By JOHN MOOREHOUSE
What a fantastic weekend of football it was.
Not the college games, mind you. I’m talking about the NFL playoffs.
Here in East Tennessee, where I live, people tend to be much more passionate about college football than its pro equivalent. No wonder, since you can get to Neyland Stadium in about two hours (counting traffic) from here. Other people around here (even… gasp! Non-Tennessee fans) have their own reasons, but, the sentiment is clear: they just like the college game better.
When it comes to the playoffs, and the quality of football, and the sheer entertainment value, there’s really no comparison between the two products this year.
Even before the Sunday nightcap between the Chargers and Patriots, the NFL Wild Card round has proven to be one for the books.
The first four games, combined, featured 12 lead changes in the fourth quarter.
Twelve!
That’s four in the Rams-Panthers game, four in the Bills-Jaguars game, and another three in the Niners-Eagles game. The Bears-Packers game on Saturday night at Soldier Field had just one fourth-quarter lead change, when Chicago completed a comeback from 15 down at the start of the fourth quarter and 18 down at half.
Each of the four games either came down to the very last play, or was decided in the final minute or so. Seeing one nail-biting finish after another after another was like a super-charged version of “The Witching Hour” on NFL RedZone.
Sure, there have been some good games in the CFP this year as well: Ole Miss’ battle with Georgia, and the Rebels’ back-and-forth semifinal with Miami this past Thursday at the Fiesta Bowl. Most of the games, however, have been blowouts. Sure, there’s a certain fascination in watching a perennial loser like Indiana become the fully of the block and start hammering perennial powers like Alabama and Oregon, but in that semifinal with the Ducks at the Peach Bowl, most people I know were watching something else by halftime. Our own sports betting expert J.T. Chadwell said the TV in his household had changed to “Clueless.”
As if!
The thing is, when it comes to drama during the regular season, college football has the NFL beaten. It seems like there’s a big rivalry game or a conference showdown almost every week. Then the CFP rankings start coming out in November, and you’ve got the weekly cycle of rankings, breakdown of the rankings, and predictions about the next set of rankings. Coaches, media members, and fans debate and lobby about who should be in, who should be out, and what seed they should have.
It’s just that after the bracket is set, and the debate ends, and the actual playoff games happen … they usually fall flat. It’s like that cereal you loved as a kid because of the commercials and the fun cartoon characters on the box, but once you actually make a bowl and pour in the milk, it turns to mush in about 10 seconds.
That’s been most CFP games, from a competitive standpoint. A big bowl of mush. Most games are lacking in any kind of late drama. In the current 12-team format, 16 of the CFP games have been decided by double digits, with six decided by 21 or more points, which I would define as a blowout. Several other games were very one-sided but ended with a more reasonable final margin, like the Oregon first-round game with James Madison.
And I say all this as someone who’s a nominal NFL fan at best. I rooted hard for the Chicago Bears in my younger days, but once I started covering college football, the NFL became less of a priority because Sundays were the one day in my week that weren’t consumed by college football — at least, the Sundays when I wasn’t in transit from a game the previous night. It was also hard to really pull for a specific team after years of covering high-level college football and seeing the physical toll on many of the players in their pursuit of just a chance at the pro level.
Regardless, once the NFL Playoffs begin, count me in. I’ll be watching, just like I’ll be tuned in Monday night for the Steelers and the Texans.
There’s no better entertainment value in football. College can’t come close.