FreeBaGeL
Footballguy
@FreeBaGeL I also think part of the reason you think that is because the teams don’t have to prove it on the field, so we just don’t know any better. There haven’t been a ton but we’ve seen upsets. I think back to the year we had to watch a Bama-LSU rematch in the title game. Oklahoma State for sure could have beaten either team that year, but they weren’t given the opportunity because their field goal kicker missed an easy one in Ames. Once we start to challenge those assumptions with deeper brackets I think weird stuff will start happening.
It's a fair point but I think in general, the longer you make a single elimination tournament the less likely it is you get the best team as champion. We see this in the NFL with some truly random teams winning the Super Bowl sometimes, teams that CLEARLY aren't the best team in the league. Same thing in baseball even with it not being single elimination. 162 games and a team can be 20-30 games better than another but that other team gets hot on just the right weekend and all of the sudden we have teams like the Diamondbacks, National, etc playing for or winning championships.
You actually kind of nailed it in your other post I think. You were right I was talking only about American sports. There are more accurate solutions internationally, like the EPL where there literally is no post season which probably BY FAR most accurately chooses the best team as champions. Now imagine if instead the EPL threw together a quick 12 or 16 team playoff at the end. It would get it right far less often. Generally, the more impact the regular season has the more likely we are to get the best team as champion.
Realistically, post seasons only exist because they make more money. Same thing in fantasy football, since this is technically an FF board. Roto leagues where the team w/ the most points all year gets the championship far more accurately choose the best team than the leagues with playoffs. We just do playoffs because they're more fun.