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+---- Thread: *NSFL Alternate Timeline (/showthread.php?tid=11141)
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - Beaver - 11-26-2018
Code:
2061 wordsSo today I was wondering how the landscape of the league would be different if we had a top 4 playoff system rather than the 2-conference, top 2 from each system that we have now. Playoff appearances and especially championship appearances and victories go a really long way to defining how a franchise is viewed so I was curious if there would be any major changes as a result of a minor tweak. Since Season 2 the NSFL teams have played a completely balanced schedule so the final regular season standings wouldn't change at all with this new playoff format - but there would be two important differences in standings tiebreakers. Obviously conference record is pointless when there's only one conference so Points For becomes the first tiebreaker. From there (as far as I know) we're not entirely sure what the 3rd tiebreaker is (could be head-to-head or home record) so instead of using either of those stupid tiebreakers I used Point Differential as the second tiebreaker. This will be an important choice.
S1
Arizona 9-5, 277 PF, 73 PD
Orange County 9-5, 249 PF, 53 PD
Yellowknife 8-6, 256 PF, 31 PD
Colorado 8-6, 250 PF, -3 PD
None of the four playoff teams change, which is good because this was the only season we didn't have a balanced schedule and I really don't feel like diving into re-litigating how the records might've been different in a 10 game balanced schedule or whatever zzzz. However, instead of Orange County and Yellowknife visiting Arizona and Colorado the two ASFC teams would be hosting the NSFC teams as Yellowknife travels to Orange County and Colorado to Arizona. This, most likely, would result in a different championship game from the one we actually had. In reality this may not be entirely accurate because of scheduling disparity so let's move on.
S2
Arizona 12-2, 369 PF, 196 PD
Orange County 8-6, 271 PF, 52 PD
Yellowknife 8-6, 300 PF, 5 PD
Colorado 8-6, 268 PF, 52 PD
Baltimore 8-6, 268 PF, -2 PD
The first expansion season would see the exact same playoff bracket as Season 1 (under this format) with Baltimore missing the playoffs due to an inferior point differential compared to Colorado. This is a huge divergance from reality since in the actual Season 2 playoffs Baltimore hosted Yellowknife thanks to a superior conference record and made the championship game while in this new system they miss entirely.
S3
Arizona 13-1, 427 PF, 261 PD
Baltimore 9-5, 317 PF, 47 PD
Philadelphia 8-5-1, 326 PF, -2 PD
Orange County 8-6, 406 PF, 118 PD
Absolutely nothing changes. Arizona hosts Orange County and Baltimore hosts Philadelphia.
S4
Arizona 12-2, 435 PF, 232 PD
Orange County 9-5, 421 PF, 183 PD
San Jose 9-5, 373 PF, 109 PD
Yellowknife 8-6, 361 PF, 82 PD
The first instance where one of our current conferences would have sent 3 teams to the playoffs as San Jose bumps out 7-7 Philadelphia (who would've actually finished 6th as Baltimore would've been first out on tiebreakers in this system).
S5
Orange County 11-3, 421 PF, 156 PD
Yellowknife 10-4, 433 PF, 123 PD
Arizona 8-6, 436 PF, 5 PD
Philadelphia 8-6, 405 PF, 66 PD
Baltimore 8-6, 405 PF, 65 PD
San Jose 8-6, 343 PF, -29 PD
By far my favorite of the new seasons as 4 teams tie at 8-6 for 2 playoff slots. In actuality we had Baltimore at Yellowknife and Arizona at Orange County but with the removal of conference records as a tiebreaker and the introduction as point differential as the next one we would have seen Philadelphia sneak in as well as having cross-conference match ups in the semifinals. But astute readers may have noticed why this is my favorite season and that's because Baltimore would've missed the playoffs by 1 point differential. That is all that separated them from Philadelphia and would have cost them a playoff berth. Coming so quickly after the height of the Baltimore-Philadelphia feud, I have a semi right now thinking about what a beautiful shitshow that would've been.
S6
Orange County 11-3, 471 PF, 217 PD
San Jose 11-3, 386 PF, 84 PD
Philadelphia 9-5, 440 PF, 127 PD
Arizona 8-6, 336 PF, -28 PD
Our second instance of a current conference sending 3 teams to the playoffs in a Top 4 scenario as Arizona sneaks by 7-6-1 Yellowknife to make the playoffs. This change in format could have quite a large impact on how these playoffs played out as the Liberty handled the Wraiths in the actual S6 but would have had to travel to San Jose in a Top 4 system while the Sabercats get to host a playoff game rather than play Orange County on the road, where they barely lost. It’s definitely conceivable that in a Top 4 system San Jose would’ve had 2 championship appearances by Season 6, needing a home win over Philadelphia in this season and a road upset over Orange in Season 4 for that. A stark contrast from S6 being San Jose’s first playoff appearance in the original timeline. More on this later.
S7
Yellowknife 13-1, 468 PF, 196 PD
Orange County 12-2, 461 PF, 187 PD
Philadelphia 10-4, 426 PF, 123 PD
Baltimore 7-7, 405 PF, 72 PD
The NSFC joins in on the sending 3 teams fun in Season 7 as we don’t get a 5-9 Arizona in the playoffs. Honestly not a whole lot of interest here, Yellowknife likely gets a championship appearance and Orange County has a much tougher road while Philadelphia plays the two games they did in our timeline but in reverse order (assuming they beat Orange County on the road here as well).
S8
Yellowknife 11-3, 446 PF, 160 PD
Orange County 10-4, 432 PF, 143 PD
New Orleans 9-5, 413 PF, 110 PD
Baltimore 7-7, 403 PF, 74 PD
Philadelphia 7-7, 387 PF, 14 PD
Exactly what happened in actuality right down to the playoff match-ups. Yawn.
S9
New Orleans 12-2, 530 PF, 337 PD
Baltimore 11-3, 473 PF, 233 PD
Orange County 9-5, 445 PF, 152 PD
Colorado 8-6, 333 PF, -14 PD
Same playoff teams but the first round match-ups are flipped. New Orleans and Baltimore were on a collision course either way but Orange County probably has a slightly better shot at an upset against Baltimore in this set up - in fact the Otters swept the Hawks in the regular season.
S10
Baltimore 13-1, 486 PF, 213 PD
New Orleans 11-3, 505 PF, 226 PD
Colorado 9-5, 403 PF, 117 PD
Yellowknife 8-6, 373 PF, 54 PD
The NSFC sends 3 teams again, booting the 7-7 Otters and ending their playoff streak at 9. This is basically the inverse of S9 where Baltimore and New Orleans are likely on a collision course as the best two teams but this time it’s New Orleans who has a slightly higher chance of being upset.
S11
New Orleans 11-3, 464 PF, 124 PD
Orange County 10-4, 394 PF, 63 PD
Baltimore 9-5, 413 PF, 77 PD
Colorado 8-6, 422 PF, 5 PD
Despite the four teams being the same we do get an interesting swap of semifinal match-ups as the Otters would be hosting the Hawks instead of facing the Second Line on the road. What’s really interesting here is that while in every New Orleans vs Orange County and Baltimore vs Colorado game the home team won (including in the playoffs), in both Orange County vs Baltimore games the away team won. Definitely just randomness but the semifinal sim would’ve been much more interesting leading in with these match-ups.
So that catches us up on what could have been. Let’s look at the tale of the tape.
Current
Arizona - 6 playoff appearances, 4 semifinals hosted
Baltimore - 7 playoff appearances, 5 semifinals hosted
Colorado - 4 playoff appearances, 1 semifinal hosted
New Orleans - 4 playoff appearances, 3 semifinals hosted
Orange County - 11 playoff appearances, 4 semifinals hosted
Philadelphia - 4 playoff appearances, 1 semifinal hosted
San Jose - 1 playoff appearance, 0 semifinals hosted
Yellowknife - 7 playoff appearances, 4 semifinals hosted
Top 4
Arizona - 6 playoff appearances, 4 semifinals hosted
Baltimore - 6 playoff appearances, 3 semifinals hosted
Colorado - 5 playoff appearances, 0 semifinals hosted
New Orleans - 4 playoff appearances, 3 semifinals hosted
Orange County - 10 playoff appearances, 8 semifinals hosted
Philadelphia - 4 playoff appearances, 0 semifinals hosted
San Jose - 2 playoff appearances, 1 semifinal hosted
Yellowknife - 7 playoff appearances, 3 semifinals hosted
So most teams are about the same under both systems, which makes sense since 38 of 44 playoff teams are the same either way. There are a few notable places where one team would heavily favor one system or the other.
What could have been. They would lose their 100% playoff participation which is honestly crazy impressive but would gain 4 home semifinals. In seasons 1, 2, 4, and 11 Orange County would have finished 2nd in the league but had to play on the road in the first round. I’m not going to go back and re-litigate the altered playoff match-ups but hosting 8 semifinals is crazy and it’s safe to assume the Otters would’ve appeared in about that many championships, perhaps one or two fewer. Would they trade their playoff streak for that? My guess would be yes but they’re probably pretty happy with the ways things actually played out.
Not only do they get a second playoff appearance under the Top 4 model but they host a semifinal in what I consider the most insane playoffs in league history - Season 6. San Jose and Philadelphia split their season series (home teams won) so they would’ve been favored to play the (presumably) Otters in the championship. This set-up would’ve deprived us of “The Drop” but the actual San Jose at Orange County game was pretty fucking good, too, as Boss completed an 18 yard pass to Yates to convert a 3rd-and-15 and a 7 yard pass to Burnsman to convert a 3rd-and-5 late in the 4th quarter with the game tied. The Otters would kick a field goal on that drive to go up 32-29 with 34 seconds left and win the game. Since they actually played in those playoffs it’s hard to say that San Jose might have a championship under this system but it perhaps would be some small consolation for that loss to have come in the championship game rather than the semifinal. Another weird wrinkle is that the Sabercats have missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker 3 times but would only once in a Top 4 system. Would they be viewed differently with 2 appearances and 1 tiebreaker against rather than 1 appearance and 3 tiebreakers against? Right now it’s easy to say that San Jose was very close to having 4 playoff appearances in a row (season 4 to 7) but in a Top 4 system would we consider them differently with appearances in seasons 4 and 6 while missing on a tiebreak in season 5? Hard to say.
The team who would have fared much worse under this exercise is the Hawks. They’d not only lose a playoff appearance (on net) while missing on Point Differential twice (reminder: Point Differential is the second tiebreaker - they would’ve been tied on record and Points For while missing the playoffs twice, typical Hawks amirite) but Orange County would’ve hopped them twice as semifinal host - both of which were seasons that Baltimore made an Ultimus appearance (seasons 2 and 11). They probably wind up with the same number of championships so they wouldn’t be terribly worse off but they’d probably have closer to 3 appearances instead of 5. Other than those teams, to varying extents, the two systems have been pretty close. It’s kind of crazy, though, to think about how we’re a minor playoff tweak from the Otters playing for roughly twice as many championships (though many of those would’ve likely ended in losses to Arizona) or how close we are to the Liberty being in the Yeti tier despite those teams being viewed quite differently.
The Top 4 playoff seeding with teams that missed the playoffs in our timeline highlighted in green:
![[Image: 3ab460b02606d429527c941dff7301e5.png]](https://i.gyazo.com/3ab460b02606d429527c941dff7301e5.png)
And the current playoff seeding with teams that would have missed the playoffs in a Top 4 system highlighted in red:
![[Image: 5b41d4963257def0b5b2948015824477.png]](https://i.gyazo.com/5b41d4963257def0b5b2948015824477.png)
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - iamslm22 - 11-26-2018
This is an awesome article, and a fun little what if. Great read
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - manicmav36 - 11-26-2018
Awesome stuff, as usual. Very interesting read.
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - Beaver - 11-27-2018
(11-26-2018, 11:13 PM)Beaver Wrote:S1Changed my mind.
Arizona 9-5, 277 PF, 73 PD
Orange County 9-5, 249 PF, 53 PD
Yellowknife 8-6, 256 PF, 31 PD
Colorado 8-6, 250 PF, -3 PD
None of the four playoff teams change, which is good because this was the only season we didn't have a balanced schedule and I really don't feel like diving into re-litigating how the records might've been different in a 10 game balanced schedule or whatever zzzz. However, instead of Orange County and Yellowknife visiting Arizona and Colorado the two ASFC teams would be hosting the NSFC teams as Yellowknife travels to Orange County and Colorado to Arizona. This, most likely, would result in a different championship game from the one we actually had. In reality this may not be entirely accurate because of scheduling disparity so let's move on.
Mulled over a couple different ways to normalize the schedules and decided the easiest way to do it is to just ignore the first home and away game against a team's division rivals. This gives every team 1 home and 1 away game against every other team. I could've ignored the last game but I figure the games later the season have a bit more separation for teams (people zeroing in on strategies, high earners making a gap, etc) than the earlier games that are likely to have a bit more randomness. For example, the Otters and Outlaws played in Orange County in Week 1 and Week 14 so I'm figuring that the Week 14 game has less noise involved than the Week 1 game. It's definitely a marginal difference but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
New standings for Season 1:
Orange County 7-3, 190 PF, 56 PD
Yellowknife 7-3, 178 PF, 23 PD
Arizona 6-4, 198 PF, 40 PD
Colorado 4-6, 167 PF, -19 PD
Baltimore 3-7, 176 PF, -52 PD
San Jose 3-7, 170 PF, -48 PD
Arizona would've had to play 2 away games to win the S1 championship like this.
Then I decided the best way would be to average the two in-conference games. So to use the same example, Arizona won at Orange County 27-12 in Week 1 and lost at Orange County 23-16 in Week 14. This gets averaged into one game as 0.5 wins for each with a score of Arizona 21.5, Orange County 17.5.
Orange County 6.5-3.5, 176 PF, 38.5 PD
Arizona 6-4, 194.5 PF, 39.5 PD
Yellowknife 6-4, 179.5 PF, 14.5 PD
Colorado 5-5, 167.5 PF, -9.5 PD
Baltimore 3-7, 177.5 PF, -25 PD
San Jose 2.5-7.5, 139.5 PF, -58 PD
No matter how you slice it we get the same teams in the playoffs and the only interesting wrinkle is the shuffling of home field. In the 3 different standings we get 3 slightly different orders which could make all the difference for the games but makes pretty much no difference for our purposes here. Orange County hosts a semifinal in all 3, Arizona in 2 of 3, and the same 4 teams are in the Top 4 in all 3.
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - 37thchamber - 11-27-2018
I know you're not seriously making the suggestion but honestly, the only reason I'd argue against this is the loss of Conference Championship games. Otherwise this is pretty interesting stuff. I've thought about it before, too (though not too hard because Hawks innit? I'm not dumb, lol) but I couldn't get past the idea that the playoffs felt incomplete without conference championship games.
The shuffling of matchups and potentially home field is really fascinating though. It complicates plans a little too, because you can't necessarily rest on the knowledge that you're one of the top two in your conference (for example) or that you're confident you can win a matchup against whoever the other playoff team is in your conference, regardless of home field advantage...
I'mma stop now before I convince myself this is the superior option lol
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - Ben - 11-27-2018
(11-27-2018, 03:13 PM)Beaver Wrote:Coming so quickly after the height of the Baltimore-Philadelphia feud, I have a semi right now thinking about what a beautiful shitshow that would've been.
Lol never change Beaver
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - Beaver - 11-28-2018
(11-27-2018, 07:46 AM)37thchamber Wrote:I know you're not seriously making the suggestion but honestly, the only reason I'd argue against this is the loss of Conference Championship games. Otherwise this is pretty interesting stuff. I've thought about it before, too (though not too hard because Hawks innit? I'm not dumb, lol) but I couldn't get past the idea that the playoffs felt incomplete without conference championship games.Yeah, I wasn't suggesting this as an option to replace our current system. I like the way we do things. Sometimes it fucks up and a 5-9 Arizona team (for example) makes the playoffs but overall it's pretty good about getting the best teams into the playoffs while fostering rivalries within conference. However, I was curious about how differently we'd view teams if there was a minor change to our playoff system - turns out there wouldn't be much of a difference but some teams definitely would be viewed slightly differently under a tweaked system.
The shuffling of matchups and potentially home field is really fascinating though. It complicates plans a little too, because you can't necessarily rest on the knowledge that you're one of the top two in your conference (for example) or that you're confident you can win a matchup against whoever the other playoff team is in your conference, regardless of home field advantage...
I'mma stop now before I convince myself this is the superior option lol
*NSFL Alternate Timeline - Oles - 11-28-2018
Yeah this wouldn't work as our normal option, the sim definitely doesn't have any way to make it top 4 teams over 2 from each, great what if article though