NFL Trade Deadline

Fixing Earth is about more than criticizing glaring problems. It's also about making great things greater.

The NFL is King of American sports and stays so by getting better all the time. Despite a very conservative, corporate image, the NFL always stays aggressive, and never settles. Colossal contracts with the networks didn't stop the advent of the Red Zone channel for example (one of the truely fantastic concepts to come to fruition in the history of sports-on-television, by the way). Whether its something tremendous like Red Zone, or just a tiny rule change we barely hear about, the NFL remains vigilant and proactive when it comes to opportunities for increasing it's awesomeness.

Such an opportunity exists right now that I hope will quickly be siezed, and that is that the league is sorely missing out on a compelling and fruitful trade deadline.

There's an easy argument in favor right off the bat: Everyone loves the human resources side of sports these days. Cases-in-point are fantasy sports, rivals.com rankings, and the NFL Draft itself, a bonanza that's become a sport within the sport. A toothless trade scene costs the league an opportunity to claim yet another date on the sports calendar for football. This is low-hanging fruit.

Beyond the excitement of the rumor mill is the opportunity to improve the caliber of playoff football. Parity is an essential part of the model, but only in the grand scheme of things and only in the summer and fall. A level playing field across the league, legitimate hope in all 32 cities, and 16 competitive games each week are all good for business- in September. But ultra-high quality football and the clashing of titans for a place in history are good for business in January. Unfortunately there will be at least a couple playoff contenders moving forward with no way to replace theur injured quarterback, hurting the quality of play in what should be bigtime games. Perhaps more disturbing, I DO NOT want to see a petrified young soccer player decide a playoff game. Like it or not, place kicking is still a part of the game, and the 2011-2012 playoffs would be (marginally) better off if Adam Vinatieri participated and Shaun Suisham did not. Such a swap would seemingly be pleasing to the Steelers and Colts as well. But it won't happen.

Like all those relief pitchers and 4th outfielders who got shipped this July, there are plenty of kickers, nickel backs and return men (Josh Cribbs to the Pats?) who belong in the postseason. But we never see player movement similar to baseball. I don't know what the roadblocks are, and I'm not inclined to look into it.  I do know that the NFL could sweep them away, whatever they are. And, being the forward-thinking, opportunistic juggernaut that it is, I hope it will sometime soon.

NHL Overtime

Let’s take a break from re-alignment.

One of the more glaring stupidities in sports is the way the NHL handles the scoring of overtime and shootout losses. A normal regulation victory has always been worth two points. If two teams tied they split the two points. When the brief overtime and shootout were introduced it was decided that it was unfair to come away empty handed if you battled to a tie and lost in the admittedly gimmicky 4-on-4 or shootout. While the winner would get the full two, the loser would still get a point for the regulation tie.

You don’t want to treat the overtime/shootout loss the same as a regulation loss? Fine, but only if you adjust the points for the overtime/shootout win accordingly. Instead, under the current system, a game that goes to overtime is worth more points than one that does not. Not only is this random and stupid, but it gives teams an incentive to sit on a tie in regulation rather than pulling out the stops to secure the fleeting two points- because those two points aren’t fleeting at all. Teams know that extra point will still be there in overtime, when they’ve already locked up a point. Why risk that point to go for it in regulation when they can risk nothing to go for it in overtime?

The English Premier League has gone the opposite direction. A clean win is worth three points. A tie is only worth one point apiece. If two teams split a two game series they are better off than if they tied twice. This puts pressure on everyone to gun for the win even if it means risking the point from the tie. In the NHL the reverse is true. Splitting a series on two shootouts earns each team three points. Splitting in regulation only earns them two. As a result, if two teams put on an exciting, aggressive final few minutes of a tie game they are making a strategic blunder. The optimal strategy, in fact, is to sit around for three periods doing nothing in unspoken collusion. Plain and simple, this system is idiotic. If you want to be equitable, while also inducing aggression and excitement, make it three for a clean win, two for an OT win, and one for an OT loss.

NHL Overhaul- Part One

The elimination of the Atlanta franchise and the re-birth of the Winnipeg Jets should be the first step of many in the overhaul of the NHL.

First problem- there are still too many franchises located in southern U.S. cities. Phoenix, Tampa, and south Florida need to lose their franchises, immediately. Carolina and Nashville are on the watch list. Meanwhile there are several deserving northern cities without teams.

One potential transition stands out for the symmetries involved. Quebec City has a larger population than Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Buffalo.  It is the seventh largest city in Canada. The top six, plus Winnipeg, have NHL teams. And if eight million-plus New Yorkers can support two teams, the eight million-plus hockey-crazed inhabitants of the province of Quebec can too- which they did, until 1995, when a loaded Nordiques team became the Colorado Avalanche and promptly won the Cup. 

The perfect relocation candidate to Quebec is the Lightning. When the Nordiques left they took some serious young star power with them. Sakic, Forsberg and Roy formed the foundation of the ’95 Cup winner. What better way for the NHL to return to Quebec than with French Canadian stars Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis, plus a young center, Steven Stamkos, in the Sakic/Forsberg mold? This move is a no-brainer.