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| Coughlin's job could be on the line Sunday night against Dallas. (Getty) |
I'll take the NFC to kick off with the coin toss. The only spot that's still up in there poises to be a great Sunday night matchup between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. But, there's one problem: it's hard to label a winner-take-all game as "great" when the two teams playing are both 8-7.
Theoretically, the AFC West can be won at 8-8, while the NFC East will at least have a team over .500. However, the NFC East is surprisingly bad this year. Can we return the long-lost title of "NFC Least" to this division?
Food for thought: is it getting old seeing these mediocre teams (2010 7-9 Seahawks, 2008 8-8 Chargers) making the playoffs because they won the division? Should there be some change in the system to ensure that, say, the 2008 11-5 Patriots or 2010 10-6 Giants (or Bucs) don't get hosed out of a spot for some team they could stomp all over?
Austen: Let's start off with the NFC East.
The Giants and Cowboys matchup on Sunday could not have more at stake. The winner is making the playoffs, the loser does not.
If the Giants lose in a disastrous fashion, Tom Coughlin could very easily lose this job. I am not saying this would be a deserved firing, but this is the way the NFL works. The Giants have blown their playoff hopes the last two years at the end of the season, and this could be Coughlin's third strike in that regard. Can you believe if the Giants had beaten the Redskins once, they would be the NFC East Champs right now and would be able to use this game as a semi-bye week!?
On the other hand, if the Cowboys lose this game, Tony Romo will surely be blamed no matter what happens and he will again have to sit through an offseason in which he will be highly criticized by both the media and fans about how he cannot and will not ever be a championship caliber quarterback. This type of pressure will cause the 2012 season to be a make or break season for Romo and head coach Jason Garrett.
If the Boys continue to struggle in 2012 as they have over most of the last decade and a half, Romo, Garrett, or both could be gone when 2013 rolls around and Dallas will have a huge rebuilding job ahead of them. Again, this might not be a good idea, but Jerry Jones has done a lot crazier things (giving up basically two draft classes for underachiever WR Roy Williams).
Now onto the playoff rules.
I really believe that teams who win their division should always make the playoffs. Look at last season. The Seahawks came in as the worst team to ever make the playoffs and they had one of the most exciting playoff games in recent memory when they shocked the defending Super Bowl Champion Saints. Anything could happen and teams should be rewarded for being the best in their division.
On the other hand, there might be a way to change the rules so that a seven-win Seahawks would not be rewarded with a home game over an 11-win Saints team. I do not have a clear answer on a way to design the playoffs so that a team who does not win their division could still get a chance to play a home game but I am sure there is a way in which the schedule makers can figure it out.
This would be great for the NFL because it would give teams who clinched there terrible division early in the season a reason to keep playing, so they don't have to go on the road against a wild card team. Also, it gives those wild card teams a shot at a home game, if they can out perform the other division winners.
Basically, it makes all of the games more meaningful for numerous teams and there would be an increase in viewership for those games. This also would make an 18-game season way more feasible. With two extra weeks of football, there would be a lot more meaningless games at the end of the season, unless they made some sort of change like this so there could be more consequences, if you lose a bunch of games after you clinch your division.
I am sure there are other ways of mixing up the playoff positions, like making the worst division leader fight for a third wild card spot instead of just getting in through their division, but I really do think division winners should always make the playoffs. That's just my opinion, as always.
Stally: I'll go back to the original question about the "NFC Least" tag. I do feel that, aside from Washington, all three teams simply disappointed this year. I think the 49ers are here to stay, but I still think the NFC West is the weakest in the conference, pound for pound.
You're definitely right that both teams have so much to lose with a loss today. It's shocking to me that the Giants went as mediocre down the stretch as I said they would and the Cowboys still couldn't figure out how to lock up the division.
In regards to playoff rules, I think that you could take all four division winners and just seed the teams by record. This will be the second straight year that we watch a NFC North team go on the road to play a far inferior AFC West winner.
As far as the mention of an 18-game season, please, let's leave that talk in the dumpster of trashed ideas during the CBA, where it belongs. How many running backs did you lose in fantasy football this year, Austen? Five in the same league, I believe. There's no need to have more regular season games, the attrition is already very bad as it is.
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| The Bengals can roar with a win. (AP) |
Who is the best of the AFC? I have thought for most of the season the Texans have been the best from top to bottom, but with almost half of their roster injured (I believe there are something like 22-23 players on the Texans' injury report), it would be very difficult for them to win one playoff game, let alone three. So does that mean the Patriots are the best team yet again in the AFC, even with the worst pass defense in the league? Or, is it the Ravens or the Steelers, who have dynamic playmakers on offense as well as stout defenses?
I really think any of these teams could make a strong playoff run because they all have enough deficiencies and inconsistencies that they could all beat themselves any week. What's your thoughts?
Stally: As far as the final few playoff spots, I don't think the Raiders beat the Chargers, so we can give the Broncos the AFC West and move on. The playoff scenarios are a really odd combination. For instance, the Titans actually need the Jets to win to somehow win a tiebreaker over the Bengals.
I think the Jets are the best team among that whole pile of riff-raff, but this isn't the BCS, where some pollsters can just pick a team. There's a system in place and the Jets fall to the bottom of the tiebreakers with most of these teams, so it's unlikely they'll claim the spot. Based on my predictions for the games and my understanding of the tiebreakers, I think the Bengals are going to lose, but still back into the last spot.
Who's the best team in the AFC? The team that's most build on consistency and balance: the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Patriots have no pass defense; the Ravens don't have a quarterback that can win big games in clutch situations; the Steelers are a trip to Cleveland away from yet another impressive 12-4 season. Say what you want about them Austen, as I know you always seem to be looking for a dent in the Steel Curtain, but I can't remember the last time the Jets went 12-4!
The Steelers won two Super Bowls in the last decade. They have a clutch quarterback, whose toughness embodies the city's blue collar mentality. They have one of the hardest hitting defenses in the league. And, they have several different offensive weapons to throw a balanced attack at any team (they certainly were able to pass all over New England in a win earlier this year).
Austen: Everyone passes all over the Patriots, just most of them can't seem to beat the Pats.
I had the Steelers going 13-3 before the season started, so its not like I am a Steeler hater or something. In preseason, they looked better than any team I had ever seen. However, in their first game of the season they got absolutely obliterated by the Ravens and Roethlisberger turned the ball over six times himself.
I will give them the benefit of the doubt in that game since it was the first of the season, but they have struggled on defense a lot of this season with both James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley being banged up. If even one of them goes down, this pass defense becomes extremely vulnerable because their corners are big and slow. Troy Polamalu is an amazing player, but he has not been great against the pass the last year or so, and he too has been banged up.
You say that the Ravens do not have a clutch quarterback, but it was Joe Flacco who lead the Ravens to an amazing drive at the end of the game to beat the Steelers, mostly because they simply could not cover the Ravens mediocre receivers.
The Steelers should be the best team in the AFC, but they probably are not going to even win their own division because they could not beat the Ravens once. That is not a great sign because they most likely will see the Ravens in the playoffs at some point in time.
I am praying the Jets sneak into the playoffs because I really do not think any of these teams are that good. Once you are in the playoffs, anything could happen.
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