like it, but 32 NFL owners found it compelling. You might not like it, but it altered the land scape.
For your later posts: 31
Your system WILL NEVER HELP the weaker conference, and therefore the TALENT distribution will be unbalanced and will lead to even more disparity.
Not true. It would have helped the NFC both in 2006 and 2009. The NFC would have gained 2
slots in 2006 and 1 this ye
ar. I can’t speak to other years I haven’t researched.
But what would those 14 slots in 2005 being doing now? They sure as hell wouldn’t be HELPING the weak conference. That is why your plan would not work and the NFL’s would.
Maybe you didn’t understand. My plan cost the NFC 14 slots, and the NFL’s plan cost the NFC 12 slots. The NFL’s plan has the same effect on conferences as mine does. Some years it’s slightly more, some years slightly less.
The fact that you are researching this now and finding “interesting” results verifies that it was under-thought to begin with.
Don’t be silly. Just because I didn’t research something that I didn’t (and still don’t) think is important, doesn’t mean that I didn’t think through the plan. The NFL doesn’t think this is a problem, and neither do I. I can’t mystically see every possible argument before hand. I’m not sure why you continue to be combative. Your tone and attitude are very poor.
Re 33:
You are totally right that we couldn’t see the impact of the draft picks and rewrite history. What we could see by looking at past drafts is the frequency of conference imbalance. Don’t forget that most of the “conference imbalance” isn’t applied evenly. It’s not that every NFC team lost a slot in 2005. Some gained slots. Basically, my plan and the NFL plan punished the Vikings and Rams a lot. Most teams stayed the same. You can argue that the Vikings are glad they didn’t get punished. The Rams? Would it have mattered if they had lost 3 or four draft slots? They suck anyway now.
So, I grant you that you have a valid argument with “conference imbalance”. My plan does create one. You are wrong that it makes my plan unworkable, however, since the NFL plan also creates a nearly identical imbalance.
Please continue the discussion on this page.
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