DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Regionalize the NFL

The only problem with this is that it destroys so many deeply ingrained rivalries. Steelers/Browns are a great example. How about Philly and the rest of the NFC East? Also NY Giants vs the rest of the NFC East?

I like the divisions/conferences just the way they are.

Thats true...the only change I would make is to take Miami out of the AFC East and put the Colts back there and have Miami in the AFC South.

I know they did it to maintain the Dolphins rivalries with the Jets and Bills, and to a lesser extent the Pats, but i think the NFL got it wrong there because look what the Colts and Pats have become.

Additionally, with the Proximity to Jacksonville they could have really developed a rivalry with them, and not to mention Tennessee and Houston too. I think they wanted to keep tradition, and what they did was prevent really good things from happening. Colts/Pats twice a year? oooh. Fins/Jags? ooooh.

Oh well, I wish they would right the ship. I think itd be natural that way.

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Oh well, I wish they would right the ship. I think itd be natural that way.

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Actually it would be really weird for a long time......

I still say "AFC Central" a lot of times and the standings still appear strange at times because it doesn't say
Cleveland
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Houston

All a moot point anyway.......

Be Forewarned....this may be the nerdiest post to ever appear on dawgtalkers...also, note that I don't in any way advocate regionalizing the NFL, this was just an interesting programming exercise:

So, I was really bored today and remembered this thread. So I decided to try to actually figure out the best divisional setup in the NFL.

The first problem you run into of course, is that you can't actually evaluate all of the possibilities. (I believe there are 32!/(8!*24^7) ~ 5*10^21 of them). So instead, I tried writing a psuedo-genetic algorithm to figure out the best setup.

I'll spare people the details, but basically, I start with two completely random (and terrible) divisional structures. I then take a division out of one "parent" and cross it with the other parent (moving the teams in that division to other places in the league), in order to create a new offspring that is separate from either parent. This continues until you find a child with more fitness (i.e. a closer total distance) than one of the parents. The crossbreading then continues (note this isn't a true genetic algorithm because it cross-breeds back with one of the parents (dirty :-) ), but it was easier to implement)

In between each crossbreeding, the new parents undergo various random mutations, finding those which make the parent better. This is done to prevent the systems from converging on local minima which aren't the right solution (a problem in the first version of this code)....kind of interesting that you actually need more random mutation in order to eventually arrive at the right answer.

Anyway....for those who are sane enough not to have read any of that....i ran the code 100 times, and here's the best answer i got....i think there are still some kinks, so I don't know how great this answer is (you can't prove a genetic algorithm makes the best possible answer)....but it looks reasonable by eye.

Division 1
========
New York Jets
New England
Philadelphia
New York Giants

Division 2
========
Carolina
Atlanta
Baltimore
Washington

Division 3
========
New Orleans
Miami
Tampa Bay
Jacksonville

Division 4
========
Dallas
Arizona
Houston
Denver

Division 5
========
Tennessee
Indianapolis
St. Louis
Cincinnati

Division 6
========
Oakland
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle

Division 7
========
Chicago
Green Bay
Kansas City
Minnesota

Division 8
========
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
Cleveland
Detroit


~Lyuokdea

nice job on the programming skills...

Looks great to me!

Nice job...though I could have come up with that with a map and a little thought.

I do admire you math/technical guys because that was always something I just didn't get. Thank God I squeaked by the few classes I was required to take or I wouldn't have been long for advanced education if I had to take more.

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this may be the nerdiest post to ever appear on dawgtalkers

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And it talks about dirty cross-breeding.

In Pure Football.

Who'da thunk it would ever happen?

Swap St. Louis & Texans and i think you'd be close....

You and I have a lot of weird geographical ties. I just moved out of Maumee after law school, and my in laws live in Tampa/St. Pete area.