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A 3 loss team that won it's way through a 16 team bracket would be more than deserving of being the Champion. Possibly. But that 3-loss team would only have gotten a chance because they started the season expecting to be one of the best teams in the country. And their regular season would easily be considered a failure. I understand the parallels between a 7-9 NFC West team getting in the playoffs, but at least that team will have won their division. A team like Alabama lost 3 games in its conference and didn't win the conference. I don't think you can give you a shot to a team like that. It's not really fair. Why? No one would bat an eye in basketball if someone like Duke finished 3rd in the ACC then won the title as a 4-5 seed. If you want to say that teams would get an unfair advantage because of anchoring in the human polls, then I'm with you. But that's a different issue than having 16 teams v. 8 v. 4. That anchoring effect exists because of the criteria used to rank the teams, not because of how many would make the playoff. Again basketball is a different animal. With a 12 game football season, the number of wins and losses for a great or championship caliber season is clearly laid out. In basketball, not so much.

A 3 loss team that won it's way through a 16 team bracket would be more than deserving of being the Champion. Possibly. But that 3-loss team would only have gotten a chance because they started the season expecting to be one of the best teams in the country. And their regular season would easily be considered a failure. I understand the parallels between a 7-9 NFC West team getting in the playoffs, but at least that team will have won their division. A team like Alabama lost 3 games in its conference and didn't win the conference. I don't think you can give you a shot to a team like that. It's not really fair.

I'm glad someone said it, and it didn't have to be me.

16 team tourney would either be all 11 conference winners + 5 at large. Or it would be top 16 in BCS. Either way is bad, IMO. The little guys getting in as you said would be an issue. Also, a 3-4 loss team that is 16th in the BCS would be bad. Not that they couldn't win a game like a Sun Belt team, but the fact that teams in the teens would be 3rd or 4th in a major conference could win 4 games and be a champion with 3-4 losses. That's absurd.

Why would something like "all conference champs are invited" be a bad thing? 11 conference champions and 5 WC teams sounds fair to me. And if they're so bad they won't make it past the first round, now will they? so they shouldn't be there. You could say that for a lot of the 14-16 seeds in the NCAA tournament every year, too. Are you against a basketball playoff? Basketball and football are different animals though. Football is a more physical sport that takes more of a physical toll on players. In basketball, a lesser talented team is more likely to hang with a great team because so much is dependent on execution, rather than physical ability. Plus, with 5 players on the floor vs. 22 in football, the disparity in talent is greater. And there is still the injury factor. I don't think it makes any sense to make an elite football team play a mismatch game in a tournament. Football players get hurt more than basketball players obviously. How pissed would Auburn be if Cam Newton got injured vs. Troy in a 56-3 rout? It's completely unnecessary in football.

I didn't have the guts to start Jackson. I really wanted to, but could not justify starting a guy that got hurt on his 1st play 3 weeks ago, missed a week, and then only had 2 catches last week. I knew Gates and Floyd were out, but I couldn't start Jackson over Calvin Johnson, Fitz, Garcon (who has back to back 20 point weeks), or Jacob Tamme. I still haven't decided between the last 2. Makes it worse is that the guy I'm playing had Philip Rivers, and I thought about 30 minutes before the game, I could basically neutralize Rivers by starting Jackson in case something like last night did happen. Just couldn't pull the trigger.

Cutler.

But Detroit isn't good against the run either. And they don't pass because they don't need to to beat them. Pretty much every coach would prefer to run if that is all it took to beat a team. Additionally, Detroit is a pass happy team with a lot of incompletions, so the clock isn't running very fast in their games. we're poor-ish against the run because our LBs are lousy, i already told you that our DL is great, our LB pretty bad and our secondary decent. all that's pretty intuitively obvious to anybody watching us the defense in general seems worse than it is mostly because we've played against a really tough schedule (opponents with a 95-74 combined record) and have committed too many penalties, though a part of that is probably subconscious bias Dude, it's 13 games into the season. There aren't any flukes at this point. The Detroit defense doesn't seem worse than it is. It is a bad defense.

If it's ever going to happen, this is how it's going to happen. The big 6 aren't going to want to be left out. They also aren't going to want their conference championship games to be cheapened by a 16-team tourney.

Why would something like "all conference champs are invited" be a bad thing? 11 conference champions and 5 WC teams sounds fair to me. And if they're so bad they won't make it past the first round, now will they? Yeah, but you'd still have to waste your time watching bad teams getting beat badly in the first round. I don't need to see Auburn beat the dogcrap out of Miami (OH) or Oregon vs. Troy. I'm actually in full support of all the BCS conference winners getting in, even with the Big East being so bad. But you're stretching it to put the MAC and Sun Belt in there. lol...I love the idea that your time is being wasted watching football games. Yeah, if only we weren't subjected to James Madison vs Virginia Tech. Or Appalachian State vs Michigan. There's "waste your time" games every year...and sometimes, there's upsets. And if there isn't...fine...what's lost? It's not like every bowl is drawing a huge audience. No, there aren't upsets "sometimes". There are upsets "once in a blue moon." And those waste of time games are played week 1 and week 2 of the season, not in a postseason tournament to determine the national champion. What's lost is time and putting a team in a game they have no business being in. There's also a chance for injuries to a team playing a game they shouldn't have to. Auburn going undefeated in the SEC shouldn't have to risk injury playing a 1st round game against a team having no business on the field with them. This isn't NCAA basketball, where a 16 from a small conference can give major 1 a run for it's money for 30-35 minutes.

Teams don't pass on them as much because they are 3-10. Teams have been able to run the ball so well and have had leads on them, so they didn't need to throw the ball as much.

Why would something like "all conference champs are invited" be a bad thing? 11 conference champions and 5 WC teams sounds fair to me. And if they're so bad they won't make it past the first round, now will they? Yeah, but you'd still have to waste your time watching bad teams getting beat badly in the first round. I don't need to see Auburn beat the dogcrap out of Miami (OH) or Oregon vs. Troy. I'm actually in full support of all the BCS conference winners getting in, even with the Big East being so bad. But you're stretching it to put the MAC and Sun Belt in there.

Torain Thomas Jackson Nicks Holmes Bess at Flex. Greene is going to be a non-factor vs. Pittsburgh. Jackson may not even be #1 in GB anymore (Starks) and if Rodgers doesn't play NE will commit to the run. You can really play any of the other WRs at FLEX, but the first 3 I named are must starts.

The only real issues with marginal teams in the playoffs are from the NBA and NHL. The NFL has had a weak NFC West for a few years now, but 1 of those teams went to and nearly won the Superbowl. Plus, you're still talking about only 12 of 32 teams getting in the playoffs, and most teams earn their way by winning either 10 games or beating other contenders head-to-head. MLB only allows 4 teams from each league of 30, no complaints there. NBA and NHL have over 1/2 the teams getting in which is [expletive]. But at least in the NHL, it has been proven that anything can happen in the playoffs, and you often have lower seeds doing very well. So, that leaves the NBA as the only legit complaint. And I think the real problem isn't a team like Boise running the table in the tourney. It's a team like Alabama or LSU who has had chances to beat heavyweights and have failed 2-3 times. They are probably still good enough to do some damage in the tournament, but their inability to beat those tops teams shouldn't get rewarded with a chance at a national title. A team with 1 slip-up like Boise is one thing, whether it's against a mediocre team or not. But a team that starts the year ranked high but loses 2 or 3 tough games is another. Alabama starting the season #1 pretty much guarantees them a shot at the national championship, because unless they lose 4 times they are going to finish ranked high enough to get in the tourney.

Well of course. Every sports has arguments about teams that just miss. NCAA basketball does. There's whining in the NFL about an NFC West team getting in. It's just the nature of sports. This way though, you remove a lot of the polling from the process. Not completely of course, but if the TCU's and Boise State's of the world really can't compete, they'll be out in the first round, and we'll be down to a real 8 team tourney after that, with real contenders. NCAA though is 65 spots. Plenty of teams can argue to be one of the best 65 or best 33 or however many at large teams there are. NFL doesn't have an argument to me because there are teams that get in every year due to unbalanced schedules. Is the Rams getting in at 8-8 in a division of all 8-8 type teams any better than a team getting in at 13-3 when 6 of those wins are vs. teams crappy division (see San Diego recent history)?

Really? I am in the middle. On one hand it puts a dome team where it's most comfortable - in a dome. On the other the Bears don't necessarily seem like a team that thrives in the elements, so a dome might not be the worst thing ever. The Bears are not a cold weather team like the name/city suggests. But I'd take the Bears chances in cold weather vs. any team that plays in a dome or South Florida/Southern CA.

How so? It's just stupid. The 8th best team in the country has no reason to be in a playoff for the national championship, the 16th clearly does not. Winners of crap conferences should not get free rides into the playoffs either. It is going to be an additional 4 games for the finalists, which is a legitimate concern for the NCAA to be against it. The stupid NCAA basketball tournament does nothing but produce a bunch of whining babies thinking they got screwed out of the 65th spot, and the same thing is going to happen here. Cap it at 8 at the most, but 4 would be ideal. The regular season produces the 4 best teams. Still would have arguments. Does Wisconsin, TCU or Stanford get left out this year? Right now Wisconsin is 5 in the BCS, but ranked ahead of Stanford in every poll. If you don't have the BCS, Stanford loses out despite their 1 loss coming to one of the top 2 teams, while Wisconsin lost to a team that's not even in the conversation.

12-16 is way too much. I agree 8 is the max acceptable, and probably my preference. This year if you have 16 teams, you'd have Alabama in the tourney. They are a 3-loss team. But they also have championship experience and is a team that I could easily see winning a tournament style playoff. Best solution is to keep the BCS and the same requirements for entry to make everyone happy. Sugar, Rose, Fiesta, and Orange all host 1st round tourney games. Rotate which 2 get the semifinal games. Rotate the 1 that gets the title game.

Who's top 4? Celtics, Heat, Lakers, Mavs?

Garnett is such an fin baffoon.

Damn! GReat shot by Amare' but that ain't gonna count.

Thanks. Somehow I ended up with the 2-seed in this league, and got high score a league best 5 times this year. My team was pretty much 100% Vick, McCoy and Gore....now that Gore's hurt, I don't have much of a chance to win this thing.

C'mon people

Eh, now that I think about it. The Bulls aren't going to do much better than JR Smith. This is probably a move they have to make, defense be damned. It's going to have to be a player making 6Mil or less. Smith is probably the best on the list (I thought OJ Mayo was better, but he kinda sucks).

I dunno I guess I'd just prefer a defensive oriented guard at the 2 with the starting lineup we have. We already have supposedly below average defenders in Rose and Boozer in the lineup, and as awesome as Noah is he struggles in certain situations against bigger matchups. Adding a 3rd bad defender could really cause the starting lineup to struggle. I mean I guess he would be ok. He only shot 33% from 3 last year though, and 6 attempts per game. Is that even beneficial? I am asking seriously because I didn't think 33% was all that good. I don't prefer a defensive oriented SG. I would like a guy that can shoot the 3 like JR, but can also at least serviceable on defense. Since Smith can't play D at all, I would like to keep Brewer around and play the matchups. Sometimes you use JR for offense, sometimes you use Brewer for D. Sometimes you use both when Deng disappears. I will say though, that the 33% last year (closer to 34% actually) was an anomaly for JR. He's 37% for his career, and if you include this year so far he's had 4 of his last 5 years over 39%, which is wonderful. My problem is JR doesn't have an off button. You're as likely to get a 1-8 from 3 from him as you are a 5 for 7. He shot 40% in 08-09, yet he still had 15 games where he shot under 35% with at least 6 shots. In 2 playoff losses to the Lakers that year he went a combined 3-20 from 3.