National Football League to Adopt BCS Bowl System

New York - The NFL competition committee voted this morning to drastically alter the NFL postseason format in favor of a system mirroring the current college bowl setup. Their recommendation, to create a series of post-season football games with automatic tie-ins and to approve a formal ranking system designed to produce a "#1 vs #2" title game, will be voted on by the league's 32 owners next week.

The idea is the brainchild of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who feels the NFL's post season format lacks the controversy associated with the college version.

"We often get shortchanced by the nationally syndicated sports talk shows, and by the contrived debate shows like Around the Horn, First Take and Pardon the Interruption," Goodell said. "This will get people talking about what really matters in football: whether or not your particular team is getting the respect they may or may not deserve in the polls and if the system itself is even fair to begin with."

Goodell isn't exactly in love with the entire college method of sending teams to a championship based on polls and computers. He says that while preseason rankings play too much of a role in determining which teams get into the championship game, he thinks they should first be released halfway through the previous season - simply to add fuel to the critics' fire.

One NFL owner favoring the new setup, who chose to be quoted under the cloak of anonymity, says his Washington Redkins football team would benefit from such unwarranted preseason hype.

"Look at half the teams in the SEC," the owner said on one of his Red Zebra radio stations. "They benefit by having overinflated rankings based on nothing more than hype and flawed preconceived notions about their alleged speed superiority. They then beat eachother up over the course of the season and stay inside the top 25 despite not playing a meaningful out-of-conference schedule. We just want the same advantage when the public and media buy into our preseason hype - we spend just as much money on talent as any of those SEC teams."

Goodell says the current NFL playoff system is too definitive and that it leaves little question as to who the best team is. Something he says needs to be corrected. He also thinks the league needs a more inclusive postseason format.

"Too many teams have been left out of the process," Goodell said. "This is all about giving the fans of the Browns, Cardinals and Lions something to cheer about in the often doormant month of January.

The only remaining question in the commissioner's system is if one particular NFL team will get their own stipulation to appear in a major bowl regardless of whether they deserve to be or not. The "Notre Dame" Clause will go before the committee in December or January - the same months that will feature the Irish not winning a bowl game.