Bobref

You're still missing it. The number of teams they've decided to go to is not the significant part. The significant part is that they're using the playoffs to make the regular season better. You can only do that with a qualification format or, to a much lesser degree, seeding because, otherwise, regular season games have no connection to the playoffs.

And the NFL has now chimed in with exactly the same strategy as MLB. That’s two pretty savvy groups of people who came to the same conclusion: design the postseason process with the goal of making the regular season better. Those of you who doubt a seeded, qualification format would have that effect (cough, cough, @TrojanDad) should take heed. You don’t have to take just my word for it.

I think you’re still not getting my point and I apologize for not being able to state it more clearly. The lesson we can learn from MLB on this topic is that an effective way to increase the competitiveness of regular season games is to tailor the post-season process to the goal of making more regular season games meaningful with respect to playoff qualifying. That’s the lesson we can learn, and that’s the only point I was trying to make.

I officiated somewhere around 400 varsity regular season games. I also had approximately 110-120 playoff games. I hope you’re not trying to say that there’s no appreciable difference in the excitement, intensity and effort between regular season games and playoff games. Because anyone who is as astute an observer of high school football as you are would never say that.

Corporate natural selection at work.

Should that be “HOF Mongo” now?

We’re all just pawns in the game of life.

I’ll accept the 95% figure for purposes of the discussion. The rest is simply opinion. I’d suggest the author might start by looking up the actual definition of “voluntary.”

Baloney. A complete misuse of the word “coercion.” Sounds like Humpty Dumpty to me: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

No, but they are the ones who decide what weight to give a confession at trial, taking into account the circumstances under which it was obtained. I’m unfamiliar with the concept of a “coerced” plea bargain. Sort of oxymoronic.

That’s exactly the jury’s function: to decide what weight to give such evidence, after hearing the pertinent facts and circumstances regarding that evidence.

No argument there.

I love that idea. But I’m not sure how Coach Kennedy would feel about “following in the footsteps” of Coach Radtke. Rumor has it that when they were both in the Region, they didn’t exactly send each other Christmas cards.

The assumption that there was a causal relationship between an internet search and a suicide is irresponsible and disrespectful to the deceased.

Your threshold for “proven” is much lower than mine. Assuming that the valid data actually can somehow demonstrate that, and assuming the substance of the actual quotes being bandied about had no bearing on the “factor” the quotes played, it was one election. Not much of a sample size from which to conclude that something was “proven.”