Conference Me

In two weeks, there will be NFL playoff games happening in the home stadiums of the Arizona Cardinals, and the survivor of next week's San Diego Chargers / Denver Broncos slugfest. You will hear some limited knob sucking of the home teams, some shots of their fans whooping it up, and perhaps some discussion of the wildly more deserving #7 team in each conference that would have put up more of a fight when the home team goes down by two touchdowns in the third quarter.

It doesn't need to be this way.

Imagine, if you would, if there were only two divisions. So we move the North and East teams together, and the South and West as well. You'd then have home and home games for 14 of 16 games, and then -- and here's the magic part -- we expand the regular season to 18 games by losing the pre-season.

Then, and here's the real winning part -- we go to a playoff round where it's just division winners and two wild-cards. No byes, no tie-breakers, no off weeks making the top seeds more or less auto-wins in their first home game.

We get more games that matter. We lose the pre-season games that everyone hates, and the real players avoid. Your fantasy season gets longer and more interesting. We also have

I also give you the following games twice a yaer:

> Steelers-Patriots - an absolutely dynamite rivalry

> Ravens-Jets - train rivals, easy hate

> Buffalo-Cleveland - nearly on top of each other, both with issues

> Broncos-Colts - an awful playoff history for the Broncos to overcome, and the chance to do it

> Bears-Giants - Old-school NFL rivals in an obvious network big money rivalry

> Cardinals-Cowboys - Regional rivals, nearly, with the best moments in recent Cardinals history all involving beating back the Boys

> Eagles-Packers - Another old-school rivalry, with many noteworthy moments in the past

> Redskins-Lions -- Maybe if Detroit plays them twice a year every year, they can finally get a win

It also means a lot less travel, especially for the North/East matchups, and more Road Fan Nation experiences.

All of this is better -- a lot better -- than what we've got right now. And there's no chance in hell of an 8-8 team getting to the playoffs. Let's not let the Cardinals/AFC West thing ever happen again, folks.