Football (the last word)

The season has come to an end; I have now watched two whole football games in total after my 15-year absence, and I must say I'm extremely satisfied by the whole experiment.

What I'm interested in is watching great football games, and this Super Bowl was a beauty. I was particularly excited that, after my rant about Cinderella playoff underdogs spoiling the powerhouses from facing off, that the two top-seeded teams made it to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1993. I'd been dying to see a Vikings/Saints game and either a Colts/Saints or Vikings/Colts game all year, and I got my wish. Two unbelievable games, too. It felt worth it to have paid attention to the development of the season and seen the great players and coaching philosophies in effect, even through simple game highlights and sports blogs, so that the final games held so much more resonance. It was more rewarding to see how much the Colts and Saints played contrary to how they had during the season in an attempt to trick the other team into playing the wrong sort of defense, and then the ways in which their trademark big plays popped out from behind the curtain. Very dramatic. I was happy to celebrate in spirit with Saints fans (as they were able to live out the fantasies of 14 other NFL clubs who have been waiting for their city's first Super Bowl win), as well as feel the pain of Colts fans who have to live with that "so close" feeling yet again, dominating in the regular season and but only once pushing through to the Lombardi trophy.

Now I'm trying to decide what to do about next year. Do I need this extra hobby?

This year, during the regular season I mostly caught the highlights on NFL.com each week, then during the playoffs I taped the games and watched them by manually fast-forwarding through all the non-play parts of the game (which sorta mostly worked well) and then actually devoting time to watch the last three games in whole (but I only got to see about 2/3 of the Viking/Saints game because other things were going on simultaneously, and the tape snipped off the overtime period). So on the one hand I feel like I played it smart, and didn't waste very many afternoons on it, like I did with football in high school, and risk leaving Amanda a football widow. At the same time ... what if the Super Bowl hadn't been a great game?

It was still a lot of energy and attention I spent hoping that a three-hour block of time would be worth all the investment. If one team had simply dominated, as often happens in Super Bowls, it would have been a real let-down. It reminds me a lot of how I anticipate a coming movie for months or even a year and then after two hours it's so quickly all over. Or how I attempt to follow politics and learn the ins and outs of issues, but then after an election all the attention is over and the conversation and priorities move onto something else. (Politics more than sports or movies actually have consequences to the results of their big nights, but, as politics tends to be cyclical, one victory or another is never the permanent knock-out blow that each party imagines that each election will bring.) The point is: I experience a certain feeling of stasis, or a holding-pattern, or ennui, when my mind is so firmly entrenched in the future, waiting for that final verdict — and it's something I don't like giving into. It pretty much goes against the belief I have that being faithful in small things is vastly important.

Now, it's possible that football won't have to be the thing that gives. Perhaps it's just the constant checking in on blogs and opinion and pontification that fuels my anticipation throughout the season. (I gave up web-surfing in general for Lent last year — even before I had jumped back into football — and that definitely helped me pay better attention to present moments, to engage a bit more, so I know that information-dependency is a core issue for me.) On the other hand, maybe it's not that I need to cut something out, but need to add something on: a renewed commitment to weekly hospitality, more investment in simple and daily connections, more time for cooking and books and walks and prayer.

Whatever the answer, I just want to not be drifting — not to dwell in those zones where everything interesting is just past or just forward, and I exist only as a precursor to later events. I want to remember that today must be enough for what it is.

Super Bowl pep talk edition

Two favorites of 2009: "Away We Go" and "Where the Wild Things Are"

New review up at JoyOfMovies.com.

Classical music, part two

Last week I quoted at length from the book "A Perfect Mess" about learning the true difficulties of performing classical music (which requires constant re-tuning on the fly by instruments to keep from sounding discordant as the temperatures and other ambient factors change). This week, I'd like to add one additional piece of information about classical music, at least of the eighteenth century variety, that fundamentally changes its conception in my mind:

"The opportunity — the imperative, really — for improvisation was explicitly written into baroque compositions and in more than one way. Bach and other composers of the time rarely spelled out parts for cello, bassoon, harpsichord, and organ note-for-note, instead providing the players of these and other low-range instruments suggested chords on which they were expected to riff. Concertos contained cadenzas that challenged the soloist to cut loose from the confines of the sheet music, and the resulting long, furious improvisations were often the highlights of performances. ...

"[Bach] would embellish at length at the organ, even in the middle of church services, apparently sometimes dismaying the officiators, choirs, congregations, and others who were simply trying to get through the liturgy. In other performances, he would take musical themes tossed at him from the audience and immediately improvise around them, much in the style of a contemporary nightclub comedian. ...

"Bach and his colleagues could not have predicted that by the middle of the twentieth century the improvisational elements of their competitions, and of all classical music, would have been gradually and thoroughly excised. Composers had later filled in the bass lines and cadenzas with note-for-note versions, so that today musicians play only what's on the page, and every performance is melodically identical to every other. ... It has been a centuries-long organizing project that almost certainly would have appalled some of the very composers we most ardently lionize. ...

"Throughout this book we've seen some of the ways in which mess and disorder, in their various forms, can be a great deal less harmful than they are usually made out to be. ... Let's add one more claim: mess and disorder can be beautiful."

Tea break

This one is for Courtney, our favorite tea-drinker: 12 unusual tea-bag concept designs.

Amazing

The boy pees standing up now.

Avatar

I feel like I owe some words on "Avatar" after my geeked-out teaser post from August, which was written partly in response to the general dismissiveness across the internet to the teaser trailer (dubbed "Dances with ThunderSmurfs" by talkbackers at Ain't It Cool). As the movie was probably the most expensive ever made, both the future of Cameron's career and potentially the future of 3-D movies were at stake, I was hoping for its success.

Careful what you wish for. "Avatar," insanely, has become the highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide (yes, there's that adjusted-for-inflation caveat that gets thrown around, but even accounting for inflation it's on pace to have more estimated global ticket sales than any previous film, with only his own "Titanic" as the potential contender). I'm not sure that I liked "Avatar" enough in the end to be proud of it for the achievement, although I expect that I'll be pleased in the coming years to see more 3-D mainstream films, which I still believe adds another layer of connection with a film. (My dream would be a 3-D of a calm and thoughtful film like "Dinner with André," giving it all the intimacy of seeing it performed live at the theater but with the immediacy of feeling like you were present on stage.)

It's not that I thought "Avatar" was bad, but I didn't get the same emotional impact that I did from some of his previous films. "The Abyss" was also a groundbreaking technological achievement in a story filled with soldiers on the brink of war, but at the heart of that film was an estranged marriage finding a rekindling in the midst of the strain. The love story of "Avatar" felt too offhand, too inauthentic to me, and when that collapses, the movie becomes just spectacle. (Incredible spectacle, to be sure — entertaining spectacle, but nothing I feel like I need to return to.)

I don't mean to suggest that every action movie need to be anchored by a piercing love story, only that that's Cameron forte. Even in "Aliens" and "Terminator 2," which were love stories more of a parental sort, raw emotion provided the through-line for the films. The glue to "Terminator 2" was Edward Furlong (yes, Edward Furlong) reacting everything that was happening around him in with realistic young emotion -- his anger at his mother, his love for his mother, and his pushing for independence from his mother rolled up into a single moment, or his treating the Terminator as human because he simply doesn't know how to distance himself emotionally from a human face the way his very hardened mother has.

On the contrary, "Avatar"'s lead character seems to me to be dead inside from the very beginning, with his legs crushed and his brother dead, half-heartedly making his way through life. I was waiting for Jake to finally arrive, to fully wake up, buhis new life inside the avatar felt like little more than an extended Rocky-esque training sequence. I always felt the pull of immediacy back to the familiar realm of the humans rather than ever settling into a non-action piece of normal, simple life with the Na'vi. It never felt like he got to settle for a moment, to show himself.

Perhaps it doesn't help that he starts out more or less as a secret agent within Na'vi culture, needing to be careful not to let his guard down by design. (That is, in fact, what I didn't much like about Cameron's "True Lies," his only major film that I have distaste for. The false fronts and false bravado the characters struggle to maintain tamps down any hint of vulernable emotion beneath.) I kept waiting for Jake to let his new compatriots in on the humans' plans and cement his status as a trusted insider, but he refused to let down his facade until well after his cover was blown for him.

In the end, the love story of "Avatar" seemed to most resemble "She's All That," one of those umpteen high school movies where the jock dates the hot girl under false pretenses, his cover is blown, she rejects him with really good reason, and then he needs to atone through some outlandish gesture. Say what you will about "Titanic," but at least "Romeo and Juliet" has a better pedigree if you want to crib your love story.

Growing up so fast

In addition to yesterday's post about a leap forward in Corin's thinking, I've noticed a few other things in the past couple days that are new:

First, in the bathtub he was squirting a tub toy and I was trying to block the spray from going over the side of the tub, and after giggling uproariously at my vain efforts, he proceeded to explain in great detail why it was so fun, that the water was going into the tub toy, and that he was squeezing it, and that I was putting my hand in front of it. Not all the words were there — there filler there especially for the verbs, just a 'duh-ba-lub-a-duh' gibberish standing in for any words he didn't know, but he usually only talks about one idea at a time rather than linking three.

Second, he was watching a new VeggieTales video about Saint Nicholas, and when they were talking about his parents dying, Corin got rather upset. I'm still not entirely sure he understood what was going on (he had been rather tired as a result of waking up several times during the night with a cough and sniffle), and it might just have been a coincidental breakdown, but I think he might have been feeling empathy for the sad characters.

And third, he's getting more comfortable being on his own. This is not necessarily a good thing, as I've probably come to rely on his shyness and his needing the comfort of a nearby parent too much. Back before we had kids I thought that I'd definitely need one of those leash harnesses they make to keep children from running off, but so far in reality it hasn't been a problem. Today, though, we were at the library and I was doing the self-checkout (which he usually 'helps out' with), but instead of staying with me he was off toward the exit, then back in the entrance, then into and through the librarian area, and into the holds area and saying "Apa? Apa?" before I could even finish. (Fortunately I was able to look up and track him in between steps.) The other day in Red Robin he was running all over the restaurant, too, going back and forth between our table, and the video games, which were out of our eyeline. Usually if he wants to go somewhere where he can't keep an eye on us he has to drag us with him, but he was off like a shot and I had to locate him and make sure he was still in the restaurant. It's probably a really good step for him, to take a step out of the nest, but it's hard for me to adjust to because I have been reliant on his clinginess so far to keep him safe and looked after. It's a whole new ballgame.

Nickname central

We have a habit in our house of giving each other little nicknames on a hourly or minutely basis. If Corin is wearing sunglasses, he's "Mr. Cool" or if he's wearing his fireman helmet, we say, "Look at you, Snazzy Hat!" and the like.

Corin will sometimes repeat these nicknames (as he does the end of nearly every sentence we say to him), but we figured he had no real concept of what we were doing.

Until today, when, after stuffing his face with a chocolate-covered cookie (TimTams!), I took him to the bathroom to wash his hands, he took a look in the mirror at himself, and said "Hey Cookie-Face!"

I double-checked with Amanda to see if he wasn't just repeating something she's said, and it was indeed a complete original. To prove the point, when he went back out to Amanda he said, "Hi, Chocolate Fingers!"

Why the internet exists

A conversation and result that could not possibly have taken place in an earlier age:

Part 1: Face on a cake

Part 2: Explaining the face

Part 3: Face uncovered

Hollywood clichés

Tuning

We bought Corin a ukulele after he kept wanting to play the "small guitar" of the violin, which is much more fragile, whenever Amanda played the big guitar. One of the reviews on Amazon mentioned that a new ukulele (at least of the quality we could afford) takes a while to hold its tuning, and at the beginning you might need to re-tune every few minutes. (This of course has led to Corin un-tuning the ukulele every time we hand it to him, since he thinks fiddling with the knobs is the first step — meaning it's doubly hard to keep in tune.)

At any rate, that reminded me of something I recently read in "A Perfect Mess," which I still have a dozen more interesting bits to share with you all.

Growing up with my only instrument being the piano, which is tuned only occasionally, I never really realized how of a big deal tuning is in an orchestral performance. I found this explanation from Abrahamson and Freedman to be fascinating and eye-opening (the full passage is on pages 300-306 if you want to read the whole thing):

"Those of us who aren't musicians, or at least trained in music theory, might think ... that sour notes, whether sharp or flat, are the sort of thing that good musicians leave behind in junior high school. ... Or perhaps you know enough to realize it's not quite that simple. Temperature is a factor, for example, in that instruments tend to heat up over the course of a performance, which changes their tuning. The change depends on the surrounding temperature, how much and how loudly the instrument has been playing, and whether the instrument is in sunshine or close to stage lights, among other factors. ...

"At the heart of the matter is the fact that there's really no absolute, universal meaning to "being in tune" — it's a variable, inconsistent, dynamic judgment. ... It's exactly this sort of inescapable messiness that helps imbue performances with the sort of variation and unpredictability that can leave audiences mesmerized one day and bored the next. ...

"Until the eighteenth century, keyboard instruments were tuned like other instruments, ...tuning the keys so that when a scale is played one note at a time, the scale will sound pleasing. ... Owing to an odd glitch in the relationships between the different sorts of notes that seem perfect to our ears, chords that sound lovely when played on one part of the keyboard can produce wobbling and other clashy effects when played on another part. ... These small differences don't much affect the integrity of the scales, but they end up hobbling some of the chords as they are ... transposed into a different key. ...

"Through the seventeenth century, composers simply avoided these troubled chords. .... By the eighteenth century, a number of composers started to embrace ... [an] alternate technique, called 'tempered tuning'. ... The result is that scales no longer sound quite right when played note by note ... but because the note-to-note jumps are more consistent than they are with 'just tuning', a chord that sounds good in one key will sound pretty good in any other key. ...

"A slightly tweaked version of well-tempered tuning called 'even-tempered tuning,' in which all the jumps between notes are made perfectly consistent, finally became more or less standard for keyboard instruments in the 1850s. ... (Bear in mind, therefore, that when you hear a performance of music written before the second half of the eighteenth century [Bach, etc.], you're probably not hearing exactly what the composer intended. ...)

"Unlike pianos, virtually all the standard instruments in an orchestra enlist just tuning to get those pleasing progression of single notes. But the problem of aberrant harmonies between multiple notes played simultaneously doesn't go away; with many instruments playing many different notes, there's plenty of opportunity for the notes to clash. ... A trombonist or trumpet player or violinist ... has to shoulder a share of the responsibility for avoiding interpreting notes in a way that unpleasantly combines with those of other instruments and has to do it by adjusting tuning on the fly [emphasis theirs] throughout the performance.

"How big an alteration is called for depends on the instrument, the note, the key in which the note is being played, and the specific qualities of sound that the musician and conductor hope to achieve. ... Almost everyone in the orchestra is constantly making these adjustments and readjustments in response to the music and to each other. ... That even the pros can occasionally be more inspired than usual in this endeavor is all part of the magic of the performance."

Dinner guests

We had our first official dinner party in our new condo tonight (we're not counting Courtney and Mayna eating off of paper plates on top of boxes as they helped us move) and I must say that I've desperately missed having people over. It's so much easier not to, but it's also so much less of a home that way.

We served lasagna (expertly prepared by Amanda's mom), garlic bread and salad, and after-dinner tea, effectively using all portions of our brand new dinnerware set (which we bought to give the place an old-time beach-rental feel, with its simple but charming classic look). I'm really looking forward to finishing out the kitchen in this new style and continuing to have people over to enjoy this space.

Limited imagination

Corin could play (and does play) trucks all day long, but when he wants me to play trucks with him I quickly run out of steam.

"Pbbbbbbbbbbbb, pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb," I make the noise of the car engine and race it along. Then I add, "His car must run on farts."

"No pooted! No pooted!" he retorts.

* * *

"Oh, no, the bus rolled over! Weee-ooh weee-ooh! Mr. Bus Driver, were you drinking again? Yes, officer. Sorry, officer."

* * *

"Here's Evel Knievel in the brown truck, and he's going to jump all the other cars! Ker-chunck! He's airborne, he's going to make it! He ... he ... no, he smashes into the last car!"

He has no idea what to make of this. Apparently I know how to amuse only myself with trucks.

Our real estate agents: Kristen and Rosemary, duo extraordinaire

This post is long overdue — unconscionably overdue. Back in September, when we finally closed on our condo and excitedly posted about the big day, I had meant to follow up with a series of thank-you speeches, giving credit and thanks to the people who helped us through the whole insane process. But somehow actually moving got in the way of any long and thoughtful posting, and I never caught up on that. It's time to rectify the situation.

Our real estate agents were Kristen Meyer and Rosemary Pham, who were at every point our advocates and our warriors. With Amanda and me being more the shy, retiring types (especially in areas where we have extremely limited knowledge, like buying a house) we were beyond blessed to have these two in our corner.

We had started the house-hunting process on our own, using online listings to determine what was available in our target area and budget, and had a pretty good sense of which place we wanted to place a bid on. We thought that all we really needed was someone whom we felt comfortable with to actually show us the condo and our few backup choices to confirm our selection, send through the paperwork, and collect the commission. Indeed, it ended up being less than a week before we had met Kristen to when our offer was accepted; we had joked at the time that it would be her easiest commission ever.

Do not joke about home-buying. Ever.

Kristen and Rosemary more than earned their dollars on this one, navigating us through an incredibly difficult loan process, being the grease in the gears as more than one party involved took their time and it looked like things were stalling out or grinding to a halt. They poked and pushed and prodded at the wheels of progress until everyone was doing what they needed to be doing to see the sale through to completion.

Our other tireless worker was Cristie Stapp at Eagle Home Mortgage, who handed our loan and helped us jump through the hoops of the ever-changing legal restrictions in the wake of the mortgage crisis that were impeding the sale. Her vast knowledge put us at ease at a time when we were quite easily and quite rightfully panicked about the whole thing, but we always knew we were in the best possible hands with her, and if the loan hadn't been made with her, that there was nowhere on the planet that it could have been. She saw us through and didn't disappoint, and we were glad that Kristen had recommended her.

What first interested us about Kristen as we were reading through various online profiles of real estate agents was that she had placed several famous musicians in homes in Seattle that matched their unique tastes and needs. She seemed to be someone who specialized in the offbeat, in the match of person and home — and while we are hardly rock stars, we felt that we weren't the typical buyers either. Other agents we met tried to dissuade us from our idea of living on Alki, trying to push us toward other areas of West Seattle where we could have a bigger house with more square footage and what might be a better investment value. But we have certain values in life — one is that bigger isn't always better, another is that making a home is more important than investment portfolio, and another is that having plenty to walk to within a block of you is absolutely important since we otherwise tend to forget to get outside the cave. Other agents wanted us to change our priorities and personalities, but Kristen saw us for the eclectics we are and was eager to match us with the perfect place.

As I mentioned before, we aren't the most assertive of people. Often, even when we want something strongly, we sort of float the idea as more of a question into a conversation. A lot of times people take this as mere suggestion, but Kristen was able to listen on the right frequency and interpret our weird style of communication properly. From day one we felt comfortable with her and with her ability to be our proxy and representative in all negotiations and arm-twisting, applying all the leverage we ourselves are unable to muster.

Kristen was always there to be a listening ear as well, letting us talk through frustrations, but never letting us wallow in them, always presenting a series of options for the next step. I was unprepared for how much of an emotional wringer the home-buying process is, but we never had to feel awkward or tentative around Kristen or Rosemary or to hide our insecurities. As first-time homebuyers with jitters, we felt completely safe letting them guide us through the emotional roller-coaster.

Rosemary works in tandem with Kristen, sharing clients together and taking over for each other when the other is on vacation. Kristen actually ended up being on vacation just a day or two after our offer was accepted, and Rosemary took over rather early on. I had thought we might need to re-explain a lot of things with a new person and catch her up to speed but she was completely in sync, not only with the business stuff but all about us as people, too. They work together in sympatico so well that I never had to worry that we'd be on a different page with Rosemary than with Kristen. I suspect some sort of psychic link-up.

What we most appreciated in the end was the amount of personal attention. Not only would both Kristen and Rosemary be available at a moment's notice to talk or answer questions — we never once had to leave a message that we felt floated away into the ether like with many of the other people and companies that we had to deal with in the process — but they were also proactive in calling us and seeing how we were doing and if we needed anything. I had expected that whoever we chose as agents would satisfactorily complete what the job required, but Kristen and Rosemary went beyond the job description and became coach and counselor, too. It never felt like a raw business transaction, but a journey we were on together, with them guiding the way. Anyone who sees you through tough times with grace and humor is going to earn your respect and trust, and Kristen and Rosemary have ours. If you are looking for a real estate agent in Seattle, they come with our unqualified and enthusiastic support.

Things Corin ate today

...and actually picked out for himself from the cafeteria and the refrigerator:

bagel

ranch dip

cheddar cheese

fruit salad (melon, pineapple)

sushi

banana

strawberries

orange

Things he turned down: french fries, chicken, burger.

Who was that masked man?

More Corin bits

* Corin has named his two baby dolls: "Co" and "Rin." Amanda's suggested "Coco" and "Rinny" to temper the meglomania.

* Over at First Year Blogger, which for the past two-plus years has been filled with random typings from Corin when he wants to borrow our computers and imitate us, now has its first word: /MV/HHellllllo. (It finally occurred to me that since Corin knows his letters, I could actually prompt him to start typing words. Cool, huh?)

* At the mall tonight, as we were walking around with Corin on Amanda's back, Corin kept repeating the last few words of every sentence in our conversation. "...back from there," he would parrot. "...for the car."

I turned to him and asked, "Are you just repeating words?"

"...repea— Yes!" he said with a huge grin.

From a certain point of view

Cracked.com has a great new article up about movie conspiracy theories: secret ways of viewing several classic films that give them a whole new dimension. (Note: There is quite a bit of swearing if you follow the link. That's Cracked.com for you.)

The first one, "'James Bond' Is Not a Man, But a Code Name" is a way of making the whole Bond franchise not a series of reboots and shake-ups but a natural progression through the decades of different people taking over the 007 number and the James Bond moniker, in the same way that M and Q are transferable titles. Interesting, but unnecessary. That's just how movie franchises work; I don't see that it adds anything.

The last one, about R2-D2 being a knowledgeable and trusted rebel agent, is the only one I'd previously encountered, mostly because I spent way too much time on TheForce.net message boards between Episodes 2 and 3. Essentially, it's clear that C-3PO and R2-D2 know way too much during the prequel trilogy to be the clueless wanderers they appear to be in the original trilogy. Lucas promised that there would be a memory wipe in Episode 3 to close that loophole, but fans speculated on whether or not R2 actually needed a memory wipe since in the original trilogy he actually seems to know more than he's telling, especially regarding Ben/Obi-Wan right at the beginning. Again, it seems cool as a fan to have this "secret knowledge" with which to watch the original trilogy, but whatever it adds in intrigue it loses in camaraderie between the two robots. They were always a team, a pair, modeled after the two bumbling farmers in Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" — nobodys, mere children in a world of adults. And yet now we're supposed to see that R2 is like a James Bond with all the knowledge and secrets of a vast counterinsurgency network and 3PO is like a 5-year-old from whom information is deliberately being hidden by the adults spelling the words out when talking in front of him. Suddenly we've gone from buddy adventure to "Of Mice and Men."


The most mind-bending one for me is the idea that the entirety of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" takes place in Cameron's mind. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it, especially how the guys manage to travel to more Chicago landmarks than is possible in a single day, how Ferris leads a parade down the middle of downtown and dancing troupe just start doing flips in the street, how Ferris allows Cameron to participate in all of the things he wishes he could do but doesn't have the courage to, why Ferris breaks the fourth wall. It doesn't have to be that way, but it makes sense all the same, and has a whole new feel.

There's a similar theory about "The Matrix Revolutions," which is that the "real world" of Zion is just as much a computer program as the "real world" he escapes from in the first movie, which better explains how Neo learns to use his magical messiah powers in the world of the robots as he does within the matrix. But this theory is more patchwork: the movie doesn't really make sense as it stands (hence the bad fan reaction) and the theory only exists to salvage the scraps of the movie into something resembling cohesion, but at the expense of invalidating any measure of emotion or intrigue or philosophy in the entire trilogy. Probably not worth the effort.

Still, all the theories are fascinating to consider, and add another layer or vantage point to things I've seen before and may now revisit again.

Crabs

I haven't posted any of Corin's latest YouTube obsessions lately because they've been either preschool stuff like the Wiggles or really bizarre things like the song below — nothing I want to admit that he likes. But in the interest of posterity, I've been convinced that I have to share this one with you all.



(For the record, assuming that the cartoon is scientifically accurate — and I have no reason to think that it isn't — the blood must be from crabs cutting up his mouth, not him biting on crabs, since crab blood is white with a bluish tinge.)

Playoffs

I don't intend to keep on writing about football all the time, but in that last post I mentioned how great it would be to see a Colts-Chargers game, watching the two dominant teams duke it out, but that such opportunities are regularly taken away by wild-card spoilers. Somehow my brain then devised an alternative playoff format to ensure that each conference would see a battle between the two powerhouse teams each year, and I haven't been able to shake it out of my head for a week, and I think writing it out will be the only way to let go of it. So, for the record, this is not an actual proposal for the National Football League to discover on the internet and then implement; this is brain garbage.

At any rate: Under my system, each of the top four teams in each conference would play each other directly (no wild cards spots, no preference for division leaders even, just the straight up four best teams). This year, in the AFC, the schedule would look like this:

Patriots @ Chargers
Bengals @ Colts

Bengals @ Chargers
Colts @ Patriots

(Patriots @ Bengals, if necessary)
Chargers @ Colts

—It would still take three weekends for the playoffs to shake out, but the NFL would actually get revenue from 6 games instead of five per conference.

—The top two seeds each get to play two games at home, one away. The top two seeds can find their rhythm in an initial home game, and then they would face each other in the climatic final game.

—Any team going 3-0 obviously advances to the Super Bowl. It is mathematically impossible for only one team to go 2-1 and no one have a better record, so in the case of two 2-1 teams, the head-to-head game determines the winner. In the case that three teams end up going 2-1 (and one goes 0-3), each of the three teams will have beaten one of the other tied teams, so head-to-head washes out, and tie-breaker would go to the best points-for/points-against ratio, and you end up with the most dominant team of the group.

—Under the present system, the bye week for the top two teams, which is supposed to be a reward because it's a free pass, often ends being a detriment because the team gets out of its rhythm and gets too tense or overthinks their game. My plan would eliminate that flaw in the system.

The downsides to such a system is that 1) fewer teams are involved, giving fewer fans the excitement of the home team making a run in the playoffs. It would be better for fans of good games, which is suppose why I like it. 2) People like Cinderella teams, and the chance of a remote underdog taking it all is less likely. Under this scenario, the better teams have a better chance. Again, the idea is that it leads to a Super Bowl between the best and most dominant teams.

On the other hand, baseball, basketball, and hockey all have best-of-5 or best-of-7 series between teams, which would seem to weed out the less-dominant-but-occasionally-lucky teams, but there are upsets all the time in those sports. What's more, baseball has a relatively small percentage of the league's teams make the playoffs, so there's a little bit of a precedent there.

So, alternate universe, how about it?