my proposal to make the NFL and it's playoff system better

     

Not that I don't love the NFL or that I don't think the playoffs are great... I LOVE them. both. I love the races at the end of the season, knowing that some teams, in the last 2 or 3 games, MUST win to have a chance to get there... so at this point for them, every game is, in it's own sense, a playoff game for them... and they play like there's no tomorrow... this is what makes the game so great...

and this is the aspect my proposal takes off from...

There are 16 weeks in the NFL regular season. There are now reports that the league is looking to move to 18 regular season games. The players are not excited about this for several reasons, the most important being that there will be two more games of regular wear-and-tear on their bodies and also, their salaries remain the same.. but for two more games, witch diminishes each game check. My proposal eliminates all of this and also makes everything about the league and the playoff race even more exciting.

The proposal:

Make the regular season 14 games (15 weeks with one bye for each team, playing each divisional opponent once). Throughout the entire season, teams are playing for seedings and home-field advantage in the new playoff system. The first round of playoffs would start in week 16 (after 14 games for each team) with EVERY TEAM in the tournament. The first two rounds of the playoffs will be inter-divisional based on divisional seedings (1 vs. 4, 2 vs 3 and winner vs. winner in the second round). This will decide the division champions. Once the division champions are decided, these teams will be re-seeded based upon their regular season records and will determine the match-ups for the next two rounds of the playoffs. At the outset of each round, seedings will determine match-ups and home field, just like they do in the current playoff system with the Super Bowl being the final game: AFC champ vs. NCF champ.

In this format, every team has a chance... if you're a team that gets hot at the right time you could shake up the entire picture. And the regular season is not all for naught... you play for your division, seedings and home-field in the playoffs. This would also appease those who want to make the regular season longer with a longer playoff system.

boom.

So, you want to be the next Michigan football coach?

Perhaps there's a lesson to others in Michigan's woes: If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

You want to be the coach to restore honor? Fine. But there's a long list of stringent requirements and preferences, so you might want to make sure you're qualified to be a Michigan man.

1. The only color you hate worse than scarlet is gray.

2. You promise to ask yourself at least once each day: What would Bo do?

3. You must be able to correctly spell Bennie Oosterbaan.

4. You believe whoever dots the "i" in Script Ohio should go on the TSA terrorist watch list.

5. You know all the words to "Victors" and can satisfactorily explain why the last line of a song about winning the Big Ten goes, "the champions of the West." You also won't mind when the band plays it 68 times on any given Saturday.

6. If you consider Legends and Leaders to be goofy titles for the new Big Ten divisions, you'll keep it to yourself.

7. You consider the three most pressing problems facing the nation to be the economy, the war and the seven-game losing streak to Ohio State. You're just not sure of the order.

8. It doesn't matter where you coached last, so long as you two don't end up in court.

9. You have never bought any memorabilia from Terrelle Pryor.

10. You agree that the only place Michigan is supposed to give up 52 points in a game in January is at the basketball arena.

11. You voted for former Wolverine Gerald Ford for president.

12. You wouldn't be caught dead coaching in a vest.

13. If you commit any violations, they will be for overtime parking.

14. You know at least three good Michigan State jokes.

15. You are willing to agree to the following contract clause: You can be terminated for moral turpitude, felony conviction or if Michigan ever loses to Toledo again.

16. You can't understand why the 100-24 combined score of the past three losses to Ohio State has not been declared a disaster area by the governor.

17. You have always been under the impression that the Seven Wonders of the World included the Big House.

18. You won't mind that half your fan base wishes you were Jim Harbaugh.

19. Your game plan will not be based on the premise that if your offense scores 40, you might have a chance to win.

20.. When you were a kid, you thought your dream date was either Raquel Welch or Ann Arbor.

21. You can explain in terms easily understood by the layman why the devil reincarnate is among us and goes by the alias Jim Tressel.

22. You think Olentangy is a silly name for a river.

23. When you need a good stiff drink at home, you pour it into a Little Brown Jug.

24. All you want is a program your helmets can be proud of.

25. You will fill your staff only with coaches old enough to remember the last time Michigan beat Ohio State.

*(courtesy of USA Today)