Last week, while previewing the NFL conference Championships, I noted how little the regular season seems to mean these days in pro sports, and said I’d be writing a column soon about the phenomenon. So let’s take a look at some of the major differences between champion teams of 30-50 years ago, and champions of today.
First, the raw numbers:
In baseball, I’m treating each league separately since interleague schedules are unbalanced and a very small percentage of the schedule. Since the postseason expanded from four to eight teams there have been 17 seasons. The team with the best record in the AL has made it to the world series seven out of 17 times, and in the NL only four of 17 times – combined 11 out of 34 times (32%), or only slightly better than randomly choosing one of the four playoff teams from each league to advance (25%). In the past 10 years only two of 10 NL teams has made the World Series with the best record, while four of 10 AL teams have made it (combined 6/20 or 30%).
In the NFL, since the league added an extra playoff team in 1990 there have been 22 playoff seasons. In 14 of those seasons the #1 NFC seed made the Super Bowl, 10 times the AFC #1 made it. The top overall record has appeared in half of those Super Bowls, winning seven (31%). Of note, however, is the dramatic difference in the NFL in the last ten years…from 1990-2002 the top NFC seed made the Super Bowl 10 of 13 years, and the AFC top seed got there seven of 13 times – and the team with the best overall record won six of 13 Super Bowls in that time frame. However, only twice since 2003 has the team with the best overall record made the Super Bowl, and they haven’t won it since ’03. From 2004-2011 the #1 AFC and NFC seeds have each made the Super Bowl in only four of nine seasons – clearly something has changed in the NFL, and we’ll look as possible explanations below.
In the NHL, there are 16 teams invited to the playoffs (and that’s been true since 1980), and there is considerable cross-conference play so we’ll look at the top overall records from each year (That team is awarded the President’s Trophy). Since 1990, only five of 21 President’s Trophy winners have also won the Stanley Cup, and only one in the past nine years (Detroit in 2008).
In the NBA, there are also 16 teams invited every season and quite a bit of cross-conference play, so again we’ll examine the best overall record – since 1990, eight of 21 teams with the best record have won the NBA title – but again, we see a dramatic shift over the past decade, as only one of the past eight #1 teams (the 2008 Celtics) has earned a championship, and two of the past 11.
To summarize, in the past decade only six out of 30 top overall seeds have won titles in the NHL, NBA, and NFL, while only six out of 20 top AL and NL teams have made the World Series in baseball – and in each sport, those numbers are WAY down from even the previous 10 years. What has changed?
#1: SALARY CAP – In the NFL, NHL, and NBA, the cap has been the great equalizer. The NFL got a cap starting in the early 1990’s; but theirs was the first, and savvy GMs learned that system’s loopholes and kept an advantage over the rest of the league for much of the decade. By the time the NBA and NHL implemented their caps, their general managers had watched and learned from the NFL – and thus there were fewer inefficiencies to exploit. The days of the Red Wings, Rangers, Lakers, or Cowboys simply spending the rest of the league into oblivion disappeared, and with it went a sizable part of their advantage. Now, those teams have all managed to keep winning because of strong talent evaluation and front-office leadership, but their advantage is not nearly as great as it was 20 years ago.
#2: Free Agency – Yes, free agency has been around a long time in all of these sports, but again it took GMs awhile to figure out how to properly compensate free agents – and in many ways they still are making ‘buy now, pay later’ decisions – the Pujols and Fielder contracts being prime examples. Big-money teams making big-money mistakes in the capped sports has really leveled the playing field and forced every team to concentrate more on drafting and developing their own star players from the start. Baseball might be the exception here – free agency has helped out the ‘big dogs’ of the sport far more than it has helped the smaller teams – but the current system does guarantee every team the first six years of a player’s career, which generally includes a player’s best seasons.
#3: Statistical Analysis — About a decade ago, the most savvy teams in baseball realized that they were missing a lot of opportunities to acquire talent ‘on the cheap’ by figuring out where the scouting world’s collective blind spot was and taking advantage of it (at that time, it was scouts’ lack of appreciation for on-base percentage, as detailed in ‘Moneyball’). This led to something of a battle between the scouting community and the new analysts brought in to challenge the old ways. In time, this led to an approach that is now favored by almost every front office in baseball (and the other major sports): the use of BOTH scouting expertise AND statistical analysis in tandem to evaluate players. While there still are (and probably always will be) ‘busted prospects’ in all sports, this new approach has made sure that a lot of players who would otherwise never have gotten a shot now get their chance – and in my opinion, that has raised the level of play for the lower-tier teams, especially in baseball.
Now let’s talk about some causes specific to each sport (except the NBA, as I really don’t follow it enough to opine on its changes) –
NHL: Go to youtube and find a clip of a game from 20-25 years ago. Any game, doesn’t matter…then watch a similar clip from any game played this season. There’s a HUGE difference in both the pace of play and the skill of the goaltenders (and the size of goalie equipment, but that’s not really relevant to this discussion). Back in Mario’s prime, he might take a 2-minute shift, coasting for much of it and hanging out near the top of the defensive zone looking for a breakout pass. Forwards rarely blocked shots, especially top-liners, and plenty of goals were scored on one-timers and hard wrist shots from more than 15 feet away.
Today, the pace is so fast and defense is so important that a 45 second shift is standard, anything over a minute is too long (except for power play time), EVERYONE blocks shots, and most goals are scored with traffic in front of the goalie or on second-chance opportunities…if a goalie can see and square up to a shot, even the hardest slap shot in the game, he will stop it 99 times out of 100 these days. Depth is more important than ever in the NHL, as teams can rarely, if ever, win with only one scoring line anymore – plus the sheer volume of blocked shots has led to many more foot/leg injuries, which also tests the depth chart, and it’s easy to see why the gap between top teams and poor teams has shrunk.
Another overlooked factor is the NHL’s point system. In the ‘old days’ every game was worth two points – a team earned two for a win, one for a tie, and zero for any type of loss. Today, with the 4-on-4 overtime, shootouts, and no possible ties, the NHL awards a point for any game lost after regulation – meaning many games award three total points while others award two. This has had the effect of compacting the standings. In the modern NHL it’s very rare to see more than a 10 or 15 point gap from the top playoff team to the lowest playoff qualifier.
Finally, the NHL’s postseason is the toughest in all of sports – four rounds, each seven games, which for the winner means an extra two months of injuries and general physical attrition. Consider that the gap between the best and worst teams is at an all-time low due to the cap, need for depth, and speed of the game – then consider that to win the Cup, a team has to beat four opponents, usually in increasing order of difficulty – it’s no wonder that more often than not, the best regular-season team falls short.
NFL: I see three trends developing over the past ten years. First, while there’s still a wide gap between good teams and bad teams – see the Lions before 2010 or the Rams this year if you don’t believe that there are still really bad teams – the gap between good teams and really good/great teams seems to be smaller than ever. 20 years ago, generally the teams that went 13-3 or better were really a cut above the group of teams with records between 9-7 and 11-5, and it was REALLY an upset if the lower seed won, especially on the road. These days, the margin between win and loss when two good teams play is razor-thin, and a couple of bad breaks can make all the difference.
The second trend correlates somewhat with the first, and I cannot tell which begets the other – home field advantage in the NFL isn’t what it used to be. Green Bay went 13-0 at home in the postseason from 1960 through 2002 – they are 1-3 since. The top two seeds in each conference used to be nearly a lock to win their first playoff game, having both home field and the bye, but this advantage has waned over the last decade, and home field means almost nothing in the AFC/NFC Championship rounds. Think of last week’s games – we were a dropped pass and a shanked FG away from both home teams losing, but we were also two kick-return errors by the 49ers from both home teams advancing. In both games, I could not discern any noticeable home field advantage, the games were determined by on-field mistakes.
The third trend is a little tougher to prove, especially with the likes of Brady and Manning making the Super Bowl fresh off a combined 10,000 yards passing – but I still believe the pass-wacky trend in the NFL is causing separation between regular-season success and postseason acumen. For the first three months of the season, weather is almost never a factor and teams can throw the ball with ease – and year after year, they do so with more frequency. Once we get into late December and January, however, the snow/rain/wind all play havoc with passing offenses, and teams need to run the ball to win. Even the pass-happy Patriots turned heavily to the ground game a week ago to beat the Ravens. Dome teams that are forced outside for the postseason have a dreadful record, more evidence that a pass-first approach is very unreliable if weather conditions do not cooperate. In the end, I think the passing will fade a little as the top teams try to establish a more balanced offense, if for no other reason than to prepare for January football.
MLB: Unlike the sports listed above, a single game of baseball is not very deterministic…in other words, the best team will not beat the worst team nearly as often as in other sports. Think about football – if the Steelers played the Rams 10 times, how many would the Rams win? Once, twice at most? Hockey is a little more like baseball, but if you put the Red Wings up against Edmonton I’d say Detroit will win 7-8 out of 10 meetings. In baseball, things work differently. We see last-place teams sweep good teams several times each year. Over the short term, literally any result is plausible in baseball; the truly great teams are revealed only over the long haul. Is it any wonder then that as baseball has expanded its playoff system that more surprises have occurred? The best-of-five first round is especially problematic – the shorter the series, the more chance for something really fluky to occur, and we’ve seen plenty of good teams knocked out early since this system debuted in 1995.
Another factor is off days – during the regular season, off days are few and far between, and teams must have deep benches, rotations, and bullpens to succeed over six months. In the playoffs, with at least two off-days each round each team gets to pare off their worst starter, generally exclude the worst half of their bullpens and benches, and get extra mileage out of their top tier pitchers. The addition of the wildcard and the extra round of playoffs has allowed teams that are deeply flawed but have an ace pitcher or two to get past a superior team in a 5-game series, using the off days to their advantage.
Finally, every playoff round added is more chance for the favored team to lose. Until 1969 the World Series was the ONLY postseason, so we knew the top team from each league would square off. Then the leagues split into divisions and the LCS’s were added – in 1995 the wildcard and a third division were added, and now the commissioner is talking about adding yet another wild-card team. These moves make sense from an ownership perspective, because it keeps fans of mediocre teams interested later into the season – but they also continue to devalue the regular season, as there is less and less motivation for true greatness. Like they say in poker, all you need is ‘a chip and a chair’ to have a chance to win – in recent history teams with records barely above .500 have become World Series champs because of this.
I’m not here to judge the relative merits of this situation – I have no doubt that the current system has driven far more interest in baseball than the 1969 system did, and that’s undeniably a good thing for the game – but I have always loved the fact that baseball’s regular season mattered so much more than other sports, that there was truly a premium on being the best team over a long stretch of time rather than ‘getting hot’ at the right moment. Those days are gone, likely never to return.
I’ll leave you with this uncomfortable fact – in a short series (or single game playoffs such as the NFL), random luck plays a far greater role than it does over the length of a season. The Saints had not turned the ball over five times all season long until they played the 49ers – does that particular game define their season, or was it just a bad time to have some bad luck? The Cardinals were mediocre to bad for 75% of the baseball season a year ago, needed a rather amazing series of events to occur just to make the playoffs – then proceeded to go on a tear and win the World Series, again with some spectacular displays in the final games. Credit them with turning it around, of course, but did they REALLY have a better season than the 102-win Phillies, who were more or less the class of the league all summer?
We have made the determination, as a sporting society, to determine greatness based on postseason success as opposed to regular-season consistency. It’s more exciting, less predictable, and just plain fun, and I get as caught up in it as anyone else. Just remember, the team that ends up taking the trophy wasn’t necessarily the best team that year – they were simply the best team that day.
Dave Glass can be reached at buggyracer@verizon.net.
