Columnist Dean Juipe: NFL fails to straighten out its map

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002 | 9:23 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Realigned and reconfigured, yet still out of touch with reality.

That's the case in the National Football League this season, where what had been two conferences with three divisions each is now two conferences with four divisions each.

The league only added one team this season -- an expansion franchise in Houston -- yet it undertook a fairly significant restructuring that jostled tradition and affected almost half its teams.

And yet for all the movement and the desire to group teams in divisions based solely on geography, a map was missing the day the NFL ironed this out.

The very Midwestern city of St. Louis, by the NFL's standards, remains in the West.

Miami, despite an opportunity to play in a division with teams representing the South, remains in the East by NFL edict.

And Dallas, very much a Southwestern city, has, by the grace of the NFL, a link to the East that defies conformity.

Given the influences of power and money, it isn't completely bewildering why the league didn't -- once and for all -- implement purely geographic divisions, yet that doesn't mean the NFL didn't botch the job. It gave in to pressure from the Rams, Dolphins and Cowboys and kept those franchises in the divisions where they were, even though better alternatives were present.

Pro football now has eight four-team divisions, with both the National and American conferences having divisions named East, West, North and South. The old Central divisions in each conference were eliminated, with those teams dispersed to the new North and South divisions.

It'll take a little while to get used to this. For instance, right now can you name the four teams in the NFC South?

Maybe by September it'll be a little clearer, but in a nutshell: Seattle volunteered for the greatest change, as it switches from the AFC West to the NFC West; Indianapolis drops from the AFC East; Arizona drops from the NFC East; and New Orleans, Carolina and Atlanta have all abandoned the NFC West.

For fans and bettors, the question then becomes: Who gained, and who lost during this mad scramble for closer rivalries and shorter air commutes?

At a glance, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay appear to be obvious beneficiaries. And Seattle, with what will be the league's second-hardest schedule, may have lost in the exchange.

The Steelers, once part of the AFC Central, are clearly the superior team in the new AFC North, which also includes rebuilding Cleveland, terminally average Cincinnati and up-and-down Baltimore. For a team with Super Bowl potential, the Steelers' division games could be something of a cakewalk with former rivals Tennessee and Jacksonville sent elsewhere and, statistically, the easiest schedule in the league.

The Buccaneers also came out of the fray for the better, as they're now in the NFC South and are the only team in that division that had a winning record last season. By moving from the old NFC Central to the South, Tampa Bay also gets out of annual home-and-home games with dangerous Green Bay, Minnesota and Chicago, as well as lightweight Detroit.

The Bucs and their fans could come to appreciate the change of scenery, providing, of course, none of them are geography majors or map-reading aficionados.