Blah blah blah, stuff like this:

A bullet point response to Mr. Jazayerli, just a handful of items here:

  • last year, the 88-win Braves won the World Series
  • the year prior, the 107-win Giants had to play the 106-win Dodgers in the NLDS (they were the two best teams in baseball in the regular season)
  • that same year, the 92-win Red Sox beat the 100-win Rays
  • in 2019, the 93-win Nationals won it all as a Wild Card
  • in the NFL last year, both #1 seeds lost their first game
  • the Dallas Mavericks knocked off the #1 seed Phoenix Suns in the 2022 NBA playoffs
  • the 2006 Cardinals won it all after going 83-78 (they had the worst record among all division winners)
  • even with the expanded field, Major League Baseball allows the fewest teams into the playoffs

So on and so forth. This happens literally every year in every sport. Someone gets hot and/or a higher seed goes out early. That’s the nature of the playoffs, where you never really know how it’s gonna go. Oftentimes, it is indeed a crapshoot. Look at the 2010 Flyers hosting the #8 seed Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Everybody’s got a personal preference when it comes to playoff structure in sport. I like 2-2-1-1-1 for a seven game series and I like automatic re-seeding. Some people do not. Some people like 2-3-2 and a static bracket. Regardless of the setup, you are always going to see upsets and Cinderella runs. It is inevitable. There is nothing to complain about. They could redo the system every year and people would still find something to bitch about.