All right, opinion noted. Apparently what Ken meant to post was please, please, please, don't post anything that doesn't closely resemble his opinion. As for the Peterson quote, you can bet that comment has more to do with him keeping his job in the post-Lamar world than it does with him actually caring or offering his opinion. In business King Carl is first and formost self interested. There are many reasons he is the longest tenured GM in the NFL while never having been to a Super Bowl. In our business culture we applaud, award, and reward such things. #1 on that agenda is to keep the Hunt family happy and therefore keep his 5% backend Chiefs GM/Pres/CEO/King/Grand Pubah contract. Lamar is sick and being cared for, most likely Clark mentioned these and/or some other grand plans at a recent gathering - the first thing a new King must do is kill the old King - and Carl is just intelligently jumping on it publicly to show that he's still capable of transition to Clark's ledership. It's his most honed skill. The only other explanation that makes sense is more teams equals more opportunity for HSG, and consequently Carl, to profit. Most likely, it's the former.
Re: Return to the old The h/h/a as you call it is called by MLS ,"...what the rest of the world does." MLS has never called it, "the best system", nor will they ever. It's simply what the loudest people can readily accept. Short-term money was a factor. Clearly the two game aggreagate for one round is the second worst of all possible setups. The worst is a one-off bracket. With the disparity of weather in November (playoff time) across MLS venues there exists the probability of playing one game in conditions condusive to offense and the other in conditions not really good for anything on a gridiron ravaged field. That condition can do everything from make a one goal lead insurmontable to making a fluke or bad call more likely to be decisive to even forcing a team to change it's elemental makeup in the face of weather. There isn't anything positive about including poor weather as a determinant. If you doubt that then answer why the Super Bowl has always been played in warm climates or domes, even before corporate money and parties dominated. First-to-five not only incorporates ties, but rewards who's truly better on the individual day regardless of weather. At the end, separation is found by teams themselves, not refs, or jetstream patterns. All while still rewarding seeding, fans, and even drama. To that drama: Eliminate your team and name three playoff moments from the last 3 years (only years under current system). If you struggle to come up with something past SJ's '03 5-4 comeback over LA OR Esky's Cup handball then you are firmly in a majority of just about everyone nationwide. Not to break the myopathy, but this goes especially for the masses that don't write articles or post here. Nobody waxes nostalgic over DC's pk win in '04 or Colorado's last year for example. You probably don't know the score if you were not watching. Ask for moments from years '96 through '02 and most most everyone has an easily recalled Top 5. Most of them will be Game 3, OT, or "mini-game" stories, remembered in great detail.
Re: Return to the old Can't disagree with much of any of what you said. I like best of three (or first to five, or whatever you call it) for all the reasons you mentioned. The only thing I didn't really get with was the part about weather conditions. Weather is part of the sport, and it affects both teams. I mean, there's always still going to be the occasion where two teams split the first two matches and game three is played in a monsoon. Everything else is pretty much spot on. One-offs enable more flukes to happen (although some people might argue that's a good thing -- not me), while multiple match formats get a more proven champion.
Yeah, that's what I meant, jackass. Anyone who spends any amount of time here knows that I have no problem with well thought-out and cogent opinions that differ from mine. Most of the time, they're not. And when they're rehashed over and over and over and over again as much as the fricking MLS playoff format is, it's just enough already. And Lamar's sick and being cared for? I just saw him not long ago. He looked aged, but not infirm.
My original idea was meant as a simple enhancement to the current system. It couldn't change much of anything, but would add incentive to the teams to fight for the best spots in the playoffs. So many people bitch about changing the playoffs, and so many people bitch about keeping them the same. Doesn't this addition change them enough, without changing them? It seemed like a good compromise to me.