LOSING TEAM CALLS THEMSELVES CHAMPIONS

By Ralph Hutchinson, Sports Editor

The Seattle Seahawks are the champions of the NFC West Division, and are in the playoffs. What is the amazing win-loss record that got them here? Seven and Nine? What a farce. They lost two more games than they won, but are calling themselves champions. That is a very loose use of the term. This dubious achievement has never happened before. Seattle beat the St. Louis Rams on Sunday night 16 to 6. This gave them the same record, and tie-breaker rules favor Seattle. If the Rams has won, they would have been in with the mediocre record of 8 and 8. That is just as many losses as wins. If you can believe it, that actually has happened before.

This turn of events clearly calls for a rule change. You should have to do more than just suck a little less than the other teams in a weak division.  In Canadian Football, the top 6 teams advance. If one division is weak, and the other is strong, a team will cross over temporarily to the other division to make sure only qualified teams are in the playoffs. The NFL needs this, too. Under such as system, the NFC West would be left out. The New Orleans Saints, the best second place team with a record of 11 and 5 would, be declared the crossover champion and temporarily treated as if they were in the west. This would also bring in one more wild card team in New Orleans' place. Either the 10 and 6 New York Giants, or the 10 and 6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, according to tie-breaker rules. This way, there would be only contenders, not pretenders in the playoffs.

If the NFL is not willing to fix this, maybe they should stop having a championship, and give every team a trophy for participation. Miniature versions of the Vince Lombardi Trophy would be cute, and after all, keeping score will caused hurt feelings on the side that didn't win. We wouldn't want our multi-millionaire athletes to have hurt feelings, poor widdle babies!

The Seahawks are chumps, not champs. I would not be surprised if New Orleans beats then 56-0.

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