Okay, that's a topic that sounds interesting. I know I'm biased, but I think that the NFC East is the toughest division in football. Start at the QB position and you'll see why I think that... Vick is an athletic freak that is finally starting to realize his potential under Andy Reid. Romo is an all-pro with some very dangerous weapons to work with. Eli is a 2X Super Bowl MVP. The Redskins are bringing in a great prospect in RGIII. As a QB goes, so goes the team. I think that group beats out the group of Brady (amazing as he may be), Sanchez, Fitzpatrick, and Moore. I know there is a lot more to discuss, but it's really tough for me to look past the QB in terms of what makes a team "good." I believe that a team with talent at QB is always in playoff contention and I don't see that high level of play outside of Brady in the AFC East.
IF you take the last 5 years or so, I can agree NFC East has been one of the better if not best division. But this past year I would say AFC North even with a hobbled Ben or NFC North. I would lean towards the AFC North though. Steelers, Ravens, Bengals all played really well this season.
Mod, please close. I created this as a discussion about Toomer's comments, now its a whole another topic. Geez!!!
it loses some "luster" because you need to reach for anything you can to take away from he giants win, even grasping at straws gee, how does "luck" in an nfc title game take away from a sb win? since they are two separate games the giants won the big one fair and square straight up that kind of invalidates that part of ur attempted discredit right there then of course there is the things u conveniently overlook, such as eli throwing a td pass on 3rd and 15 between two defenders to take advantage of turnover number one (btw aren't kick returners taught to get out of the way of bouncing footballs since they are about 8 years old? how exactly is that luck i wonder) and that turnover number two was a strip sack by jaquan williams-no luck there...oh and the same player recovered both fumbles, didnt fumble or drop a wet bouncing football twice...nope no luck just being in the right place at the right time and being clutch-simple as that btw you think there wasnt luck involved in almost evey but the most dominant teams sb runs? go look at ur history and see how many breaks, dropped ints right in the hands of opponents, lucky bounces, bad refs calls etc etc etc involved in sb winners...start with jackie smith in sb xiii...think steeler sb win number 4 lost some "luster"? come on, thats just the sour grapes of losers who've never won anything...but whatever gets u thru buddy : )
Why do you get some defensive when someone says the Giants caught some breaks? That isn't meant to be offensive. Nobody would be talking about the breaks unless you guys won. There is luck, then taking advantage of your luck. Nobody would remember Kyle Williams if you guys didn't score. Face it, the ball broke your way both times and your players made great plays to recover. Did it help their normal returner wasn't back there, of course, no denying that. SF and the NYG both did not play very well during the championship. Both the offenses stalled quite a bit before Williams second fumble. The Pats also got lucky in their titel game. Joe Flacco played a great game except Lee Evans forgot how to catch and Billy Cundiff how to kick. Two chances for the game to be ended or extended, both failed. Luck plays a huge part, or the "bounce of the ball" plays a huge part in the games. It's the way it happens. Nobody would be talking about luck unless you won it. Near the end you start to catch on, every team has luck and there is nothing wrong in saying the Giants caught a few breaks, all teams do.
The difference is the Giants got some huge breaks and the jets didn't. Look at their 2 cnf title wins- the first one Favre makes one of the worst throws in history to set up a short FG in IT, the 2nd one a PR fumbles/muffs TWO PRs in the 2nd half and OT to set them up plus the Bradshaw fumble which was whistled dead. For the Jets in Indy we lost multiple DBs then to start the 2nd half we lost Shonn Greene, in Pitt the Sanchez fumble which could have been ruled either way. Congrats to the Giants, they did what they had to do but there isn't a huge difference in what they did compared to what the Jets did. I'd much rather have done what the Giants did but it's a play here or there that could have been the difference w/ 2 Jets titles compared w/ 2 Giants title game losses.
I know we don't always see eye to eye, but there's no way you can actually believe that. There are some very significant differences there and I know that you know this too.
Yes there are significant differences but a a bounce of the ball could have compeltely rewritten the script from '07-'11. The Giants weren't the dominant '86 Giants, they were a good team that got hot at the right time and played their best football in Jan/Feb.
Philly is 56-39 and 1 and Dallas is 56-40 over the last 6 years. The Redskins have pretty much sucked throughout which is why they are trying to get either RG3 or Luck when they could have had Tebow for a 4th and a 6th.
I think you could make the argument you're trying to make for literally any team. "If the Steelers defend that pass in OT there's no way Tebow can keep it going. Pittsburgh wins that game on an FG and beats the Patriots again....etc, etc, etc." No one is arguing the Giants were dominant all season, but there were reasons they started playing well at the end of the year (and those reasons aren't "luck"). They got a number of players healthy and changed their defensive scheme (in response to breakdowns against Dallas in their 1st meeting). It also helped that Osi came back & Tuck (who had been injured most the year) started to get healthy.
your "cryin' and denyin'" is getting silly and sad...that spin is so ridiculous even you know you don't believe it deep down...
Actually if I present you some hard evidence and probabilities on some research I've done regarding seeding, the playoffs, and the recent winners over the past 7 years, it might make the Saints scandal look like a blip in comparison. He's somewhat right, but mostly wrong. Luck may have something to do with it, but there can often times be an explanation for luck as well. But I think it's just too much for the average fan to take in. Let's just say I seriously question "the integrity of the game" when it comes to who advances to a Super Bowl and perhaps also who wins them. And while digging for additional information, I couldn't help running into this: I take what's written on that site with a grain of salt but it turns out it was actually a Jets fan that tried to sue the NFL over ticket reimbursements because of the spy-gate scandal that brought that little loophole to some lawyer's attentions. I simply followed seeding and probability of winning statistics to come to a very obvious conclusion: there's just no way in hell, even in the infinite world of probabilities, that the string of pattern in winners, winning records and seeds over the past 7 or 8 years, would ever naturally occur in our lifetimes or our great grandchildren's lifetime without someone tinkering with the results. And it probably goes back a lot further, but the evidence is so abundant and far too obvious the last 7 years. So many red flags, it's laughable.
Are you implying the NFL is rigged that is why certain teams have won recently? Or are you just playing devil's advocate to the "luck" comments?
I'm not implying it, the numbers do. Personally, I have enough evidence to where I can personally believe it. I'm 99.9% sure it's not a statistical anomaly and the only way they can turn out the way they did, is if it is indeed rigged. And has been rigged.
I looked at the entire history if that's what you're asking, and I also looked at all playoff rounds, not just SuperBowls. There were some questionable results for a period of years here and there, but nothing that couldn't happen, but the most obvious discrepancy is in the past 6-7 years. Without even talking percentages and numbers, I'll just give spit out a random anomaly which is the first thing that inspired me to even look into it. In the past 6 years, all 6 seeds have won a SuperBowl. May sound great to the fans but when I first heard of it, it just set off bells for me. When you consider how the playoffs system is designed to work, it's a huge red flag. In the NFL's playoff system, where the #1 and #2 have a huge advantage because they play 1 less game than seeds 3-6, it's very unlikely even if you were to assume all teams and seeds were of equal strength. In other words, even if the 6th and 5th seeds were as good as say, potential "weak" #1 and #2 seeds, that would still not make up for the inherited advantage the top 2 seeds get by playing 1 less game. The best way to make something like this possible, is to put all 6 seeds through a round-robin style tournament and take away the #1 and #2 bye week. But we don't have that in the playoffs. It's very much in place. But during the 1970's era, the numbers matched up as closely as possible and as expected. That carried through the years and it's hard to determine if there was potential gradual tinkering. All I know is it's completely off track in the past 6-7 years, but they performed exactly as expected in the 70's and with the minor hiccup here and there, remained this way up until the mid-2000's. Since then things have basically completely flip-flopped. Since 2005, the lower seed has won the last 6 of 7 SuperBowls. Nothing wrong with the lower seed winning every once in awhile. There's something VERY wrong when the underdog basically becomes the favorite to win it. And the only #1 seed that did win it, was when it was facing another #1. So to recap, since 2005: -we have had 6 different seeds win the SuperBowl -a #1 vs a #1 match-up(first time since 1994) -a #3 seed win it(yet another rare occurrence and 2 have appeared since 2004 but from 1976-2005 only 1 ever made the superbowl) -2 #6 seeds won it (first time in history, but they never even APPEARED in superbowl before yet they're batting 100% now and won both) -a #5 win it(first time in history this happened, and it was the Giants huge upset over the Patriots). -and of course last year was the first time a 9-7 team to win a Superbowl. ALL those incredible things in a timespan of 6 years... So according to the past 8 years, the last thing you want to be if you want to win a superbowl is the #1 seed. 7 #1 seeds have appeared but only 1 win. On top of that, the lower seed won just about every time except when #2 Steelers beat the #4 Cardinals. That's it. That was the only time the better seed won in the past 8 years. That's just silly. Goodell was bragging about the NFL's perfect parity a couple of years back. How they achieved it remains a mystery, and salary cap alone does not explain it. You may get close to it for the regular season, because of the round-robin structure at the divisional level, or on any given sunday, but it can't be true for SuperBowl appearances and winners because of the playoffs system they have designed and is in place and they have not changed it. The perfect parity of all 6 seeds winning in the past 6 years, along with other things that I did not bother to mention, seems more like forced parity.
do you have any idea what an imbecile you sound like? all this convoluted nonsense to justify some fantasy conspiracy you come up with rather than accept the simplest explanation that played out right before your eyes (oh and about 100 million others too): the teams that played better that day won-period. That's what happens when it's one and done, winner take all, no best of 7 series to decide the winner. i'll give you this, you have enough command of the language so that you can structure all your nonsense to seem plausible to someone who equally wants to deny reality and/or can't give teams they dont like their just due. it's amazing, the thin line between logic and fancy-worded bullshit and you crossed it long ago. Again, i'll make it easy for you Stephen Hawkings: there is no conspiracy, no nefarious backroom skullduggery, no manipulation of physical feats played out before millions, etc etc etc...the best team that day won.
