So, why are the Giants ahead of Washington on the table? Is the first tie breaker head-to-head? In which case I guess Giants won against Washington twice this season.
Head to head is the first tiebreaker. NY did beat WFT twice this season.
Lantz
1705
I don’t even like the Steelers, and don’t care about undefeated records, but having a team play 3 games in 13 days is some super bullshit. The NFL PA really needs to negotiate structured rest better. Baseball has manditory rest days (granted the players generally vote to waive it, but it is there) and the NBA has reduced the amount of back to backs.
The league should want it too because there’s so much trash football in these short rest scenarios.
It looks like: 7 days between games, 10 days between games, 5 days between games, 6 days between games, then back to 7 days between games. That doesn’t seem that bad?
The Steelers played three games in 12 days in 2019 and 2018.
They played on the 22nd and then on the 2nd. That’s 9 days between games. Then after playing on the 2nd, they played again on the 7th, 4 days between games.
And in the NFL, two things are keys for most teams: scheduled routine, and rest/recovery time. Teams have schedules and routines that work for them. Days off. Days in the training room getting treatment. Days for film/classroom work. Days for team workouts. Days when the offensive game plan is put in for the next opponent, and days when the defensive game plan goes in as well.
And though you can point at a calendar to do the mathematical trick of “Teams play 3 games in 13 days or less all the time”, it’s probably useful to roll the calendar back to the last game played before the first game in the sequence to get the sense for the lack of recovery time on the back end of that stretch.
But for the Steelers, I’d say their main valid complaint would be disruption of schedule. The Steelers lost their expected bye week earlier in the year because they had to postpone a game with Tennessee over the Titans COVID issues. Then they came out of their 11/22 game expecting to play in 7 days, and within a day or two they were playing on the 30th. And then the next day it was the 1st of December. And then three days after that, the game was moved again to the 3rd. That not only disrupts their planning for the immediate game ahead, it also disrupts their planning for the game that follows on.
Or, in short, this COVID-affected season is basically shit, and should be either excluded from the record books, or at least come with a LOT of asterisks.
Actually, its been great. I’ve been marvelously entertained. And its been a real test of organizations. Whoever wins out has overcome more than in a standard season organizationally, and should get a extra gold star not an asterisk (LOLz at asterisk-talk).
And what do you think happens every time someone plays on Thursday if there isn’t a bye involved? 3 games in 12 days.
Fortunately for the WFT, they have a game coming up against the Seahawks, which is starting to look like a gimme 😭
Lantz
1712
And that’s why Thursday night football is shit football.
And that’s a fair argument, but let’s not pretend, like Eric Ebron, that this is some extraordinary scheduling quirk that doesn’t happen all the time
Oh Alex Smith is back. No wonder WFT is doing better now.
Skipper
1716
While I concur with some points about the sad situation, we aren’t the first and won’t be the last division to have a crap year. It is what it is, and our division winner will still be a division winner.
But continued reference to my team as the WTF’s in that article bugs me.
And playing well. Kudos to him for coming back this far. I thought at one time he was done. I wonder if he’d be better off being done? He could be one injury away from limping for the rest of his life.
I wasn’t surprised that the Niners lost to the Bills last night (they really tried to upsell Mullens, but he’s usually good for one or two really, really bad picks in a tight game), but I was really, really impressed with how well Buffalo’s OL handled the Niners DL. The Niners DL is definitely depleted, but they’ve played pretty well this year for the most part, until that game.
Technically that is every single NFL and College player.
Man, I swear I’m the only one who loves weird shit in sports like a five-win shit show going to the playoffs.
Pitchers hitting! Position players pitching! Emergency goalies! Taysom Hill! Gimme it all.
The Defector. Lolz.
Ratto once knew something about football in the 80s. He’s always been an insufferable grader of his own farts.
