One area where Peter King and I have always agreed is that the NFL overtime system is stupid. His take on what the appropriate remedy should be, however, leaves me a little... well, let's take a look:
From Bruce Grossberg of Forest Hills, N.Y.: "Overtime: Instead of focusing on each team having a possession, why not focus on the unfairness of the coin flip? Why can't there be a 100-yard dash for possession, or the longest throw, or a "punt-off" for possession? Something quick, but something that would be less arbitrary than a coin flip."
King's response: I actually like that. Eliminate the capricious coin flip in favor of something that would demonstrate one team's superiority over the other.
[Brilliant. What better way to illustrate one *team's* superiority over another *team* than by having one guy from each 53-man roster run a 100-yard dash?
In a totally unrelated story, the Dallas Cowboys reportedly just offered Usain Bolt an $800MM contract.]
The following is the e-mail and King's response that immediately preceded the above exchange. King's advocacy for "something that would demonstrate one team's superiority over the other" got me thinking. What kind of activity could reliably demonstrate this....
From Matt Cafaro of Athens, Ga.: "Fixing overtime is the easiest thing imaginable: Follow the old NHL rules, which were fair. Every regular season game plays a full extra period if it ends in a tie at four quarters. If the game remains tied after this extra period, it's a tie. Deal with it. For playoff games, you do as hockey does in the playoffs. You keep playing full quarters, until there is a winner. You could go to six or seven 'quarters,' but you get a winner without having to compromise to the college solution."
King's response: The problem is that players don't want to add a full quarter to the season, which, as I explained Monday, is likely to be increased by a game or two in the near future. If the league goes to 18 games -- which I think would be a disaster because of the increased injury factor -- and if a team plays two overtime games in that season, the team would be playing 2.5 more games than it's playing now. That's 16 percent more football in a league in which injuries are already at high levels. Not going to fly.
[Adding a "full" quarter to the season = C'mon, don't be an idiot.
Adding a game or two to the season = Yeah, we can do that.
So yeah, that who-can-kick-the-ball-the-farthest idea is definitely better (ignoring that it could still result in a horrifying full quarter being added to a season).]
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3 comments:
"The problem is that players don't want to add a full quarter to the season, which, as I explained Monday, is likely to be increased by a game or two in the near future. If the league goes to 18 games -- which I think would be a disaster because of the increased injury factor -- and if a team plays two overtime games in that" season, the team would be playing 2.5 more games than it's playing now. That's 16 percent more football in a league in which injuries are already at high levels. Not going to fly."
I think I read this differently than you, but it's still gibberish. I assume he meant they didn't want to make the season have 25% more football (the full quarter remark, because he refers to it in relation to the season). Then he states that 2 OT games per year (far more than average) plus the POTENTIAL 2 extra games per year would only amount to 16%, far short of the 25%. FTW?
Glad to get anothe pair of eyes on this one. This passage was total nonsense. I originally thought that your interpretation was the correct one upon my first read. But why would he make a specific point to call it a FULL quarter then, two sentences later, admit that the figure is actually 16 percent (and even that is rounded up)?
My interpretation, however, is equally ridiculous, numerically speaking. If the hypothetical team played two overtime games (an absurd assumption in its own right), that would equal *two* quarters.
This article made me dumber. Maybe a lot dumber.
Maybe the "full quarter" is pre-cooked weight, sorta like the quarter-pounder. I have to assume King is pretty experienced with those...
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