Choice is the Choice

My girlfriend is a Cowboys fan and I'm a Buccaneers fan, and what that has meant is she has, through osmosis, become a fan of the Bucs and I have become a fan of the 'Boys. We get to watch of plenty of both because the Cowboys will always be prime time darlings and the Buccaneers need to make the playoffs in order to get any night games the following year (seriously; last year, they played no prime time games, despite finishing 9-7 the year prior).

Needless to say, she is not a happy camper this year. It's been a rough year for the Cowboys and for her favorite player, Tashard Choice. In seasons past, the Cowboys' running game has been a three-headed hydra of Choice, Marion Barber, and Felix Jones. This year, however, Choice has been largely phased out save for the last couple weeks, getting no touches at all in several games.

Why? Well, the fans and the press wanted to know, so finally Jason Garrett cited his lack of a strong performance on special teams which, as Troy Aikman points out, "does not really compute." He's not a return man, and at 5'10" and 212 pounds, I'm not surprised he's not a world-class blocker and wedge-buster.

But Barber's injury two weeks ago foisted Choice back in the fold, and he delivered a 19-carry, 100-yard performance. That made me wonder about the last time a Cowboy rushed for 100 yards.

That's where I found something interesting that doesn't speak well to how the Cowboys coaching staff, be it under Garrett or Wade Phillips, has handled their running backs.

The last time a Cowboys rusher went for 100 yards before Choice did was in Week 5, when Jones ran for 109. Other than that, neither Barber or Jones had mustered even 60 yards in a game. No, the second-best running game for a Cowboy this year prior to Week 13 was Miles Austin, who went for 60 yards against the Saints. On one play.

That's right! Miles Austin, on a single play, has had a better running game than Marion Barber has had the entire season. In fact, Jones and Barber have yet to combine for 100 yards in a game this season.

If anyone should be cut out of the mix, it's Barber. They don't keep stats on this,, but I'm pretty sure he leads the league in getting stuffed inside the 5-yard line. He's averaging a dismal 3.1 yards per carry, almost a full yard behind Jones' and Choice's averages. A lot of that has been the fault of the offensive line, who leads the league in another unkept category (cringingly blatant, high school-level holds), but Choice and Jones have been able to make some hay out of it.

Barber's form would be better suited for an NFC West team, speaking of disappointing. More and more ink is being spilled over the possibility that an 8-8 team, or even 7-9, might not only make the playoffs, but host a home game, thanks to winning the NFC West.

But it was inevitable. First of all, it's happened already. Secondly, in the eight NFL seasons where there have been eight four-team divisions, 9-7 was adequate to win a division in five of them. So, an 8-8 or 7-9 division winner was always just around the corner.

Secondly, I see it as the ultimate cinderella story to get behind. It doesn't bother me. Or rather, it didn't. But there's one ramification I didn't really consider when pondering a 7-9 playoff team, and that's how much, to use this season as an example, the NFC West pollutes the NFC pool.

I can live with a 9-7 team in a weak division going to the playoffs while a 10-6 team from a strong one stays home. But this season, it is quite possible, with three games remaining, that the Eagles, Giants, Bears, Packers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers all finish 11-5 or better. If they do,, then two of those teams will not be making the playoffs, while a team with seven wins goes. That's gross.

But what's the solution? If you say we need to simply give playoff slots to the six best (or whatever) teams in each conference, then there ceases to be any purpose for divisions. That's a lot of tradition to throw out the window.

To some extent, I think we have to bite the bullet on this. The NFL scheduling formula is smart, placing increased emphasis on a team's own division, then conference, then the league as a whole. Not every league does that. The MLS, for instance. Every team plays every other team twice, whether they are in the same conference or not.

And that would be fine, and the same structure as most European leagues, except there are conferences with guaranteed playoff spots for the top two teams in each. If you play a "balanced" schedule (playing all teams the same number of times), then it's sheer lunacy to split them up into conferences and give conference-based incentives. They're just arbitrary columns of A and B, and therefore possible (however unlikely) to have the best 10 records in conference A and the worst 10 records in conference B.

Back to the NFL. I do have one improvement to suggest. Make a rule that states the playoff formula stays as it is ... as long as the division winner is 9-7 (or 8-8) or better. If all the teams in a division fail to get to that mark, none of them make the playoffs, and instead a third wild card team is awarded to that conference. Simple enough, no?