I can’t say that I’ve paid much attention to the embarrassment that was once known as the NFL this season, so I can’t really say I’m coherently aware of who the best quarterback is, what previously thought-to-be-unbreakable record is being threatened, or even who the last undefeated team was before their inevitable defeat, prompting the old tryhard 1979 Miami Dolphins team to pop champagne in celebration.
But I have been somewhat aware of the fact that the NFC South division has been pretty pathetic this season, mostly on account of the fact that it’s where the Atlanta Falcons play, and it’s impossible for me to not hear about the Falcons from time to time.
As we approach the final week of the regular season, there are lots of question marks, hypotheticals, teams that need help from other teams, and so forth, that is the calculus of seeding those teams privileged to make it into the playoffs, and a glimmer of hope at making it, and possibly winning the Super Bowl. However, there is one thing that is very much definite, and just as much embarrassing:
A team with seven wins is going to win the NFC South division.* A team with seven wins is going to make the playoffs, and have a chance to make it to the Super Bowl.
To those who are not aware of this, seven wins is not good. There are 16 games in a season, so seven wins means that there’s typically nine defeats, and sometimes a rare tie instead of a loss. Either way, seven wins means a team that is not a .500 team, which is to say that they are below-average.
A below-average team is going to make the playoffs this year.
The irony in this is the fact that because of the merit of simply winning the division, there will be plenty of above-average teams that did not win their divisions, that will not make the playoffs, even if they’re all better than seven wins, even now, before the final game of the season is being played. The picture above already shows that in the AFC, there are three teams that are 9-6 and 8-7 going into the final game of the season, all of whom needs to win their last game as well as have someone be defeated in theirs.
The bottom line is that three teams that are over .500 will not make it into the playoffs, because they’re not in the NFC South.
The funny thing is, I absolutely love this entire debacle. It encapsulates everything that is stupid about playoff seeding, and the fallacy of rewarding teams simply for winning divisions, regardless of their strength.
That being said, there are many crucial games this coming weekend. But none of them are going to be more intriguing to me than when the Falcons take on the also-six-win Carolina Panthers, in a winner-take-all, division deciding, race to win #7.
Although I kind of hope it’s the Falcons that win, because they’re the Falcons and they suck, it doesn’t really matter. I still want whomever wins the battle for the “best” team of the NFC South to catch fire and run roughshod through the playoffs and win the Super Bowl, because what better way could a season end than a seven-win team taking the whole shebang?
*I’m aware that a tie is also a possibility, meaning that a 6-8-2 Carolina Panthers squad could win the division, which would be even more embarrassing, but let’s be realistic, ties are pretty rare, much less the possibility of one team having two in a single season.
