The Top Ten of 2017

I'll be honest, this wasn't my best year for blogging. I blame a combination of my increased role at work and writing a new book in my free time.

Only one honorable mention this year: Chiefs beat the Patriots. I thought I did a decent imitation of a Kansas City Star columnist with this one.





10. Fantasy Champion
After 10 years I finally won fantasy football.

9. Lemon Pepper Wet
FX's Atlanta introduced me to a lemon pepper world.

8. Royals Opening Day and Great Seats
I don't even like baseball that much but hey, free great seats!

7. Work Trip to NYC
The best perk of my job is the work trips.

6. Work Trip to LA
See what I mean?

5. Reimagining the NFL
A really stupid but interesting idea of how football could be restructured.

4. The Best Tweets Of All Time
So many good tweets and none of them are mine.

3. Chiefs vs Broncos on MNF
My first MNF game and my first victory over the Broncos.

2. Making 33 The Best Year Of My Life
I got all deep and stuff thinking about my 33rd year here.

and what was the best thing I published all year? Number One

Let's Just Say...

So with the tiebreaker now and games remaining against the Bills and Jets, let's pencil the Patriots in as the #1 seed, Steelers as #2. Jags get #3 and Chiefs #4. (None of this is set in stone, we're just using pencil.)

5 and 6 are up for grabs. Titans, Bills, Ravens, Chargers are all vying for 2 spots.

For the sake of this let's say the Chiefs win their home playoff game against the 5th seed. I think they'd be favored at home against any of the wild-card teams by at least 3-4 points.

The worst seed then has to go to Gillette in the Divisional Round.

If the #3 Jags win at home against a wild-card team, that means the Chiefs play the Patriots.
If the #3 Jags lose at home against a wild-card team, that means the Chiefs play the Steelers.

By not getting the bye, the Chiefs ensured they would have to play both the Pats and Steelers, both on the road.

If they had closed out the Raiders, Giants, Bills and Jets (all close games in the 4th where the Chiefs were favored) they would be 12-2. If that were the case....

Chiefs would be #1, Pats #2, Steelers #3, Jags #4.

Divisional round would be Jags at Chiefs. They'd only have to play one of Pats/Steelers and it would be at Arrowhead.

I know when the Chiefs are 8-6, pointing out if 4 games had flipped is kind of stupid. I mean, flip 4 the other way and they are 4-10. The Bears are 4-10. But those 4 games were there for the taking. That's what you have to do to have the easy championship road.

For now, KC gets Cutler and the 6-8 Dolphins coming to Arrowhead on Christmas Eve. Win that and they secure back to back division titles for the first time in the franchise's 58-year-history. One game at a time.

8-team playoff?

So here we are. On December 3, 2017, Dan Wetzel publishes a plan for an 8-team college football playoff. He's eliminating conference championship games and putting the first round of the playoffs on campuses, hosted by the higher seed.

At the core of it, the Power Five conferences get an automatic entry. He also makes a caveat for a non-Power Five team that goes unbeaten gets in automatically.

It's all pretty good.

So I went back to look to see how it compared to the 8-team formula that I came up with. And would you believe that I was pushing this back in 2006? Wow.

I initially included the conference champions (back then there were 6 power conferences) and two years later removed them because we were excluding good teams in favor of champions from weak conferences.

Basically, I've been in favor of the 8-team for 11 years and we still don't have it. If I were in charge today, I'd roll with Dan's plan. Good stuff.

Bad Teams

Last Five Games with wins in Parentheses

Bills: 1-4 (Chiefs)

Giants 1-4 (Chiefs)

Jets: 2-3 (Chiefs, Bills)

Chiefs 1-4 (Broncos)

These New York teams are 1-11 in their last five against non-Chiefs teams and 3-0 against the Chiefs. 

They are bad. The Chiefs are bad.