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Will a dozen do? Added teams could double pleasure of wild-card weekendPosted: Monday May 26, 2003 11:23 AM
PHILADELPHIA -- Three opinions left over from the annual NFL spring meetings, which took place here last week: 1. The idea of adding playoff teams deserves another look. Now, I agree with most people inside and outside the league who say going from 12 to 14 playoff teams would dilute the postseason, and dilute it pretty needlessly. The NFL expanded from 30 to 31 teams in 1999 with the addition of the reborn Cleveland Browns, and, in 2002, the Houston Texans made it a 32-team league. Last week, the owners spurned a chance to expand the playoff field from the current dozen, which is probably the right decision, because it's not like large numbers of teams have been ripped off by not making the playoffs. But I want you to cnsider this comparison of what last season's wild-card weekend (Jan. 4-5) looked like with the usual 12 teams -- and how it would have shaped up with 14 participants:
The teams added, New Orleans (9-7) and Denver (9-7), weren't boondogglers. The Saints beat eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay twice. Denver wasn't as formidable late; I would rather have seen 9-7 Miami or New England in, but the Broncos won the tiebreaker. In the four seasons since the NFL expanded to 31 teams, no team would have qualified with a losing record. That seems to be the fear, that a sub-.500 team would make the playoffs. A legitimate fear, but also a longshot fear. My point is this: With wild-card weekend tripleheaders -- sudden death for 12 teams over two days instead of a one-and-done possibility for eight teams -- we could be talking about the best weekend on the NFL calendar. And, personally, I'm in favor of only one team getting a wild-card bye. That makes it more of a prize than if two teams get the bye. 2. Herman Edwards tells minority coaches to take every interview, no matter what the odds. Hallelujah. Last winter, when coaches left and right were turning down Detroit CEO Matt Millen's offers to interview for a job that appeared to already have been filled by Steve Mariucci, I held an unpopular view. I suggested that every minority coach who was offered a chance to sit down with one of the 32 decision-making GMs or owners in the NFL should jump at it. A good interview and good impression left would be significantly better than sitting at home without getting your point across. So Edwards, the Jets' African-American head coach, told the assembled assistant coaches last week (the spring meeting includes assistants from all staffs) to go and try to change a team's mind, even if it appears the new head man is all but hired. "If you get your day in court, you go in there and talk to them," Edwards told SI.com's Don Banks. It's ludicrous for a candidate who wants to be an NFL head coach to turn down any interview. Period. 3. Wake me when it's over. The L.A. story drones on. The NFL authorized spending up to $10 million to fact-find on a potential 157-acre stadium site south of Los Angeles, in Carson, Calif. I understand the market size and the desire to get the youth of Southern California passionately interested in the home team. But count me among those who has no earthly idea why the NFL tries ceaselessly to put a team there. TV doesn't care. In many ways, adding a team in L.A. would hurt television ratings because there'd be more blackouts when the local team doesn't sell out its home games. I love L.A. I love going there. It bugs me I can't make two trips a year to one of the best cities on the planet. But the area's political inability to get behind one site is maddening, and no one yet has told me a reason why Western Civilization will be ruined by there not being an NFL team in Los Angeles. I asked Dan Rooney and Wellington Mara, two of football’s patriarchs, why the NFL has to be in L.A. Rooney said, "It's the second-largest market, and we should be there. I guess." He said it in a sort of resigned way. Mara said: "Good question. The last three teams in Los Angeles all left. I know there's a feeling we should be in such a large city, and I guess I yield to my peers on this one. But I do question why we have to be there." Thank you.
… With Los Angeles Times NFL beat man Sam Farmer, who is covering the story of the league's continuing flirtation with America's second-largest market. MMQB: Is your city really behind these efforts to get a team? Farmer: Like [Los Angeles sports mogul] Tim Leiweke said, "The only time you get everyone behind you in Los Angeles is in a traffic jam on the 405." L.A. fans are incredibly discerning. No one's been able to recreate the Laker magic, but that's what everyone aims to do. L.A. does not want a warmed-over team. They've seen the Chargers. They've seen the Vikings. They want a team of their own, a fresh team. They want to re-boot. MMQB: But L.A.'s not the kind of market that will stand for a loser, is it? Farmer: Other cities certainly would have a higher tolerance for a team getting up and running. I can only go on history: When has Los Angeles ever supported a bad team for a long stretch? MMQB: Do you sense the area is crying out for a team? Farmer: There's a sense that there's a standoff between the league and the city, like, "You need us more than we need you." The people of L.A. say, "We'd love to have a team, if you spend zero public money on it, if you build a great stadium, and if we have no blackouts." It's a strange market. There's a record producer in Pasadena who wrote all the NFL owners and who also wrote me, basically saying "Don't move to Pasadena." He said something to the effect of, "If you try to move here, I will fight you with every fiber of my being." Do you think the owners got any letters like that from Houston? (Extra bonus fourth question.) MMQB: Gut feeling -- 10 years from now, will L.A. have one, two or no NFL teams? Farmer: One.
I have been negligent in opining on Jayson Blair, the disgraced former New York Times reporter, who resigned earlier this month after lying, cheating, plagiarizing and faking his way through his short professional life. Blair was caught making up facts, cribbing facts from other papers, lying about trips he didn't really take for the paper and about people he never interviewed. What any real journalist would say, having been disgraced as completely as Blair has, would be something such as, "I apologize to everyone I have betrayed and misrepresented, particularly at the greatest newspaper in the world, which gave me such a great opportunity at a young age. Although I have had some personal problems in my life, they are no excuse for my irresponsible and outrageously unprofessional behavior. I understand I may never be able to undo the damage I have done to my reputation, my former place of employment and my profession, but I will try my hardest to do so. Please know how sorry I am for my actions." Instead, we saw the first lengthy reaction by Blair in the New York Observer last week, and it was full of excuses, stupid bravado and blame-putting on the Times for not catching him. Blair reminds me of a thief who gets away with seven bank robberies and, after getting caught during the eighth, says, "It's the banks' fault for not catching me before this." You, sir (and I use that appellation loosely), ought to be ashamed of yourself. And any publishing house that hands you a contract ought to be more ashamed, for going into business with a serial liar. And Blair's agent, David Vigliano, ought to be ashamed, too. He was quoted in the Observer, in an attempt to minimize his client’s sins, as saying, "He's not eating babies, you know?" The Jayson Blair pass-the-buck, deflect-the-real-issue Quotes of the Week, from last week's New York Observer: THE CHAMPION: "I was young at The New York Times. I was under a lot of pressure. I was black at The New York Times, which is something that hurts you as much as it helps you." RUNNER-UP: "So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die." HONORABLE MENTION: 1. "Was I too young for a snake pit like [The New York Times]? Maybe." 2. "I fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism. They're all so smart, but I was sitting right under their nose fooling them." 3. "What I'm a symbol of is what's wrong with The New York Times -- and what's been wrong with The New York Times for a long time." 4. "I definitely feel sad for my role in the problems they're having now, and what it's done to my former colleagues -- but I felt like they did this to themselves [by] writing a story that tried to put the blame on one man's shoulders without examining how the institution would allow that to happen." I suppose you will wonder why I am so lathered up by this. This is why: When you go to school for four years to study journalism, and you work 35 hours a week at the school paper during three of those years to try to earn your way into a good job, and you work at four internships and a couple of small papers to try to earn your way into a good job, you tend to get a little ticked off at a spoiled liar who blew a great opportunity and then tried to blame others for his sins. The worst thing now will be if he is rewarded by the very industry, the industry of the printed word, that should make him a pariah for a long time.
Well, I was D'Killed over my comments about D'Qwell Jackson, the Maryland linebacker, and about my Los Angeles doesn't-care-if-it-ever-gets-an-NFL-team comments. On with the show: PEYTON MANNING'S GOING TO LOOK PRETTY GOOD IN GIANTS BLUE. From Ed Hanratty of Ridgefield Park, N.J.: "Peter, help me out here. You're saying there's a slight chance that Peyton Manning will actually test the free-agent waters? Now, for the heck of it, what would have to happen for the Giants to make a serious run at Manning? If I'm dreaming, tell me now so I can stop." Ed, you're dreaming. The Colts would franchise Manning, at a ridiculous price (like $15 million a year next year) if they had to. He's not going anywhere, I don't think. WE CARE. OH, WE CARE. From Eric of Los Angeles: "We don't care? Have you asked the millions of people in the Los Angeles area whether they care about a new NFL franchise? Have you even asked one of us? To tell you the truth, this stereotype that L.A. fans don't care about a new football team is ridiculous. This is a great sports town." Really? You've lost the only three pro football teams you've ever had. Just what has changed, since the Rams and Raiders took hikes, about the fervor of fandom there to make me think L.A. will sell out the new team's games for more than a year? WARNER'S JUST AN AVERAGE JOE. From Jason Robertson of Saint John, New Brunswick: "Kurt Warner is average at best. I'm sick of all the hype and speculation surrounding Warner and his phantom finger. In all the games I saw him play when the Rams were the best team in football, it was his receivers who did all the great work adjusting to the ball while it was in the air. Stop with the hype on Warner. He's a grocery boy who got lucky and jumped into the best receiving corps the NFL has seen in years." Interesting. From 1999-2001, Warner had three better years, collectively, than Joe Montana or John Elway ever had consecutively. Warner averaged 4,204 passing yards, with 67 percent completions, and a plus-45 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He brought the accurate and beautiful downfield throw back to a dink-and-dunk game. YOU DISSED THE FISH. From Bobby Mack of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.: "Hey, please don't call the Dolphins football team 'Fish.' Yes, I know all you sports broadcasters call them fish, but dolphins are marine mammals, not fish. That animal is plainly a marine mammal wearing a football helmet. Calling them fish is wrong, kind of like calling you guys 'journalists.'" Touché. YOU ARE AN IGNORANT AND INSENSITIVE JERK. From Mark Bennett of Niagara Falls, Ontario: "I enjoy your columns so much, but to 'call out' Willie and Debra Jackson over their choice of names for their son is difficult for me to accept. It's no one's business, and maybe the name has some kind of significance that we aren't aware of. Hey, you're a reporter (at least I think you are when you aren't name-dropping or acting as an agent of misinformation for the many GMs who use you to get their story out), so why not find out? Let's be a little more concerned with D'Qwell Jackson the man, and a little less concerned with his name. By the way, I don't think Mary Beth is a real humdinger either. The comment is ignorant and culturally insensitive." Mark, to you and all who wrote on this attempt of mine at humor, I say this: I wonder if you have ever read a name in the paper, or seen one on TV, and said, "That name is pretty humorous." I got a chuckle at Nomar Garciaparra's name, because his first name is his father's name spelled backward. That's humorous/cute to me. So is Newt (Not Named After a Small Crawly Animal) Gingrich. One of the great hitters of the early 20th century was Heinie Manush. When I was a kid and saw that name, I laughed out loud. Remember a month ago, when I told the story in this column of lawyer Larry Derryberry and clients Larry, Jerry and Barry, if they'd ever met Harry Caray? Are we so prone to political correctness that we can't see a name and guffaw a bit without feeling as if we've just sinned against humanity? And to all who said this note was racist, I respond this way: "Wow. Other than to say you are reading far too much into this, I am speechless." THIS IS PRETTY THOUGHTFUL. From Jamie Elder of Milwaukee: "It's pretty simple to figure out why a family would want to name their child D'Qwell or anything else ... because this is America and one of our freedoms is cultural freedom. So, yes, there are Tupac Shakurs, Queen Latifahs, Shaquilles and D'Qwells in this country. You're a great columnist, but at times you represent the nihilism in this country that is a cancer that will one day destroy it before any terrorist will." Jamie, if you sat next to a man at a sports event and he stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm XYZ Jones," would you not think that a bit odd? I pointed out that I thought D'Qwell as a name was odd and a bit humorous. This is just my opinion, but I think that opinion is a little bit less threatening to the country than al-Qaeda. THANK YOU. From David Perdue of Richmond, Va.: "Your columns, while about the NFL, are also intuitive, instructive, often joyful, sometimes painful lessons in life. Not just the game, but how the game is played. You have your own way, your own style of doing it, and, no matter how boorish or bratty the commentary of those who dislike it, you should always stick to your guns. Because, like me, there are people who read your column for more than just the lowdown and the locker room. We read you because you make us laugh, you occasionally make us cry, sometimes you make us angry, and, mostly, you make us glad we took the effort to read your words. Thank you for being more than just a good writer. Thank you for being a good father ... and for treating us as if we’re your friends. That's three pretty damn good things to be, in my opinion." David, that's a really nice letter. Thank you for it.
Question for anyone who knows anything about Fenway Park: Why is light beer the only beer sold inside the stadium?
1. I think I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day. Cleaning out the family homestead over the weekend in Connecticut, and foraging through my father's World War II stuff (he was a Seabee), I got the feeling that most of my generation is lacking in a real appreciation for how many things our parents had to fight for, and do without. We take so much for granted. That's what I'm thinking about today. Until I go to Yankee Stadium Monday afternoon, of course. Dad always liked a good Red Sox-Yankees fight for first place. 2. I think the reason all these football players (Steve McNair, Keith Hamilton, Joe Johnson) are getting into all this substance-abuse trouble is part coincidence, part the ugly reality of offseason life in the NFL. Players know they aren't going to be tested for drug or excessive alcohol use until they go to training camp at the earliest. So if they're clean from August through December, they can basically do what they want in the offseason because they know they don't have to pee in a cup for anyone for the foreseeable future. (Unless you're in Step 2 of the program, which Hamilton may or may not have been in when he was charged with cocaine and marijuana possession after his car was stopped on a New Jersey highway last Thursday.) I've always thought that players in the NFL could very easily say to themselves, "OK, I got tested in August. I was clean. I now can do any recreational marijuana I want, from now until May, when I've got to clean up my act in preparation for the preseason drug test." You have to tell yourself to stay clean for three months, which, unless you're an addict or near-addict, really shouldn't be that hard. But if you use, and you drive or act stupid in public, you risk getting caught and then getting put into the program. 3. I think everyone who has ever met Green Bay assistant coach Ray Sherman -- one of the classiest, most accommodating, smartest offensive men in the NFL -- would join me in sending his family condolences on the death of his 14-year-old son. Condolences, too, to Dan Snyder on the death of his dad and mentor, Gerry Snyder, of heart disease over the weekend. 4. I think Dallas running back Troy Hambrick must be the biggest dolt this side of the Rio Grande. This is his big chance to impress the big boss, and he comes to the Cowboys' minicamp overweight? If I'm Bill Parcells (and I've been around him a little bit, enough to know what he's thinking right now), I'm going to consider Hambrick a guy I can't trust, and therefore look for his replacement from now until I find him. 5. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week: a. Montclair (N.J.) High Softball Note of the Week: You see a lot of tough things in the father business. And though I wouldn't say my daughter, the pitcher, losing the catcher she's had since grade school was one of life's real curveballs, it was surprisingly emotional last week. Mary Beth King and her Montclair teammates bowed to Bloomfield, 3-0, in the quarterfinals of the state sectional softball tournament last week, and it marked the end of the on-field relationship between Mary Beth and last year's all-Essex County catcher, Jess Sarfati, who will take her considerable receiving and hitting talent to Bates College in Maine next fall. Montclair may have one more game this week, a makeup affair with Nutley, depending on the weather and Nutley's state tournament road. But for all intents and purposes, that was it last week on the classic old high school field in Bloomfield. "We're like an old married couple," Mary Beth said later. "We're always fighting. Always making fun of each other. But it's always a joke. Whenever we get into it, I say, 'Shut up, Jess! I hate you!' And she'll say stuff back to me, like, 'Shut up, Mary! I hate you!' So this year every time she leaves the mound, she'll say, 'I hate you,' and I'll say, 'I hate you.'" The Bloomfield scene: Before the bottom of the sixth, trailing 3-0, Jess went to the mound, as all catchers do in softball before every inning with pitchers, to slap gloves or do whatever comrades do before entering battle. "This is the last inning I'm ever gonna catch for you," Jess said to Mary Beth. What would I have said? Something sentimental, I suppose. Mary Beth said: "Shut up, Jess. I hate you." Jess, slapping gloves with Mary Beth fired back: "I hate you." And so Jess returned to home plate with her tools. With one out, she set up low and outside on a 1-and-2 count. Mary Beth threw a fastball to the seventh hitter in the Bloomfield lineup. The pitch painted the black, just where Jess wanted it. The ump rung the kid up. The last of their 201 high school strikeouts together. When MHS went down in the seventh, the first kid I looked for was Jess. She was teary. "I'm kind of sad," Mary Beth said a few days later. "We have such a bond. She's so good. Competitive. Smart. She wants it so bad. I'll miss her so much." I e-mailed Jess for her views. "We have become incredibly close on the field and off the field, which has contributed greatly to our bond as pitcher and catcher," Jess said. "Not too many players can say they've been a battery together since fifth grade. Mary knows pretty much everything about my life outside of softball, and we both have the same goals on the field. We have been through a lot together, and I can't imagine catching for anyone else. At the end of every conversation on the field we will always say, 'I hate you,' which means really, 'I love you.' I was very emotional when I walked out to that mound on Tuesday to talk to Mary one last time. I said, 'Mare, this is it, just give me everything you've got right here,' and as I said it I got very emotional. I could hardly talk to her after the game because I was so upset. Thinking of softball without Mary is something I wish I didn't have to do." They've been together during Mary Beth's weekly offseason pitching lessons, and during their twice-weekly sessions at Fairfield Physical Therapy in nearby Fairfield. In adolescence a year is usually a long time, and it would be a line of demarcation in a friendship, Jess being a year older and a year further along in school. Not here. "Mary and I often talk about next year on our rides up to our physical therapy sessions in the car and how hard it will be for each of us to play with different battery mates," Jess said. "Mary has that intensity and focus that makes the team want to win for her because she does such an outstanding job out on the mound. She will be the thing I miss most about softball here. No matter who I catch for next year at Bates, it will not be the same as catching for Mary." Being an observant fellow, I can tell you her pitcher feels the same way. b. Probably my parochial Jersey roots talking, but I like the Devils in six. The thing that starless team has that so many other sports franchises don't have is a refusal to lose. And Scott Stevens, of course, the most underrated leader and clutch player playing a pro sport today. c. What could trouble the Spurs (I assume they'll close out the Mavericks this week) in an NBA title series with the Nets is this incredible stat: New Jersey scored 94 transition points against Detroit in the clincher of its four-game sweep the other night. I don't watch much NBA, but the Nets are frenetic and physical at the same time. Fun team to watch. d. I'm off to see Roger Clemens try for his 300th this afternoon, if it ever stops raining. The revisionist history in this story is how the Red Sox blew it by not re-signing Clemens following his 10-13 season in 1996. Clemens had just gone 40-39 over four years. He'd just finished his 13th season starting for the Red Sox. He wanted top starter's money. The years to follow obviously show he should have been paid like the best pitcher in baseball. But how in the fall of 1996 could you have justified paying him as such? Sometimes players need to move to be great again. This was one of those cases. 6. I think The New York Times is about to suffer a crushing blow if what I heard over the weekend is right. Buster Olney, the great former baseball writer who did a marvelous job as a rookie Giants' beat man last year, looks to be headed to ESPN. Great get for ESPN. Huge loss for the Times. Buster simplifies complicated things and takes you inside teams. You can't ask for more than that in this job. 7. I think the Chiefs still believe Priest Holmes will be ready to go come August, no matter how scary this hip injury seems after the arthroscopic hip surgery recently. "I'm as confident as my doctors tell me to be, and they say I should be confident," club president Carl Peterson tells me. "He should be full speed by the end of June and on a running program, and he should be 100 percent by July 19, when we open training camp. We're really very confident in Priest's ability to continue to play at a high level." Fantasy Nation quakes. 8. I think Brian Griese's a lock for the Dolphins. 9. I think Shawn Jefferson is a good signing, in many ways, for the Lions. He doesn't have much left as a player, but he's the kind of locker-room presence that will help Steve Mariucci sell his program to his players. Interesting, really, that Mooch could have had J.J. Stokes for nothing, most likely, after June 1 but chose to go with a lesser veteran such as Jefferson. That should tell you what you need to know about Stokes' standing in the game right now. 10. I think if you have a daughter in high school, and you have the prom coming up, you need to understand these four things: Nothing else in the world matters on the day the prom happens, there is no budget big enough to satisfy your daughter the week of the prom, you pray that it doesn't rain the day the pre-prom is at your house (we prayed, and it didn't work), and you do not set the kid's alarm for the morning after the prom. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space every week. Click here to send him a comment. |
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