The beauty of single elimination playoffs

It's Saturday, and there's not much going on around the Jaguars right now, so I'm going to take this opportunity to point out the greatness of the single elimination playoff. We're nearing the end of one of the greatest sporting months of the year with March Madness, and it's that madness that makes such a system great.

Single elimination systems aren't designed to crown the best team as the champion. That's what college football's BS BCS system is designed to do, but there are simply too many teams in college football with too few games to really be able to do that effectively.

A single elimination system is designed to crown a legitimate champion. The regular season becomes qualifying, not part of the big show as it is in college football. Some would say that such a system takes away from the importance of the regular season which is only true to an extent. You still have to make the tournament to win it all, but that's half the fun.

Playoff systems in general give us de-facto playoff games that the BCS system just doesn't offer. Any sporting season should end with the climax, not fall flat on a number of meaningless games that no one actually watches as the bowl system so often does. Playoff systems aren't perfect; no system is, but they give us gut wrenching moments that can define a generation of sports. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a pair of excellent semi-final games this evening, and marvel at the beauty of the playoffs.