for basketball and hockey, the answer is yes. outside of home court..which means more in basketball than hockey, the regular season is not all that important. you have to be pretty bad not to make the playoffs. baseball and football is different. its not easy to be a playoff team in either of those sports and there's not all that much of a difference in terms of talent between a wildcard team and a division champ. we all know that the "any given sunday" rule applies in particular to the playoffs. its more a matter of momentum and injuries than the regular season once the playoffs start.

I disagree with this to some extent because the NFL is all about making the playoffs and that makes the regular season very meaningful. The postseason is still not quite watered-down with 12 of 32 making it. Baseball being 8 of 30 still makes it very meaningful (I think the one-game play-in wild card does not really increase the postseason by two teams, it's one game to determine which team gets to the post season). NBA and NHL have much less meaningful seasons. The problem is that the postseason is a crapshoot once you get there. It might be better to actually expand the NFL postseason field and eliminate the byes. Lower seeds would have far less chance of advancing and higher seeds a higher chance of making the Super Bowl in my opinion.

I guess you could say that College Football has the most meaningful regular season because any slip ups and you're likely out of the National Championship picture, and you're relegated to a GLORIFIED EXHIBITION GAME (had to get that in there!)

I guess you could say that College Football has the most meaningful regular season because any slip ups and you're likely out of the National Championship picture, and you're relegated to a GLORIFIED EXHIBITION GAME (had to get that in there!)

College football does not have a playoff and it has a championship game determined by votes. Sorry but most teams play to get in a exhibtion game so most games are meaningless

Irrelevant? Indeed, considering the expanded playoff format - just like all other professional sports.

It's increasingly all about money, and it will continue to be so. An 18 game NFL regular season? Coming to a stadium near you, courtesy Mr. Goodell!

That's why I was opposed to adding Wild Card teams in Baseball. How can you play a 162 game season, not be the best team in your divison and still be considered the "World Champion?"

Speaking of Baseball, I really enjoyed the Pirates article in this Sunday's PG. It was even better than the one last Sunday.

The NFL regular season is about peaking at the end getting through it without having your team resemble a MASH unit.

I think that Pete Grathoff is missing the point. In the salary cap era teams don't have enough backups to dominate through injuries. Other than poorly managed teams like the Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders, who wins the Super Bowl largely depends on what team can stay injury free.

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Irrelevant maybe for determining who wins the final game, but highly relevant to the owner$, and the media who distribute the "product".

Nothing new here.

It's the entertainment business much more than determining the best team.

Who is the best movie star? Who sells the most tickets.

Who is the best baseball team? Who makes the most money.

It's a variation of winning on the field versus winning at the cash register.

The NHL is most meaningless IMO. At least in the NBA you don't see the 8 seed in championship game on a recurring basis. But both leagues let in far too many teams.

In the Giants case, it was clearly injuries that put them at 7-7. Healthy, they had a solid playoff team with a solid Dline and very good receiving corps and QB. IMO, SF was better as was GB, but that's why they play the game.

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Speaking of Super Bowls, here's a link to a story about Whitney Houston's famous singing of the national anthem. I never heard before it was lip-synced.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/...51426.html

Sports, College & Pro is all about money now. That is why it has become so tasteless. The obscene amount of money the owners & players make is repulsive to most people. It is a bubble that will burst soon. The jersey wearing, beer swilling "Fan" will soon realize the folly of it all & give it up. The sane people already have.

The Giants winning the Super Bowl is the perfect example of how irrelevant the regular season is. They made the playoffs in the same manner they win their games - middling around nutil the last minute when they end up escaping by the skin of their teeth by a crazy play, a blown call, or a horrible coaching mistake by the other team. It happened all year and it happened in the Super Bowl.


I can't believe the NFL wants to add more games to the regular season. Half the teams are totally out of it by week 10, and we wanna extend that?

The NFL has a serious problem that a longer season will expose even faster - there's a massive dilution of the talent. Puppets for the league like to call it "parity", but it's really just 20 bad football teams with thin rosters giving themselves 4-6 token wins a year, a few good teams, and one or two elite teams.

I picked a random late-season week, week 14, from NFL.com just to see how many of the matchups were even relevant. http://www.nfl.com/scores/2011/REG14 The number of meaningless, boring, or outright unwatchable games is astounding, and it's because so many teams are AWFUL. The Cleveland Browns used to be in a class that was pretty much them and the Detroit Lions. Now there's 15 teams just like them. That's not parity. That's flat out disgraceful.

Great point to write a column on. It is the elephant in the room (especially NFL over the last 8 years) when talking about achieving goals to position for the playoffs.

That being said, wanting to get the homefield/home away advantage, certainly won't win you anything. It simply increases your chances of being successful.

One thing I really have started to be concerned about is having teams with losing or .500 records getting homefield adavantage. Apparently homefield still does carry weight:

8-8 San Diego beat 12-4 Indy in 08 at home, then got beat soundly by the Steelers in Pittsburgh-

7-9 Seattle got a home game against defending SB champ 12-4 New Orleans last year, then got beaten badly next week on the road-

8-8 Denver losing their way into the playoffs after 8-5, got a home game against defending AFC champion Pittsburgh, due to the putrid AFC West competition, then went on to beat the 12-4 Steelers- before playing in a mockery of a performance and getting blugeoned on the road in Foxboro.

Count me as one that firmly believes being fortunate enough to play in an anemicly talented division (winning without a record over .500) should not afford you a home contest.

I know 9-7 is only one better but atleast it is winning more than losing or breaking even. .500 or worse winning a division should move you down to the appropriate place of the 6 teams.

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That being said, wanting to get the homefield/home away advantage, certainly won't win you anything. It simply increases your chances of being successful.

Home field is a big deal in the NFL in the playoffs.

8 of the 10 playoff games were won by the home team. During the regular season only 56% won at home. Of course, the home playoff team was the home team because it had the better record, so maybe that is it.

Time of possession, which you would think probably reflects the better team, "predicted" the winner 68% in the regular season. In the 10 playoff games, only 4 of the winners also won TOP.

So what conclusion should we draw from this worthless article? I guess we should eliminate the playoffs and crown the champion based on who wins the most games. Oh but wait...what do you do in the case of a tie? Then, I guess you crown the winner based on strength of schedule and other bizarre statistics similiar to the BCS nonsense. Let the computers figure it out.

Are we supposed to conclude that if the Giants won more games than anyone else during the regular season that they would have lost the Super Bowl?

Articles like this are fun to read but in the end they are meaningless nonsense.

If you cut the number of teams by 6 or even 8 and kept the playoff format exactly the same you'd have unbelievable games, a tight and meaningful regular season, and great playoff games. Hell you could do that in every league.

But of course that's not good business.

In football, injuries play a significant role. The Giants had key injuries at the beginning of the season. At the end of the year, they had all their playmakers available.

The Steelers, on the other hand, were destroyed by injuries this year. The offensive line requires continuity. Key injuries made this impossible. When the Ben got hurt their season was done.

In Baseball, good pitching will always trump good hitting. In a seven game series, one or two good pitchers can dominate. That is why a team that has a so, so, record during the season can catch fire and win the whole thing.

In hockey, a hot goalie can control a series. In pro sports, generally the best team will win. But sometimes, at the end of the year, the team with the hottest quarterback, pitcher(s), or goalie along with a good defense will win.

The most irrelevant regular season is Major League Baseball... 162 games, 162 games! The Phillies had the best record in all of baseball last year but went 0-8 in late September. That 0-8 mark stretch of play carried over to the playoffs, where they were unceremoniously dismissed in the first round.

It doesn't really matter how you do in the regular season other than you have to win enough games to get in. But the team that wins the title is the team that is playing its best ball at the end of the season.

Ok. So people don't like my idea of eliminating the playoffs. How about eliminating the regular season since it appears to be irrelevant anyway? That gives us sports fans a lot more time to do yard work and projects around the house. Our wives will be thrilled.

Bob says the regular season is little but a long seeding process. I kind of thought that was the whole idea anyway.

The only way to improve it it to get rid of the silly "divisions" and conferences. Everyone is in the "league". You draw opponents by lottery every year. After so many games you declare the regular season over. You lop off the desired number of teams with the best records and have them go at it in a round robin elimination.

The only losers are the t-shirt vendors. They lose money on their sales of AFC North Champions hats and t-shirts.

I don't know about a conclusion being drawn from the article but it brings out the fact that the run to get the top seeds may be mean less once you know your in.

I still say the home team gets better calls on the average at home than on the road- win or lose. The crowd can be a serious asset to the hometeam depending on what is taking place. Easier to get back in a game at home, easier to keep pushing the opposition down once the momentum turns.

I still think the big issue is rewarding teams that have a non winning season vs. those that challenge for the top seeds by giving automatic home advantage to the division winner (if you can call going .500 really winning) is the true story.

Just because a team plays in a tougher division, yet still performs better than a certain division winner, should not mean their better regular season should mean less.

You get in 8-8 or 7-9 fine. Here's one thing you should have to do: Go through the toughest path to win a SB that can be put in front of you. No free passes. No avoiding the toughest obstacles. Then if the nightmare one day comes true: A 7-9 team goes on to win a SB, we can all be a little more O.K. with what they had to do to get there.

Playoffs are all about finding that perfect balance between fairness, and making sure that your league has a dramatic ending. Here are my thoughts on each of the leagues:

NFL: Just about right. (what else is new?)

MLB: Too selective (better now, though), meaning a large number of teams are out of the race too early. Points for fairness, but a loss of drama for many teams.

NBA: The regular season stays somewhat relevant because even though a large number of teams get into the playoffs, they tend to play out pretty similar to what was seen in the regular season.

NHL: Certainly the least relevant regular season in the pros.

NCAA Football: High on regular-season drama, low on playoff fairness.

NCAA Baskeball: High playoff drama, relatively irrelevant regular season. And some people want to expand the tournament further???

I'm not sure that the regular season is "irrelevant." It's what determines the team that makes the playoffs. Having a great regular season record and winning the Super Bowl are two different things. Playing in a weak division, a team can get into the playoffs.

On the other hand, this past season, the NFL teams with home playoff games fared much better overall. The thing about the NFL is that football is grueling, so there is no series. A lesser team can win an upset and advance in the playoffs or win the Super Bowl. It's not a best of 7, so a few mistakes, turnovers, big plays can affect the outcome. Plus, in the NFL injuries play a big part. The Steelers being so banged up late in the season being a big example.

So, what solution is there? Do you take the team with the best regular season record and crown them champs? Or give out trophies for every statistic? If so the Steelers will get their trophy for number one defense. Currently that stat and 60 cents will buy them a draft at Chief's.

Watered down league
+ too many playoff contenders
+ salary cap
+ draft order

= Irrelevant regular season

But it also equals competition, and that's what people want. We want a fair shot at winning a championship. Parity is why you end up with a 9-7 or 8-8 team having a shot at winning it all.

That's what is missing from baseball without a salary cap.

Hockey has a cap, but has too many teams making the playoffs.

I don't pay attention to the NBA.

College sports has a subjective ranking system based on people's feelings of which team is better than another. (Pitt ranked #7 at the start of the season?)

I actually think the NFL does it the right way.

The most important aspect in winning a championship whether it's in football, baseball, hockey etc. and is perhaps the most underrated word/concept: believe.
If you believe! Believe in yourself, in your teammates, and in your coaches.
Very draining and a great strain if you have to start believing during the regular season. However when it comes down to it, you really need to believe when it really counts and that's usually in the playoffs. The players that believe the most will win the most.

The more I think about this, the more I think that the NFL has it right. Being the "best" in any human endeavor, is, after a point, subjective.

With a team it may be even more difficult. Was Green Bay the "best" team this year? The Steelers had the "best" defense. You can separate out the better teams but to choose one best team becomes a question of opinion.

Winning a championship is a concrete accomplishment, that has defined requirements. I think that a lot of people have been unhappy that the NFL had some teams with non winning records win their divisions and host play off games. And win at home. The Saints lost to the 7-9 Seahawks. The Steelers lost to the 8-8 Broncos. But I think that the system should remain: the way to get at least one home playoff game is to win your division.

The NFL is exciting, because, with just two games left in the season, twenty teams were still in the running. But only 12 make it. That's not too many. If the team with the best regular season record was the champion, then why bother with a playoff and Super Bowl. Just give them the trophy.