2018 NFL Tournament of Champions Preview

I wasn't sure I'd be able to get anything like this running ever again. Fortunately, WhatIfSports is starting to get itself put together again. And with that in mind... it's time to start another major project.

In 2014, I ran my first NFL Tournament of Champions, but kept it down to a simple single-elimination tournament that ended up getting won by the 1999 St. Louis Rams. Now, they have an opportunity to defend their crown, and I'm making this system a little more complicated this time around.

With four new teams entered into the fray, this leaves us with 52 Super Bowl Champions, and while I could go back into the pre-Super Bowl era, I feel like given the results of most other Tournaments of Champions, more recent teams tend to end up winning things, 2017 NBA/ABA Tournament of Champions shenanigans notwithstanding. Sorry, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, and all other teams with a Legacy of Failure upon your franchises, you are unfortunately not invited to this dance.

Photo by David Welker (Getty Images)

But with 52 teams, I need a way to narrow this down while ensuring a large enough sample size. So I went through the results from 2014 Tournament of Champions, and tried to create four balanced groups for round robin play. Each contains a team that made it to at least the semifinals, a team that made the quarterfinals, two that made the round of 16, four that at least made the round of 32 (seven of whom were one-and-done based on first round byes, with all but one group having two of these teams), four teams that lost in that round of 48, and one of our four most recent Super Bowl champions. The groups are as follows:

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
1999 St. Louis Rams	1997 Denver Broncos	1979 Pittsburgh Steelers	1991 Washington Redskins
2013 Seattle Seahawks	1996 Green Bay Packers	1975 Pittsburgh Steelers	2004 New England Patriots
1969 Kansas City Chiefs	1971 Dallas Cowboys	1988 San Francisco 49ers	1989 San Francisco 49ers
2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers	1992 Dallas Cowboys	1966 Green Bay Packers	1968 New York Jets
1984 San Francisco 49ers	2008 Pittsburgh Steelers	1985 Chicago Bears	1994 San Francisco 49ers
1972 Miami Dolphins	2009 New Orleans Saints	2010 Green Bay Packers	1973 Miami Dolphins
1995 Dallas Cowboys	1986 New York Giants	1976 Oakland Raiders	1998 Denver Broncos
1977 Dallas Cowboys	1993 Dallas Cowboys	2000 Baltimore Ravens	1978 Pittsburgh Steelers
1980 Oakland Raiders	2011 New York Giants	1982 Washington Redskins	1983 Los Angeles Raiders
2003 New England Patriots	2006 Indianapolis Colts	2012 Baltimore Ravens	1967 Green Bay Packers
1981 San Francisco 49ers	1970 Baltimore Colts	2007 New York Giants	2001 New England Patriots
1987 Washington Redskins	1974 Pittsburgh Steelers	1990 New York Giants	2005 Pittsburgh Steelers
2016 New England Patriots	2017 Philadelphia Eagles	2014 New England Patriots	2015 Denver Broncos

Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea (USA TODAY Sports)

So over the span of the next 13 weeks, these groups will play a single round robin. All teams will play a balanced six home games and six road games as randomly generated. The top six teams from each group will advance, with the top two from each group getting a first round bye. This will take us to a Labor Day title game just in time for the start of the 2018 NFL season.

You can view full standings, plus a schedule, here. I'm opting for a different site because the single round robin schedule got weird with my old website, and this one happened to include a second stage option in it, so I'm skipping out on my usual bracket site unless it does something screwy with the postseason portion. We'll see.

Will the 1999 Rams repeat as Champion of Champions? Or will one of our newcomers usurp the throne? Follow along this summer to find out!

Unwritten Rules vs Thug Baseball IV

Photo by Maddie Meyer (Getty Images)

Ah, yes. It's not baseball season until I have to break out my soapbox and start calling out thug baseball. And last year I had to wait until May. Yesterday we had not one, but two fights that delayed games.

The first one happened in Denver yesterday afternoon. There's been some craziness in the series between the host Rockies and the San Diego Padres. Padre outfield Manuel Margot is out after getting one in the ribs, and early in the game yesterday Trevor Story of the Rockies and Hunter Renfroe of the Padres were both hit, though I believe unintentionally.

And of course, because the neanderthals are still in charge, this happened when Nolan Arenado stepped to the plate in the third.

Not to be outdone, when the Yankees and Red Sox renewed their rivalry last night, tempers got so heated the benches cleared twice.

I kind of get the anger from the Red Sox' perspective. Going in with your spikes is dangerous, but other than using his spikes, the Yankees' Tyler Austin did nothing wrong: he slid directly into second base, albeit ending up past the bag (though by the rule, you only have to be able to remain on the bag after completing the slide and since the force was already completed, the fact that he was off isn't an issue). That's why I don't take issue with the benches clearing in the aftermath of that play.

Still image from Fox Sports

But in both of these games, we see the old school unwritten rules in full force. You hit one or more of our guys, we're hitting yours. You spike our second baseman, the runner who slid is getting thrown at his next time up. It's the way that baseball has been played for years so it's in no way a surprise.

But here's the rub. It's 2018, and we're still acting like thugs about things. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't defend your guys, because in team sports you have to know that your teammates have your back. But there has to be a better way than by assaulting an opponent with a deadly weapon. That's what this is. Don't give me the "he hit him in the back, or on the rear, it's okay," bullcrap. Fastball velocity is... fast, and that can do some serious damage. And if it happens to get away and you end up hitting a guy in the head? We're talking potential life or death territory here.

I love a good donnybrook as much as the next guy, but this crap that precipitates these scrums needs to stop. One of these days, a guy is going to get seriously hurt by an intentional beaning... or worse. There's no place for assault with a deadly weapon in the game anymore. We should be beyond it. The league needs to start stepping in, though like I said last year, I don't see Rob Manfred doing anything about it.

If it were me, it's getting to the point where I'd start getting draconian on incidents like this. I'm talking month-long suspensions for the assaulting pitcher and multigame suspensions for the manager to hammer the point home. Suspensions for the fights resulting from beanings can stay where they are now, but players need to find a better way to police themselves.

It's an extreme example, but one day, someone is going to get killed by one of these retaliatory beanballs. What happens then? I'd rather get this removed from the game before something like that happens.