Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Just Brilliant

Napolitano's political epitaph and the budget can wait until tomorrow, this is just too good of an idea to pass over. From Bill Simmons' column on ESPN.com:

(One other possible format change that we discussed in Monday's "B.S. Report" -- in the divisional playoffs, the No. 1 seeds get to pick which team they want to play. Why? BECAUSE IT'S IDIOTIC THAT THE GIANTS FOUGHT ALL YEAR TO WIN THE NO. 1 SEED, AND NOW THEY HAVE TO PLAY A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS EAGLES TEAM INSTEAD OF A CARDINALS TEAM THAT WOULD HAVE A ZERO PERCENT CHANCE OF BEATING THEM!!!!!! Sorry, I had to go all-caps there. It's that dumb. So is Tennessee playing 12-5 Baltimore instead of 9-8 San Diego. I don't get it.)

Yep. If I were the Giants I would want the Cards instead of the Eagles, but that's the way it goes; the seedings are out of the teams' immediate hands and are instead dictated by records and division records.

One of the great scenes in all of sports is in baseball when a guy gets intentionally walked and then the next schlub comes to bat. How humiliating, but such drama because the guy who just got dissed as an easy out now has a chance for some payback.

Now how much better would it be after the last wild card game wrapped up on Sunday, the respective studio show then turned to the coach and GM of the number 1 seed to ask who would they pick as their playoff opponent, an opponent everyone assumed would be the easiest team to beat. Think of the drama surrounding the pick, think of all the headlines and smack talk throughout the week.

Now let's extend the concept to other sports. One of the (many) irritating things about the NBA is that as the regular season wraps up teams jockey for playoff position not based on record but based on who their opponent will be; sometimes it pays to be a lower seed if you can play the right team. Why not have a show, just like the draft, between the regular season and playoff
where the top 3 playoff seeds in each conference select who their opponents will be, selecting in order of best record first? Wouldn't you bust your butt a little harder to get a 3 as opposed 4 seed if you could pick out of a potentially difficult first round match-up? Or try to get a first seed so you can pick your opponent for the 2nd round as well?

Yes.

Make it happen.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 4:12 PM