Prophecies, part one...

Just for convenience of publishing, here are the predictions for the professionals first...college football will come out later in the day:

Here are our predictions for All Hallow’s Eve weekend of football!

RUGBY) We think the New Zealand All-Blacks will continue their dominance and rout Australia by more than a try (five points). The finals are on NBC this Saturday – check your listings; we don’t remember what time. (And if you’ve never seen the Haka, tune in early just for that!)

NFL) For some reason, we think it’s a boring weekend in the National!....Football!...LEAGUE! Out of the fourteen games on the slate for week eight, we see twelve of them as the favorite beating the spread:

New England (-8) over the Jets; Kansas City (-4.5) over the Lions; Atlanta (-7.5) over Tampa; Baltimore (-3) over the Chargers; Minnesota (-1) over Da Bears; Arizona (-5) over the Browns; Houston (-4) over the Titans [this one makes us uncomfortable, though, because of both teams’ QB situations]; New Orleans (-3.5) over the Giants [this one also took a long time…]; the New York Jets (-2) over the Raiders; Seattle (-6) over the QB-less (and rudderless) Cowboys; Green Bay (-3) over Denver [wanted to take Denver, and all our metrics say to…but Aaron Rogers, man…]; and Carolina (-7) over the listing Colts.

The only two underdogs we’re going with this weekend are San Francisco (+8.5) against the Rams [it’s just too high a spread], and we like Pittsburgh (+1.5) to beat Cincinnati outright at home this weekend, as much as we like the Bengals. Call it the 6-0 jinx – we don’t see any of the others losing (except Denver or Green Bay to each other, which is required), and it’s hard to see four 7-0 teams moving forward. Pittsburgh with Landry Jones has a functional offense, and the Bengals have a down game coming…

CFL) Two weeks left! Playoff spots and positions are on the line! Here are the standings as we speak…

CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2015						Week 18			FF Elo-style
Western Team	W	L	PpG	PF	PA	Avg PF	Avg PA	P +/-	RATING	FF rank
Edmonton	13	4	1.53	426	319	25.1	18.8	107	36.4	2
Calgary	12	4	1.50	408	320	25.5	20.0	88	38.4	1 (-2)
BC Lions	6	10	0.75	403	433	25.2	27.1	-30	32.7	4 (-1)
Winnipeg	5	12	0.59	342	481	20.1	28.3	-139	23.6	8
Saskatchewan	2	14	0.25	381	497	23.8	31.1	-116	23.1	9
Eastern Team	W	L	PpG	PF	PA	APF	APA	P +/-	RATING	FF rank
Hamilton	10	6	1.25	496	335	31.0	20.9	161	35.0	3 (+2)
Ottawa	10	6	1.25	408	420	25.5	26.3	-12	27.4	6
Toronto	9	7	1.13	392	461	24.5	28.8	-69	24.3	7 (+3)
Montreal	6	10	0.75	342	332	21.4	20.8	10	29.9	5 (-2)

Hamilton and Ottawa happen to have their two remaining games with each other on back to back weeks, starting this Sunday in Hamilton and concluding in Ottawa on Saturday the 7^th. Meanwhile, Toronto gets two home games to end the year, against BC this Friday and Winnipeg next Friday, but to place first they have to depend on Ottawa and Hamilton tying both of their games! (The CFL computers give them a one-in-ten-thousand chance. Not sure how they figure it.) For the Ti-Cats and RedBlacks, it comes down to the head-to-head; Hamilton owns the tie breaker in a three-way tie; if Toronto falls by the wayside, it becomes a soccer playoff scoring – point differential in two games.

Meanwhile, Edmonton plays its last game of the season on Sunday, and if they win against 6-10 Montreal, they clinch the division. If they lose, Calgary’s got to win both this Saturday at home against poor Saskatchewan, and next Saturday in Vancouver.

There are three playoff spots in each division – the first place gets a bye, which is all-important, and hosts the winner of the third-at-second place game the week before. So, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Toronto are in for the East, while in the West it’ll be Edmonton, Calgary, and either BC or Montreal, who would get in using what they call the “crossover” rule – if a fourth place team is better than the other third place team, they steal that playoff spot! MY FAVORITE PLAYOFF RULE! Last year, it worked the other way: BC stole a spot in the East. So why not root for Montreal to steal the West spot this time? Basically, though, BC owns the tiebreaker, so Montreal must win more of their two remaining games (@ Edmonton and home v Saskatchewan) than British Columbia does (@ Toronto and v Calgary). Very possible. It’s also conceivable that Winnipeg steals the spot, but they’d have to win at Toronto next Friday and have Montreal and BC lose both games. Good luck, Blue Bombers.

Our Picks This Week) Toronto over BC, 28-20…Calgary routs the RoughRiders, 41-19… Hamilton edges Ottawa at home, 33-27…Edmonton clinches by beating Montreal, 31-13.

Terminal Thursday Thoughts

I've talked about this all week, and this is my last scheduled post of the cycle, so let me start and end with the reminder: if you're reading this blog and want it to continue more or less as I'm doing...

COMMENT ON THIS POST THIS WEEK!

The issue, of course, is that as much as I love doing this blog, as much as crunching numbers to quantify and align teams at their supposed performance levels is fun for me to do...the time and effort it takes to do the thorough job for all of the teams I feel need to be covered each week is more than I have available to me, at least when you combine that with my regular (read: "paying") job, caring for my children, and the deteriorating condition of my health (which has zero to do with this blog). 

In the past, I've had people from Idaho, California, Nevada, North Carolina and Washington who've contacted me about what they've read, and I've known through that kind of anecdotal evidence that we were reaching people, that what we were doing was valued by someone out there. It's not like we need a thousand regular readers, but if we don't have any, which is what the lack of comment feedback suggests, we're just "spitting into the wind", as they say.

If that's not the case, we need you to tell us so.

CONTACT us through the comment section on this or either of the other two posts over the last two days (our regular UPS and DOWNS column, and our PROPHECIES in PHOOTBALL overview of the weekend's procedings (which starts today with the Giants and "Redskins" - an article on line today suggesting the life expectancy of the latter name is close to becoming a finite, definable number). 

Here's a thought we were having ourselves that 538 picked up this morning - there seem to be a bunch of "good teams" in the NFL who have started their season 0-2, usually an indicator that the playoffs are out of reach for most. Consider this list of teams: Seattle, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Houston, Detroit, NJ Giants, and Philadelphia. History suggests that ONLY ONE of those seven teams will make it into the post-season! (I've not "forgotten" New Orleans and Chicago. That was intentional.) The chart below in the 538 article shows that of the 7-8 teams over the last two years to go 0-2, only one made the playoffs each year.To make the postseason, most of the time it'll take at least ten wins - and you only have fourteen games left to do so it. A tall order, given that something's not going well to begin with (or you wouldn't be 0-2!). 

(By the way, my thought is that the best bet for a playoff team out of this group is the winner of the Indy/Houston race, as Jax and the Titans are unlikely to reach more than eight wins apiece.)

The Eagles And Ravens Are Screwed
By REUBEN FISCHER-BAUM and CHADWICK MATLIN

We’re two weeks into the NFL season, and nine teams are 0-2. But these winless squads are not created equal: The Seattle Seahawks, last season’s NFC champion, are clearly in better shape than the terrible Chicago Bears. Still, two games is an eighth of the season, and two early losses can wipe out even the best teams’ margin of error for the rest of the season.

So, how bad is it to start 0-2? And which of these nine teams have already screwed up their playoff chances?

THURSDAY THOUGHTS: Responsibility and Integrity of the Game

What is the responsibility of a team to put out its best players for a regular season game, even when it's not otherwise in their best interest to do so?

It seems to happen in a game or two every year, regardless of sport. End of season, one team with something to play for, the other not so much - either because they've got their playoff spot locked up, or they're just biding their time having already been eliminated. (You see it in the NBA mid-year sometimes, when a coach will rest older stars after a tough stretch of games.) Does the second team have an obligation to put a competitive team out there in such a game - either "for the paying customers" or, more usually, "for the integrity of the game"?

As the last round of the AFL season approaches this weekend, there are a couple of games in which this very question arises. Fremantle, having already locked up home field advantage, has no statistical reason to play its stars, and every motivation to rest them for next week's critical opening playoff game. As many as ten of its best players may sit out Saturday's game against ninth place Port Adelaide; fortunately, this game ended up having no bearing on playoff positions, as Port cannot break into the top eight under any circumstances. It did change the betting line from a fairly even game in Adelaide to the current line of almost fifty points in Port's favor, though. Oddly, where it's going to have an impact is in the WAFL, where Fremantle's "minor league feeder team", the Peel Thunder, plays. Peel is in its opening playoff round this weekend...but needs to supply up to ten players to the Dockers to fill out their roster against Port, leaving it undermanned in a playoff game. Business is business, but that seems terribly unfair to the team you've partnered with!

The more punitive scenario this week happens in Melbourne, where Friday's Richmond/North Melbourne match has been sullied (my words) by North's decision to rest up to ten of ITS players this weekend in anticipation of playing the Tigers again next week in an elimination final. By essentially conceding this game (and foregoing, by the way, the potential possibility of moving up as high as sixth if Western were to lose big, and therefore earning a home game themselves!), North has also prevented the Adelaide Crows from the possibility of passing Richmond and thus earning themselves a home game next week, a fact which has the Crows management understandably incensed. The Kangaroos' defense hinges on the fact that they've had two short weeks of preparation in a row (Sunday to Saturday, Saturday to Friday) and the players have been impacted by that: a defensible argument, admittedly. Broadcaster and retired superstar Wayne Carey sported a frightening thought on afl.com.au's "Pick A Winner" broadcast Thursday:

"The Kangaroos now can put in 8-10 players that are not going to play finals footy. They can go out and maim Richmond players," Carey said on AFL.com.au's Pick A Winner.

"They can go hard, they can be told by Brad Scott 'Go out there, hit this side as hard as you can, because it looks like we'll be playing them again next week'.

"I think the AFL really opened up a can of worms here and watch this space."

Carey said the Roos resting players was "a completely different situation" to minor premiers Fremantle sparing up to 11 regular players a final round trip to face Port Adelaide, because the Dockers-Power clash won't affect finals positions.

"Whereas I think this does manipulate where the Kangaroos and obviously the Tigers and Adelaide (finish), so it does have some bearing on the finals," Carey said.

"This rule has to change, because now the one game that had something riding on it all of a sudden has been manipulated by resting players."

(By the way, Carey was a North Melbourne player himself, so this isn't about bias...)

Another situation that happens along these lines is whether or not bottom of the ladder teams need to play their top line players at the end of the season when competing against sides that have "something to play for" or, as is generally accepted, run some youngsters through the mill after their own elimination from contention to see what the potential is for next year and beyond. Very few people question that use of a roster, and in fact if your first team isn't getting the job done, it's often the case that injecting that fresh blood into the lineup will improve the performance of the team anyway!

But what if you're in a system (like virtually every major professional sport is) where your draft order is determined by the reverse order of finish? Doesn't it behoove teams like Brisbane, Carlton, and Gold Coast in the AFL to lose as many games as they can to secure the highest draft position they can? In America, it's the NBA which has suffered under the strongest perception of this tanking prospect (I can think of 76 situations off the top of my head...). and it's what drove the league into the lottery system thirty years ago - a solution which hasn't solved the problem. To their credit, it's hard to make an argument that any of the three AFL teams named has overtly tanked this last month or so - they're just not very good, to be honest. But how do you draw the line?

It brings to mind the high school basketball tournament where both teams tried to lose a game at the same time to avoid playing the top seeded team...and if you click on the link, you'll see just how comical it got. Justifiably, both teams were suspended and removed from the tournament.

But it goes back to sportsmanship, and how you choose to answer the question, "What do we as a team owe the sport, owe the league, and owe our own integrity?"

It seems everyone has a different answer. Many people feel completely justified in the Al Davis / Oakland Raiders approach, "Just Win, Baby!"...which, ironically, doesn't always include the need to try to win; as long as you're doing what's in YOUR best interest, that's all that matters.

I disagree.

There's a risk any time you take the field, yes, but you cannot "turn it on and off" like a switch - ask the Manning Colts in those years when they ran up those 13-1 records and coasted the last couple of games...and proceeded to lose game one of the playoffs to a team who was still in competition mode. If you have legitimately injured players, by all means, rest them. But NEVER tell your players to give less than their best on the field - that's when injuries occur. If you're charging full price for your tickets, your fans deserve a full price game. (Which brings up the travesty of charging full price for pre-season tickets, but that's a subject you can already tell which side of the fence we'll fall on...)

In the end, morals and good sportsmanship MUST win out. If other teams are depending on you to play a fair and competitive game, you need to do so - despite legislative opinion to the contrary, pro sports leagues are ONE entity, working out of a dozen or three franchises, and anything one does that hurts the entirety of the league is a mistake. If that needs to be "legislated" by a commissioner or governing body, you shouldn't be running a sports team: you haven't learned the basics of "sports-man-ship" yet.

THURSDAY THOUGHTS - Playoff Structures

Every Thursday, mas o menos, we'll examine any of a wide range of topics that WE think might be of interest to more than just us here at Following Football ACNC. Most of the time, we'll probably look most at topics that put some compare and contrast between the various versions of the obloid ball game we all love, and this week is absolutely along those lines.

Let's take a look at the structure of the playoff tournament each organization uses to determine its champion!

Length and timing of season vs playoffs:
AFL: March through August (23 weeks); September (4 weeks). The Aussies are approaching the END of the winter season down under, so they're four weeks from "finals" already.

CFL: June through October (20 weeks); November (3 weeks). With a more inclimate winter up north, the Canadians smartly finish up before the worst of Winter weather hits starting in December. Week 8 is currently underway, as Edmonton plays in Montreal tonight.

NCAA: September through December (15 weeks - remember when it was just 12?); January (2 weeks, after a month off). Famously, the Bowl Subdivision didn't even HAVE a championship game until 20 years ago; last year, they very successfully switched to a four team playoff tournament for the first time, following the bowl season (hence the delay). The lower divisions have larger tournaments - 16, 24 teams - starting the week after the season ends in November.

NFL: September through January (17 weeks); January into February (5 weeks, including its all-star game the week before the title game). The "Super Bowl", the NFL's title game, is the largest annual TV audience of any game in the world (only the World Cup in futbol every four years outpaces it), so having a two week break before it must be the right move.)

Number of teams involved: season vs playoffs:
AFL: 18 reduces to 8 for finals. 44% make the playoffs. My preference, along with the NFL. Teams at the top fight for home field advantages (and "double chances"; more on that later), while teams in the middle fight just to get in. About 1/3 spend the past several games knowing they won't play in September, but they really SHOULDN'T be. Unwritten rule: if you can't break .500, you shouldn't play for a title. The AFL avoids that just about every year.

CFL: 9 reduces to 6 for playoffs. 67% make the playoffs. BOOOO! You're virtually guaranteeing losing records in the playoffs, three games from a Grey Cup title! They do make one concession which is VERY clever: after the top two teams in each division, they take the next two best records, even if they're the same division, like last year (BC got in over Montreal, adding one more winning record). It also adds one element of suspense...you not only start jockeying for position around .500, but you've gotta look across to the other division at the fourth place team as well! Still, wouldn't four be enough?

NCAA: 128 reduces to 4 for playoffs, 3% make the playoffs, chosen by committee. Ludicrous, on the surface, except when you recall where college football came from. In reality, the committee is choosing four of the five major conference champions, allowing for a wild card if it makes more sense. In reality, it should do a good job in choosing the season's BEST team, probably more so than allowing the CFL's fourth place East team into the playoffs, or letting the second place team in the Mountain West have a bid in a 16 or 24 team tournament.

NFL: 32 reduces to 12 for playoffs, 38% make the playoffs. Perfect - see the AFL comments. Home field's a BIG deal when winter starts hitting hard in January!

Playoff format:
NCAA: single elimination, semis and finals, neutral fields. The simplest, but they've done all the paring down before they got here, anyway.

CFL: division winners get a bye, division places two and three play at higher seed; winner plays at division leader; title game at neutral field. Good system for six teams, no matter what level.

NFL: similar - six teams in each conference use the exact same format (higher seed home field throughout); title game at a neutral site, usually one without weather issues.

AFL: Unusual format, designed to help the top four teams survive - in week one, #1 hosts #4, and #2 hosts #3. The winners get the next week OFF, moved on to the semis. The losers play the WINNERS of the other two games (5 hosts 8 and 6 hosts 7), while the losers of those latter games are out. So, in the third week, the two teams with the week off host the winner of the loser/winner week 2 game, for the right to play in Melbourne in the Grand Final. In theory, then, a 4th place team would probably lose to a #1 seed, play the winner of the #5/#8 game, and if they win, they'd get the chance to play the #2 team for a chance at the title. Meanwhile a #6 team, for example, has to win four straight games for the title.

THE WINNER? A cop out: they all work for thir respective leagues, although I wish the CFL let two fewer teams in the tourney.

New post on the NCAA page!

We'll post a quick note whenever we add to our side pages - in this case, it's a summary of our top/bottom predictions for the NCAA division 1 conferences in 2015.

Speaking of college football, how about a few early predictions?

While here at Following Football:ACNC we don't rank our teams early so as not to bias ourselves against what we see, there's nothing to stop us from guessing how things are going to turn out! So, holding back the right to adjust these predictions as circumstances warrant until the season actually starts in September, here are some thoughts as they pertain to the actual conference races this fall...

Atlantic Coast Conference:
- The winner of the Florida St @ Clemson game wins the ACC title. (We bet Clemson.)
- Louisville 3rd and NC St 4th in the Atlantic; everyone else is putrid.
- Flip a coin between Miami, Georgia Tech, and Va-Tech for the Coastal crown...
-...we're taking Miami in an upset right now.
- Duke will still be good; just not AS good. 4th place. 
- Since UNC goes TO Pitt, we'll take Pitt for 5th and the Tar Heels 6th. 
- It'll be Al Golden's last year at Virginia, as they finish 7th in the Coastal division.

The B1G (the Big Ten, which of course has 14 teams):
- Ohio State is as good as they say. Undefeated season going into the CFP.
- Michigan State would be champs except for the Buckeyes.
- Penn St gets the Wolverines at home, so they get 3rd and Harbaugh gets 4th.
- The rest of the division is bad. Take Rutgers, Maryland, and Indiana in that order.
- Take Minnesota for the West Division! They get BOTH Wisc and Neb at home!
- Wisconsin will be ready to pounce on another division crown if the Gophers fail.
- Nebraska third, and nobody close behind them.
(But plan on Iowa, NW, Illinois, and terrible Purdue if you have to.)

The XII (the Big Twelve, which of course has 10 teams):
- TCU all the way, including a pounding of Baylor in Fort Worth and a trip to the CFP.
- The rest of the real class in the XII is Baylor and OU, who we see 2nd and 3rd.
- There's a logjam for mediocrity, which we're deciphering as Texas, K-St, OSU, and WVU.
- The bottom of the conference is still poor. Tech 8th, ISU 9th, KU 10th.

The Pac-12 Conference:
- Two tight races at the top: we'll flip a coin down south and say UCLA has the slightly easier road.
- Up north, we've a hunch that it's finally Stanford's year to get through OU to the CFP!
- The four other good teams in the conference are Arizona, Utah, Cal, and ASU. In that order.
- UW might join them, but let's see them against Boise St first. If they win there, then yes.
- Wazzu and Oregon St may have some chances to at least go to a bowl.
- Colorado definitely does NOT.

The Southeastern Conference:
- We're staying with 'Bama until they prove us wrong. Division, conference, CFP.
-...but LSU and Auburn are good choices, too, should "In Saban we trust" falter.
- 4th/5th is tight between Ole Miss and Arkansas; their game is in Mississippi, so we take the Rebels.
- 6th/7th would be 1st/2nd in most conferences. Here, it's placing Miss St in the cellar because A&M wins in Texas.
- Georgia's the only team in the Eastern Division that would have a chance in the West.
- The other six will go winless against the West. Book it!
- Vanderbilt will be last. But I'd prefer to school there than any of the other SEC schools.
- Spots 2-6 may be a five way tie at 3-5, but we'll say: UK, Mizzou, USC, FLA, and UT.

So to recap: The College Football Playoff should be TCU, Ohio St, Stanford, and 'Bama.
The Power Five Bottom Five (we're splitting it up this year!) may start with Vandy, Kansas, Colorado, Purdue, and Wake Forest. The Group of Five conferences are next.

Hello, point-shaving possibilities!

The Big 12 now has a tiebreaking formula in case Baylor and TCU tie again at 8-1...unfortunately, it has a hint of disaster lurking underneath it in the case of a three way tie... check out this link.

Here's a wild scheduling idea...and the AFL may just adopt it!

The Australian Footy League plays a 22-game season, with an 18-team league. That means you play 17 teams, and five of those teams, you play twice. Currently the AFL has a system of weighting where you take the final order from last year, and you divide it into three tiers of six (teams #1-6, #7-12, and #13-18). For those five duplicate games, each team plays three teams within its OWN tier, and one team each from the other two tiers, the idea being to keep the schedule as competitive as possible (and it has the additional advantage/disadvantage of giving teams which finish lower on the ladder a slightly easier schedule than those higher up). The duplicate games under this system always allowed for a second matchup of intra-city games (Brisbane/Gold Coast, Adelaide/Port Adelaide, etc.), and other rivalry games (Carlton/Collingwood, etc.), which may or may not help with equalization but kept fan interest high.

Well, there's now a move to change that system, and it's a change that I simply can't imagine American football putting up with (for reasons you'll see in a moment):

During the first seventeen games, each team would play every other team once, a pure round-robin. After seventeen games, the top six would be set. So would the middle six, and the bottom six. Then, the last five games would be a round robin within the groups of six. So, the top six would play for positioning within the first six finals spots, the middle six would fight for finals' spots seven and eight, and the bottom six would slug it out for draft positioning. Every game would connect two teams of relatively equal strength. This is being called the "17-5" model, for obvious reasons, and it seems fairly straightforward. BUT, you wouldn't know in advance what games you were going to get those last five rounds of the season - can you imagine U.S. television networks and football franchises going nuts over that? They scream about the "flex game" on Sunday nights - imagine if you didn't even know which weeks you had HOME games? (Although, I suppose that might be fixable...I can think of some unfixable problems, though...)

Another possibility is simply going to divisions or conference setups - maybe you start with three conferences, and they play each other twice and everyone else once, and you know ahead of time who your five duplicate opponents are. For ex., put the four western clubs from Perth and Adelaide in with, say, Western and Geelong? Then, take your four eastern clubs in Sydney and greater Brisbane, and add in, say, St. Kilda and Richmond? Finally, you leave the other six Melbourne clubs together, probably the ones with the most tradition together - Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Melbourne, North Melbourne, and Hawthorn. If you don't like my combinations, change them. I'm just making an example.

Personally, I like the conference idea better, but I would still place them in one large, eighteen team ladder. I'm very intrigued by the "17-5" model, but it feels a tad...I was going to say "unfair", but it probably isn't. "Weird"? Unusual, certainly, as I don't know of any other league who's ever done this. Nothing against trying something unusual, right? The AFL has tinkered with its playoff system so many times it's unfathomable - in fact, it's hard to believe they've kept this top 4-biased set-up for twenty years now! Why couldn't they try this next year?

NCAA playoff semifinal dates...pending?

This report is straight from Dr. Saturday, and it hits a topic I'd been wondering 

about as well...

Report: ESPN, NFL want CFP to change date of semifinal games

 

By Sam Cooper3 hours agoDr. Saturday

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College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock poses with the College Football Playoff National Championship …

Year one of the College Football Playoff was a huge success with the two semifinal games falling on New Year’s Day. Next year, however, the two semifinal games are scheduled for New Year’s Eve.

ESPN apparently isn’t too happy about it.

According to the Sports Business Journal, ESPN executives “are lobbying CFP officials” to move next season’s semifinal games – the Capital One Orange Bowl and the Goodyear Cotton Bowl – from New Year’s Eve to Saturday Jan. 2, 2016.

On New Year’s Eve, ESPN’s broadcasts would compete with a bevy of countdown broadcasts that bring in the New Year. With ratings in mind, ESPN is hoping for a change.

From the SBJ:

Sources say that senior network executives as high up as ESPN President John Skipper are pushing for the change as a way to get better television ratings, but the CFP is unwilling to make such a move because it is committed to the original plan to hold tripleheader bowl games, including the semifinals, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Despite ESPN’s wishes, the CFP isn’t budging.

“We’ve started a new tradition and we don’t want to back away from it now,” said Bill Hancock, the CFP’s executive director.

The championship game drew record ratings (33.4 million viewers), while the semifinals each drew “more than 28 million viewers.” According to the SBJ, “ESPN insiders say they are prepared for double-digit drops in viewership” if the games stay on New Year’s Eve.

On top of the wishes of ESPN, the NFL is mulling the possibility of expanding its playoffs. One of its new playoff games could potentially be moved to Monday, which would “compete directly with the CFP championship.”

Because of this, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly met with CFP commissioners to discuss a potential conflict.

From the SBJ:

Sources say NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell initiated a series of high-level meetings with some of the CFP’s most influential commissioners, including the SEC’s Mike Slive and the Big Ten’s Jim Delany. Goodell approached the commissioners to discuss the potential impact an NFL playoff expansion would have on the CFP championship game.

Additionally, Goodell reportedly “told the college commissioners that any playoff expansion likely would put a wild-card game on Monday night.”

The CFP’s 12-year contract with ESPN has the title game being played on a Monday night and Hancock said the CFP office is opposed to an NFL playoff game being played on the same night.

“We picked Monday night because it was open and it was the best night for our game. We announced that in June 2012,” Hancock said. “We established that our game was going to be on Monday night for 12 years.”

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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs.