Tag: sports

RIP Jim Marshall

Jim Marshall, a defensive end whose 19-year tenure with the Minnesota Vikings helped define the team’s hard-nosed identity, has died, the team announced Tuesday afternoon. He was 87.

“The entire Minnesota Vikings organization is mourning the loss of Jim Marshall. No player in Vikings history lived the ideals of toughness, camaraderie and passion more than the all-time iron man,” Minnesota’s owners said in a statement.

Marshall played 282 games (starting 277) during an unusually long career for any era; the former number is still a record for defensive players. He was weeks shy of his 42nd birthday when he played his final game in 1979.

Bud Grant: “Jim Marshall was special.”

Goodell’s Paradox

The NFL’s pursuit of “fairness” in potentially prioritizing win-loss records over division championships for playoff seeding has exposed how an even greater unfairness will be created if the league’s stupid proposal to devalue the divisions passes at the league owners’ meeting today.

The Commissioner wants the playoff tree to be reconfigured to tie seeding to record, without regard to whether a team won its division. The goal isn’t to promote equity when it comes to who’s at home and who’s on the road in the playoffs; the objective is to make late-season games more compelling by giving teams more to play for.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.

If the Commissioner gets his way on this (yes, the Lions proposed it, but the league office instigated it), it creates a separate issue as it relates to the scheduling formula.

Currently, every team plays: (1) six games against the three other teams in its division; (2) four games against all teams from another division in the conference, which rotates every year; (3) two games against the teams from the remaining divisions in the conference that finished in the same position the year before (first, second, third, fourth); (4) four games against all teams from a division in the other conference, which rotates every year; and (5) one game against a team from a division in the other conference that finished in the same position the year before.

By devaluing a division championship and emphasizing competition within the conference, the eight games every year that arise from an effort to ensure variety in schedule need to be reconsidered. Last year, the teams of the NFC North benefited from playing two of the weak divisions — the AFC South and NFC West. This year, it’ll be a much different story for the Lions, Vikings, Packers, and Bears; they play eight games against the teams of the AFC North and NFC East.

Likewise, the Rams have a very real chance at being in the No. 1 seed in 2025, given that they’ll play eight games against the teams of the AFC South and NFC South.

If a team’s record relative not to its division but to its conference will take on more importance in a playoff tree constructed based on total record, teams need to play more games in their conference. Ideally, every team would play one game against every other team in its conference — like college conferences did before they became too big to allow that.

If there is no value to divisions, or winning a division, then there is no reason to have the playoffs in the first place. Just do it like they do in soccer and award the conference championship to the team with the best record, and play the Super Bowl between the AFC and NFC champions.

But wait, that could be unfair to a team in one conference that had a better record than the best team in the other conference. So really, the playoffs should be eliminated altogether and the Super Bowl should be played between the teams with the two best records, regardless of conference.

Then again, isn’t that unfair to the team that finished with the best record? Why play the Super Bowl at all?

UPDATE: Another excellent suggestion that Roger Goodell should contemplate.

I just think there should be an equitable lottery of who should be the Super Bowl winner based on participation trophies.

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That Explains a Lot

The NBA is fixed. Not just the playoff games, but even the team rosters. There hasn’t been an NBA draft lottery this obviously fixed since 1985, when the New York Knicks won the right to draft Patrick Ewing.

When David Stern opened the envelope containing the No.1 pick, it contained the Knicks logo. Some argue that the league froze the Knicks’ envelope so Stern could identify it. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, who was then working for ESPN, believed in the theory that the Knicks’ envelope had a crease so the commissioner could pick it from the group.

“So you’re telling me that, out of the seven envelopes in that glass drum, during a lottery when the NBA desperately needed the most ballyhooed college center in 15 years to save the league’s marquee franchise, the commissioner coincidentally pulled out the envelope with a giant crease in the corner that happened to have the Knicks logo in it?” wrote Simmons.

Of course, Commissioner Stern denied the accusations. Some league and team officials even laughed about it. However, given what Simmons called “indisputable video evidence” and the circumstances surrounding the 1985 NBA Draft, there was enough reason to believe it was not impossible.

Now the Dallas Mavericks have “defied the odds” and despite a 1.8 percent chance, managed to win the first pick in the 2025 draft lottery.

Three months removed from the most shocking trade in league history, Dallas defied the 1.8% lottery odds and suddenly has life again.

Translation: Dallas just collected its reward from the league for gifting Luka Dončić to the league’s marquis franchise in Los Angeles. I was wondering why on Earth Dallas would ever send him to LA, but now we know what their real incentive was.

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Wrexham to Championship

What an unbelievable story. A lot of people have their panties in a bunch over the money, over the celebrities, and over the media attention, but no one genuinely expected such an amazing result with three straight promotions following the first campaign falling just short with a playoff defeat.

It seemed like a joke. Did two Hollywood celebrities really want to buy a soccer club from a long-overlooked Welsh city of 45,000 people that was languishing in the fifth tier of the English game?

They won the National League, they won promotion from League 2, and now they’ve won promotion from League 1 by finishing second. They’re in the Championship next year, and the Premiership is only one promotion away.

Speaking of English football, Castalia Library’s own DWFC finished in the National League South playoffs, in sixth place, but only 3 points behind the champions, Truro City. The crazy thing is that 86 points would have been enough for second last year, and they’ve still got a chance to return to the National League if they can win the next three games. They did score the most goals in the league – 89 – but an occasionally unreliable defense gave up 54, far too many of them late-game equalizers. They only lost 8 games out of 46, but it was the 14 draws, particularly the four points unexpectedly dropped against Aveley and Bath City, that cost them the league title and the automatic promotion.

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It Was Roger All Along

Of course it was. Any time the NFL is dabbling in doing something short-sighted, stupid, and harmful to the game itself, you know Roger Goodell is probably behind it.

So why did the league office ask the Lions to propose playoff seeding based on record, regardless of division championship? Because the Commissioner wants it.

Per multiple sources, it became clear during last week’s league meetings that Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to eliminate the guaranteed home game for teams that win their divisions.

Goodell’s preference became clear during the meeting regarding the proposal that was made by the Lions (at the prompting of executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent). One source in the room for the session said Goodell became visibly irritated at the resistance to the measure.

Goodell really needs to stick to the business of the league, which he’s very good at, and stop attempting to fix things about the game itself that are not broken. Taking home field advantage away from division winners is the first step toward eliminating both divisions and conferences and will eventually lead to a ridiculous NCAA-style tournament in which two teams from the same division will meet in the Super Bowl.

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The NFL Attacks Divisions

The NFL is a formidably effective business, but its executives can seldom resist the temptation to try breaking what is working extremely well.

The Lions’ proposal to seed the seven playoff teams in each conference without regard to division championship wasn’t something the Lions formulated during a brainstorming session at team headquarters. The suggestion to make the suggestion came from 345 Park Avenue.

Here’s how it happened, as explained by Jeremy Reisman of PrideOfDetroit.com.

As the winner-take-all, regular-season finale between the 14-2 Vikings and 14-2 Lions approached, Detroit receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown spoke out about the unfairness of the loser having to go on the road to face a division winner with a lesser record.

“It’s crazy,” St. Brown said at the time. “I think the rule should be changed. Obviously if you win the division, you should obviously make a playoff spot, but having a 14-win team having to go on the road is kind of crazy. But I guess I don’t make the rules.”

No, St. Brown doesn’t make the rules. But his comments could have a hand in changing them.

As St. Brown’s remarks went viral, NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent took notice. And, instead of adding the possibility to the agenda of the Competition Committee for the usual bill-becomes-law protocol, Vincent made a phone call to Lions president Rod Wood.

“Troy Vincent from the league reached out to me and said, ‘I tend to agree with [St. Brown],’” Wood said this week at the league meetings. “‘Would you mind partnering with us on making a proposal on that?’ So we made a proposal.”

Basing playoff seedings on overall records instead of division championships is abysmally retarded. The NFL benefits by strengthening divisions; it made the season ends more exciting when the big division clashes were reserved for the final week, thereby keeping the playoff race alive for the entire season. It’s not as if the outcome was unfair for the Vikings, who were blown out in the first round by the Rams after choking against the Lions.

If divisions don’t matter, if records are the only thing that are important, why play the playoffs at all? Isn’t it unfair for a 15-2 team to have to play a 11-6 team in the playoffs too? Does the NFL really think that imitating the European football leagues, where the title is all but determined weeks, if not months, before season end? I stopped paying attention to the Premier League three months ago, when it became obvious that no one could keep up with Liverpool.

The system works. Divisions matter. If you want a home playoff game, then win your division. Period.

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Relegation in the USA

This should be fun to watch:

Promotion and relegation is coming to American professional soccer for the first time, according to a report from The Athletic’s Paul Tenorio. The United Soccer Leagues (USL), representing American professional soccer’s second and third tiers, voted to add promotion-relegation to their system. Currently, it is set up with the USL Championship featuring 24 teams and the third-tier USL League One featuring 14 teams. 

Many teams are in non-MLS markets, allowing cities a cheaper point of entry for owners and a separate set-up to the 30-team top division. In February, the USL also applied to U.S. Soccer for first-division status, aiming to establish USL Premier, which would be classified as a first division alongside MLS. 

If the USL Premier becomes a reality, it will likely have promotion and relegation through three divisions in the USL Championship and USL League 1. At the same time, MLS remains a separate single-entity structure.

The European soccer leagues have a lot – and I mean a LOT – to learn from the NFL. But the one thing they do right is promotion and relegation, which adds serious spice to the lower leagues and drives interest in them.

It wouldn’t hurt to apply it to the House and Senate, while we’re at it.

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Where Was God?

Where was God? He was there at the quarterback’s side, as always:

Where was the quarterback’s God Sunday evening while he was getting sacked six times? And where did this mess of a game leave Mahomes and his professed faith?

The answer to both questions is exactly where it all was before the game.

God apparently allowed the Chiefs to take one on the chin. They say setbacks are a set-up for a great comeback. I believe that’s in the Gospels somewhere because Jesus suffered unspeakable punishment on the cross on Friday and died, but didn’t stay that way very long.

Sunday’s grand victory surely came.

Mahomes, meanwhile, thanked God after the Kansas City loss. He thanked God “for every opportunity he has given me.”

That doesn’t change the fact the Eagles were better. It doesn’t change the fact Mahomes went home with an L.

But neither did that loss change the fact Mahomes took the setback like a champion.

Win or lose, God is with us. As far as I can tell, He doesn’t care about who wins and loses. And contra the Calvinists, He does not ordain the results of the game. But He does care about us, and He does care how we comport ourselves, which is why it’s important to see Mahomes and other Christian athletes making it clear that they thank Him when they win and when they lose.

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