WWMED?

What would my employer do?
That is the question I always ask myself when a public figure such as an athlete gets into trouble.

In this case, I ask the question about the Gilbert Arenas case.

Despite pro sports high profile in the public eye, sports are still privately owned businesses with the goal of making money. Also, like another work place, the leagues and owners retain the right to impose reasonable rules on employees.

Reasonable rules include don't steal from the company, show up on time, don't show up drunk or high and don't bring guns or weapons to work unless you are military or a police.

NBA policy prohibits bringing firearms into an NBA facility. For that violation, NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Arenas and Javaris Crittenton without pay for the rest of the season.

Back to my question, what would my employer do? No ands, ifs or buts about it, they would suspended me immediately and more than likely fire me. I work in an oil refinery. At the entrance gate a list prohibited items is posted. Guns, alcohol, illegal drugs and being under the influence of drugs or alcohol are strictly prohibited. As a union steward I know when cases involving prohibited items are involved. In every case the violator has lost his or her job.

I know my employer's rules as a condition of my employment. Arenas, Crittenton and other NBA players know the NBA's rules. We all know before hand what is expected and required to stay employed and earn a living. We also know the consequences of breaking those rules. For whatever reason, two NBA players ignored those rules and now will sit the remainder of the year without pay.

Arenas will probably be back somewhere because of his talent but probably nowhere near the salary he pulls down now. Crittenton's career might be over. All I can say is I hope they and other players learn from this incident and Plaxico Burress's incident and remember those rules are in place for a reason and the price is steep for breaking them.

Craptacular Shitastic NFL Playoffs

I've been pretty quiet during the playoffs and for good reason. The majority of games have been unspectacular bores pieces of donkey dung.

The only three games I've enjoyed were the Jets upset win over the Chargers, the Vikings dismantling of the Cowboys and the Colts and Jets conference final. The rest have been boring blowouts with the exception being the Cardinals vs. Packers slugfest. Even that game sucked. Most people will look at the score and think "Wow" what a game. It was anything but good. It was sloppy defense and terrible to watch.

I expect the Vikings vs. Saints game about to kick off to be a shoot out but who knows.

And why a goalie should never lose track of the ball:

NFL Playoff Format Revisited

This year there has been much more wailing and gnashing of teeth over playoff teams sitting starters late in the season. The current official stance by the NFL is playoff teams earn the right to play whoever they want by clinching early. Some critics maintain that it is unfair for teams to sit starters when it could affect the final playoff teams and seeding.

A few ideas have been floated about how to fix this problem. Among those ideas is awarding draft picks. That may be the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. That's what the NFL really needs to do...reward playoff teams with more draft picks. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that he will ask the competition committee to look at the issue.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd take a look at how the playoffs would shake out under my proposed playoff system I made last year.

A brief overview of my rules, which really are tweaking the current rules, not drastically changing the current format.

1. The two division winners in each conference get the top two seeds and a first round bye.
2. All other playoff spots determined by record regardless of division finishes.
3. If two or more teams tie with the same record, the division winner advances first.
4. The rest of the NFL tiebreakers go from this point on.

AFC
The top two seeds are 1. Colts and 2. Chargers. N
The wildcard teams are 3. Patriots 4. Bengals and four teams tied at 9-7. Nothing here changes since none are divisional winners. The current NFL tiebreakers apply and result with 5. Ravens and 6. Jets.

NFC
The top two seeds remain 1. Saints and 2. Vikings.
The wildcard teams are 3. Cowboys 4. Packers 5. Eagles 6. Cardinals
In my playoffs, the teams remain the same except for seeding. That would result in first round match ups of Cowboys vs. Cards and Packers vs. Eagles.

So what did this year's exercise accomplish. Nothing really. The only change resulted in a different seeding arrangement for the NFC and none for the AFC.

Why did I do it? Just to test the theory I came up with last year. About the only game that it might have changed would have been the week 17 match up between the Packers and Cardinals. The Cardinals might not have rolled over so easily if home field advantage was still at stake. Under the current system they were guaranteed a home game despite having a worse record than the Pack.

See how it works out next year. I may one of these days go back and back test the theory too.