Man, I had so wanted this to start off with a different bent. Perhaps I could wax philosophical about politics, or give a personal story of a friend who escaped the tsunami.
But, no.
I'm going to have to vent about the Saints getting shafted.
Three teams in the NFC finished with an 8-8 record: the New Orleans Saints, the Minnesota Vikings, and the St. Louis Rams. Two of those teams advance to the playoffs.
In head to head competition, Minnesota beat New Orleans, and New Orleans beat St. Louis. Given that, one would expect Minnesota and New Orleans to advance. Nope.
Here is the NFL wild card tiebreaking procedure:
1. Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tie breaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants. (Inapplicable since the teams are all from different divisions)
2. Head-to-head sweep. (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others.) (inapplicable)
3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
Now, with #3, it gets interesting.
Within the conference, the Vikings were 5-7, the Saints 6-6, and the Rams 7-5.
The way that I read this, steps 1 and 2 are moot, and after applying step 3, we eliminate the Vikings. At this point, we would go to the 2-team tiebreaker, and since the Saints beat the Rams head to head, the Saints would be the first wild card, and the Rams the second.
Unfortunately, the NFL reads this a different way. Instead of using the step to eliminate teams, the NFL uses the step to advance teams. Thus, the tiebreaker promotes the Rams, and when the 2-team tiebreaker is applied, the Vikings win out over the Saints because of beating them head to head.
Here's the fine print from NFL.com: When the first Wild-Card team has been identified, the procedure is repeated to name the second Wild-Card, i.e., eliminate all but the highest-ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2.
Thus, the procedure identifies the Rams first, and then the Saints get screwed on the head-head.
Now, for those of you just now tuning in, trust me, this blog will not be about football. It will not be about sports. I don't even care that much for sports any more, and I haven't even watched the last two superbowls. I am, however, a New Orleans Saints fan, and I'm stuck with having my emotions controlled by 53 men on a 100 yard sheet of plastic grass.
I'm not proud of it, but that's the way it is.
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