The NFL has announced rule changes for next year. Two of the changes are direct responses to plays that screwed, or almost screwed, the Browns:
>> Allow replay to review fieldgoals. Against Baltimore, the Phil Dawson game winning field goal was called no good until some discussion, and perhaps some refs unofficially seeing the replay.
>> Eliminate the force-out rule. Against the Cardinals, a game tying Kellen Winslow touchdown catch ended with his getting forced out of bounds. The refs didn't call the force out, an inherent judgement call, and the replays for the rest of the week led many viewers to believe that the Browns got robbed of a win.
There was another rule change that was proposed and not adopted that would have changed the seeding order in the playoffs, supposedly to keep teams from intentionally tanking late season games. This also was in direct response to the Browns getting screwed out the playoffs.
I've always held that the Browns get the short end of the stick over and over again. The fact that rule changes are happening because of it just confirms my suspicions. I don't think these rule changes represent that the Browns' shafting this season was any worse than past years. Its more just the fact that when we got screwed in the past, we were still terrible, so the common wisdom is "they would've lost anyways". Now that we're a good team, it makes a bigger impact on the powers that be.
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2 comments:
so wait, the browns got screwed cause they didn't make the playoffs?
the colts rested their starters for their season finale because they couldn't advance any higher in the seeding and didn't want to get anyone hurt in a meaningless game. that's been going on for, well, probably as far back as teams have been clinching playoff births.
but the browns lose the prior week to a lousy 7-9 cincinnati team when derek anderson tosses 4 picks and they could've guaranteed a playoff birth that day.
that's funny that you call it "getting screwed", i would call it "screwing the pooch" or "choking". instead of blaming NFL rules that have been going on for years or finding excuses, how about you suck it up and realize that your team should win to get into the playoffs and not worry about what teams need to lose so you can sneak in the back door.
how much of lake erie was comprised of your fanbases tears after this season?
Why put all the blame on the loss to the Bengals? The Browns lost 6 games this year, each with equal weight in the L column. Maybe they should have gone 12-4 to make the playoffs? Or would 13-3 be good enough?
I'm being facetious. I was writing my post from my "Blindly Loyal Homer" POV, which frankly is why I pay attention to football. But if you want a little logic, I guess I can pull that out.
My complaint isn't that 10 wins didn't guarantee the Browns a win. My complaint is that the Browns played 16 games, and won 10 of them, all against teams that were trying to win. Tennessee only had 9 wins against teams trying to win. Surely you can see the injustice in that?
Now, you could argue that the Colts not trying are still a tougher team than the Dolphins trying, and that may be a valid point. And you could argue that there is no way to penalize teams for not trying without penalizing teams who tried but failed, and that may be a valid argument. But instead you decided to pull out the same, boring, nit-witted argument that every teevee talking head does. Nice Job!
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