2008 Woodie Awards
Seething over playoff seeding
By Rocco Cremonese
Rocket Contributor
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Sports
It's been a weird postseason year in the wide world of professional sports. So how else does one explain the unexplainable?
In the NFL, the No. 5 seed in the AFC, the Jacksonville Jaguars, had to hit the road to play the No. 4-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers despite having a better win-loss record.
In the NCAA men's basketball tournament the No. 1 seed in every bracket made it for the first time in history. And in the NHL, the Southeastern Division champions, the Washington Capitals, captured the third seed in the playoffs despite finishing in a three-way tie for eighth place in total points in the Eastern Conference.
Admittedly, this hasn't been a problem for the NHL or the NCAA basketball tournament. In both these sports, a higher seed means little more than bragging rights when the puck drops or the tip-off takes place.
The NCAA gets around the issue by having its tournament at neutral sites, while in the NHL, a lower-seeded team can ride a hot streak to playoff superstardom. Because of this, the Caps' unearned inclusion as the No. 3 seed will be forgotten in a few weeks. It's happened before.
So why was it a topic of the recent NFL owners' meetings-but not in the NHL-when both leagues are simply following preexisting rules? And why is the NCAA tournament committee absolved of major controversy in its seeding process? Call it an educated guess, but it could be that the ownership realizes that home-ice advantage just doesn't count for a lot in the NHL.
It's nice to have, but in a best-of-seven format, a team only needs one upset on the road to have everything it needs to win so long as it takes care of business at home. As for the NCAA, the seeding process is a closely guarded secret. Prognosticators can talk about total wins and RPI all they want, but in the end, the only people who really know what goes into the seeding decisions are the decision-makers themselves.
In the NFL, not having home-field advantage plays havoc with an opposing team's offense.
The league successfully dodges the issue most years by having eight dominant division teams and four wild-card teams that are happy just to make it. But that wasn't the case this year, when the Jaguars finished 11-5 and the Steelers 10-6.
Ultimately, it proved not to matter, as the better team won, but it nonetheless underscores the fact that a team that wins more feels it deserves the home game. The debate raised some media headlines but turned out to be much ado about nothing, with tradition winning out. The league didn't even bring the seeding issue to a formal vote due to an informal owner vote indicating that a potential change had little chance of passing.
Underlying the theme of tradition though is a simple truth. The beautiful thing about the playoffs in any sport is what every athlete who steps on the field, rink, or court knows: If they play better than the other team and win, all the talk of unfair seeding goes out the window, only to be replaced with talks of how one team shocked the world.
Athletes, not unlike sports columnists, can be a fickle bunch.
Rocco Cremonese is an english graduate student and a regular contributor for The Rocket.
In the NFL, the No. 5 seed in the AFC, the Jacksonville Jaguars, had to hit the road to play the No. 4-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers despite having a better win-loss record.
In the NCAA men's basketball tournament the No. 1 seed in every bracket made it for the first time in history. And in the NHL, the Southeastern Division champions, the Washington Capitals, captured the third seed in the playoffs despite finishing in a three-way tie for eighth place in total points in the Eastern Conference.
Admittedly, this hasn't been a problem for the NHL or the NCAA basketball tournament. In both these sports, a higher seed means little more than bragging rights when the puck drops or the tip-off takes place.
The NCAA gets around the issue by having its tournament at neutral sites, while in the NHL, a lower-seeded team can ride a hot streak to playoff superstardom. Because of this, the Caps' unearned inclusion as the No. 3 seed will be forgotten in a few weeks. It's happened before.
So why was it a topic of the recent NFL owners' meetings-but not in the NHL-when both leagues are simply following preexisting rules? And why is the NCAA tournament committee absolved of major controversy in its seeding process? Call it an educated guess, but it could be that the ownership realizes that home-ice advantage just doesn't count for a lot in the NHL.
It's nice to have, but in a best-of-seven format, a team only needs one upset on the road to have everything it needs to win so long as it takes care of business at home. As for the NCAA, the seeding process is a closely guarded secret. Prognosticators can talk about total wins and RPI all they want, but in the end, the only people who really know what goes into the seeding decisions are the decision-makers themselves.
In the NFL, not having home-field advantage plays havoc with an opposing team's offense.
The league successfully dodges the issue most years by having eight dominant division teams and four wild-card teams that are happy just to make it. But that wasn't the case this year, when the Jaguars finished 11-5 and the Steelers 10-6.
Ultimately, it proved not to matter, as the better team won, but it nonetheless underscores the fact that a team that wins more feels it deserves the home game. The debate raised some media headlines but turned out to be much ado about nothing, with tradition winning out. The league didn't even bring the seeding issue to a formal vote due to an informal owner vote indicating that a potential change had little chance of passing.
Underlying the theme of tradition though is a simple truth. The beautiful thing about the playoffs in any sport is what every athlete who steps on the field, rink, or court knows: If they play better than the other team and win, all the talk of unfair seeding goes out the window, only to be replaced with talks of how one team shocked the world.
Athletes, not unlike sports columnists, can be a fickle bunch.
Rocco Cremonese is an english graduate student and a regular contributor for The Rocket.
Be the first to comment on this story