Your Football Place

For the vast majority of this blog, I will be discussing the NFL and the NFL alone. While the college game is fascinating on its own merits, it has nowhere near the level of talent or intrigue as professional football does for me. With that said, one of the pressing issues this season has been the method used to rank teams.

As most NCAA football fans know, the championship system works by ranking teams throughout the season. Before each season begins, the NCAA ranks systems based on their previous year’s results and newly acquired talent. As the season continues, teams move up or down based on losses and wins. And at the end of the year, the two top teams get a chance to play for the top title in college football.

The problem? This design favors weak conferences over good ones. Before last Saturday, Ohio State had a seemingly easy path to a national championship despite scheduling no hard out-of-conference teams and playing in the abysmal Big Ten. Meanwhile teams like LSU and Oregon suffered because they play in conferences where tough match-ups are the norm, not the rarity.

Even though Ohio State’s loss to Illinois has put the entire system back where it should be, the problem still exists. One loss should not be the difference between two equally good teams when the teams play different levels of talent. Strength of schedule should be a bigger factor then it currently is.

But this is not an easy problem to fix. There is no way that every team can play equal talent, it just can’t happen. And it isn’t fair to penalize a team for factors it can’t control like which conference it plays in. The only real answer would be to open up a playoff system for the championship. If four or more teams were allowed to vie for the title, there will be less of a chance of deserving teams being left out.

Of course, a playoff system simply is not ideal for the NCAA right now because of TV contracts and other reasons. So for now, we must just suffer through the possibility of deserving teams having no shot at a championship.

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Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis was where, supposedly, the best regular season game in the NFL was played. Both the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts were undefeated heading into Sunday’s big game. And the result? A hum-ho game that had a pretty good ending but proved nothing not already known. With that said, lets move on to this week’s power rankings as usual;

1. New England Patriots - They beat Indianapolis and that alone will keep them secure in their top position. 9-0 is not an easy mark to achieve. With that said, the game on Sunday revealed major problems in their run defense and showed that a good secondary can stop Tom Brady and the passing game. I can’t imagine the same effort they put in last weekend would win them a playoff game against the Colts.

2. Indianapolis Colts - Sure they lost their first game but they also outplayed the Patriots for all but ten minutes of the game. Consider that Manning only had two wide receiver options for most of the game and still managed to keep his team in the game. It isn’t much of a stretch to believe that Marvin Harrison and a healthy Anthony Gonzalez could have helped the team score more than twenty points.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers - Pittsburgh is playing as well as anybody in the NFL right now. They didn’t just beat Baltimore on Monday night, they destroyed them and exposed all of their weaknesses. With that said, do you really think New England or Indianapolis would have given away two winnable games (Arizona and Denver) like this team did earlier in the season?

4. Dallas Cowboys - I know Green Bay was ranked four last week and won, but no one was more impressive than Dallas was (outside of maybe Detroit) in the NFC last week. They annihalated the Eagles, pushed their record to 7-1, and proved they can get it done in all aspects of the game.

5. Green Bay Packers - Look there is no question that the team is somewhat over-performing right now, but come playoff time Lambeau is going to be a huge advantage. The Packers shouldn’t get too cocky, however. The aforementioned Detroit Lions are only one game back and have two shots to knock off this team coming up.

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An interesting week of football ended with two undefeated teams set to face off, one top-five team winning a close contest in London, and the surprising Detroit Lions completing half of Jon Kitna’s bold prediction of ten regular season wins. Every team in last week’s top-five won in week eight, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be shake-ups in the rankings. So, without further ado;

1. New England Patriots - If the Patriots beat Indianapolis by a ridiculous margin, would anyone bet against them going undefeated the rest of the way? Seriously, we all knew New England was good. But they’re not just good, they’re unbelievably good and constantly unhappy with their results. Even after a 52-7 thrashing of the Washington Redskins, the team still acted like their season was over when their kickoff went out-of-bounds.

2. Indianapolis Colts - The defense is definately improved. But I think Marvin Harrison better get into uniform for Sunday’s game. There is no way New England will be lit up by Reggie Wayne on his own.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers - Two reasons why the Steelers move up over other teams that won. One, they play in the AFC which everyone knows is the superior conference in the NFL right now. And two, they beat a division rival, a desperate one, handily on the road. That is the mark of a good team.

4. Green Bay Packers - All season long we’ve heard about how Favre can manage the game better than ever. Well guess what…he can still hurl the ball too. His long touchdown pass to win the game in overtime was right on target to Greg Jennings. And while many moan about the team’s running woes, it isn’t that hard to see a team win in the cold months with a great defense, quarterback, and home field.

5. New York Giants - Yes they won their sixth game in a row and yes the trip to London surely affected their play. But a three-point win over one of the worst teams in the league was not impressive, no matter where the venue was. The Giants should have been able to manage more than thirteen points with all the weapons they have.

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