The NFL playoffs get underway this weekend with a slate of four wild card games. Is it just a chance to extend the season or does the presence of wild cards improve the NFL playoffs?
The NFL playoffs got underway Saturday with the Cincinnati Bengals visiting the Houston Texans, and the New Orleans Saints hosting the Detroit Lions. Sunday, Eli Manning and the New York Giants face the Atlanta Falcons, while an injured Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers journey to take on Tim Tebow?s Broncos.
Skip to next paragraphThe winners of those games will move on to the divisional playoffs to face the Patriots, Ravens, Packers, or 49ers ? the teams that won their divisions and did well enough to earn a first round bye.
The Texans, Saints. Giants, and Broncos ? your host teams ? also won their respective divisions, but didn?t have good enough regular season records to avoid the division-losing Bengals, Lions, Falcons, and Steelers in the wild card round.
If you believe that a berth in the postseason should be earned in the regular season, then the concept of a wild card spot can be baffling. Why give some teams the week off, and let others, who couldn?t even win against their division rivals in the regular season, squeak into the playoffs at all? Wouldn?t it just be easier to seed the division winners and let them all in on the action at the start?
The cynic would chalk it up to money, and he wouldn?t be completely wrong.? By including wild card teams and giving others the week off, the NFL gains an extra week of television and ticket revenue. It also gives advertisers and teams time to ramp up enthusiasm for the bigger games, including America?s TV holiday, the Super Bowl. Last year?s wild card weekend was the most-watched ever, averaging 32.2 million viewers per game and thoroughly trouncing everything else on TV that weekend (The lowest rated game, Saints vs. Seahawks, beat out the highest rated nonfootball offering, and episode of ?Two and a Half Men,? by 13 million viewers).
But to take a gentler view, the wild card round is as intrinsic to NFL football as hard hits and elaborate touchdown celebrations. The league actually invented the playoff wild card round, a concept now used in some form by all of North America?s major professional leagues ? the NHL, MLB, NBA, and MLS among them.
In 1970, the NFL reorganized itself into two leagues (The AFC and the NFC) with three divisions apiece. To make the playoff rounds even, the best second place division finisher from each league also made the postseason. At first, the NFL clunkily dubbed these qualifiers ?Best Second-Place Teams.?? Presumably for the sake of? time, broadcasters began calling these teams ?wild cards,? a term the NFL officially adopted in 1975.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/rFNNL_DMu-g/NFL-playoffs-Why-do-we-need-wild-cards-anyway
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