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LAS VEGAS -- And then there were eight ...The Friday Football Showdown at the Golden Nugget is down to the eight quarterfinalists that qualified for its head-to-head playoffs. The contest, which is in its second year of being open to the public, drew a field of 96 entrants at $2,000 apiece. Participants made seven plays per week (NFL and NCAA sides and totals were used) for the first eight weeks and then nine plays each of the last two weeks.RoughRider39, a longtime advantage player and consistent top player in Las Vegas contests, finished with the best record at 50-22-2 (69.4 percent) for 51 contest points, as 1 point is awarded for each win and half a point for each push. FrankyP finished at 49.5 points, followed by @LasVegasCris & The D Las Vegas at 48 and then Hells Kitchen, Anthony Curtis and Mucked Nuts tied for fifth place at 47.5.The eighth spot in the playoffs goes to the winner of what the Golden Nugget called the Wild-Card Chase with the best record in Weeks 9-10. @LasVegasCris went 15-3 and FrankyP was 13-3-2 over the last two weeks, but since they already qualified, the last spot went to BBQ Guy, who went 13-4-1 to just edge out Big Lib (9-0 in Week 9 but only went 4-5 in Week 10 to finish 13-5).Each of the playoff qualifiers earns $3,000 to guarantee they all make a profit for the $192,000 contest, but now their records are wiped clean for the head-to-head matchups that will be held over the next four Fridays (thus the Friday Football Showdown name) on The Las Vegas Sportsline radio show with co-hosts Matt Youmans and Dave Cokin from 2-3 p.m. PT on ESPN AM 1100 here in Vegas and online at lvsportsnetwork.com. All entrants had to agree to appear on the radio show if they made the playoffs or designate a substitute to give out their plays. The only advantage for the top regular-season finishers is they get to choose (in seeding order) which weekend they want to compete. The Golden Nuggets Tony Miller and Aaron Kessler worked Tuesday to contact the qualifiers and here are the quarterfinal matchups:Nov. 18: No. 4 Derek Stevens vs. No. 5 Nancy Clark Nov. 25: No. 1 Randy McKay vs. No. 8 Michael Wright Dec. 2: No. 2 Frank Perez vs. No. 7 Christopher Kozak Dec. 9: No. 3 Cris Zeniuk vs. No. 6 Anthony CurtisThe quarterfinal winners will each win another $2,000 and advance to the semifinals on Dec. 16 and 23. The championship match is slated for Friday, Dec. 30. The remaining $160,000 is split up with $96,000 to the eventual champion (for a total haul of $101,000), $40,000 to the runner-up, $8,000 each to the semifinal losers and $8,000 to the winner of a bonus mini-contest held in NFL Weeks 15-17 for all contestants (even those eliminated earlier).SuperContest getting crowded at the topBy this time of the NFL season, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperContest usually has one or two players that have pulled away from the field. However, after 10 weeks there are five SuperContestants tied for first place with another nine within one game of the lead.Early-season leader Ripsaw has been able to stick around and is 32-15-3 (68.1 percent) for 33.5 points and tied with Johnny Vegas, Janknation, Mark Davis and Underdobs. Ripsaw was 0-3 this past weekend before winning with Seattle +7.5 on Sunday night and Cincinnati +2 on Monday night to maintain a portion of the lead.A record 1,854 entrants are in the SuperContest this year. They paid $1,500 to enter and make five NFL plays a week against the contest spread while playing for more than $2.5 million in prizes (after an administrative fee of 8 percent was taken out) and a first-place prize of $895,482 with payouts to the top 50.The top five consensus picks went 0-5 last week and are a woeful 15-33-2 (31.3 percent) through 10 weeks. Those plays are often the games that are off by the most points between the time the weekly lines are locked in on Wednesday afternoons and the deadline for picks at 11 a.m. PT Saturday, but those popular plays have been struggling all season. The overall consensus of all Week 10 games was 3-11 ATS (21.4 percent) and is just 63-79-3 (44.4 percent) for the season to date to hold down most records.In fact, the five co-leaders are the only players left that are over the 67-percent threshold that the Westgate splits among those that exceed that mark at the end of the season. Since the explosion of the SuperContest field started in 2011, the bonus has been paid out every year, but that streak is in jeopardy this season. The SuperContest also has a $20,000 mini-contest over the last three weeks on the NFL schedule. New York Knicks Pro Shop . The defence is doing its part, too. Drew Brees threw a pair of touchdown passes in the first half and the guys on the other side made sure that was enough, sending the Saints to a 17-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night. Dave DeBusschere Jersey . Schenn scored the game-winning goal and added two assists to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday. https://www.cheapknicks.com/1581x-mitchell-robinson-jersey-knicks.html . -- Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar will be out for roughly four weeks after tearing his left hamstring. Kevin Knox Jersey . Coach Tom Thibodeau says the former MVP will probably start travelling with the team in the next few weeks. Rose tore the meniscus in his right knee at Portland in November and was ruled out for the remainder of the season by the Bulls. Richie Guerin Jersey . -- Former San Diego Chargers safety Paul Oliver was found dead at his Atlanta-area home Tuesday night, and a medical examiner said Wednesday that the ex-player committed suicide. HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- I dont know about you, but Im ready to see a racing championship resolved the old-fashioned way.Im tired of the artificial elements that have been introduced to the sport in an effort to create or maintain excitement instead of letting things take their natural course.Nothing happens organically anymore. So much effort is put into creating the ultimate finish -- whether its for a race or a championship -- that things are rarely allowed to evolve naturally.Take the overtime rule. Without it, last weeks NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix would have ended under yellow, and Matt Kenseth would have been the winner. Its a system that worked well for decades.Same with season-long championships. How do you think William Byron feels right now? The talented 18-year-old rookie won seven Camping World Truck Series races this year, yet it was Johnny Sauter hoisting the championship trophy Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.Make no mistake, Sauter put together a quality season with three wins, 12 top-5 and 19 top-10 finishes in 23 starts.But Byrons numbers are arguably better. There are those seven wins, plus he nearly matched Sauter with 11 top-5s. Byron led 727 laps over the course of the year compared to Sauters 130.The title was decided in Sauters favor because this is the first year NASCAR thrust a Chase format into the Truck Series championship. Sauter earned two of his three wins late in the season when only six drivers were eligible for the championship. ?Byron was eliminated from contention when his Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota blew an engine while he was leading with a handful of laps to go at Phoenix a week ago in the race that cut the Truck Chase field from six to four.I just feel so bad for William and the way this point situation worked out this year and not having an opportunity to come out here and race for the title, said team owner Busch, who successfully negotiated the Cup Series Chase eliminations to make the Final Four for the second year in a row.The bitter part is this kid is the champion, and hes not going to get the big trophy, added Rudy Fugle, crew chief of Byrons No. 9 KBM Toyota.???It could happen again today in the Xfinity Series. Erik Jones claimed nine poles, won four races, scored 15 top-5s and has led 624 laps to date this year. Yet thanks to an elimination-style Chase, also in its first year in Xfinity competition, Justin Allgaier (no wins, and just 28 laps led) could emerge as the champion.Of course thats ignoring the fact that despite notching up nine poles and leading 2,052 laps on the way to 10 wins (in just 17 starts), Busch is flat-out ineligible for the Xfinity championship.Ironically, NASCAR created the original Chase in 2004 for this very reason. Ryan Newman won eight Cup Series races in 2003, claimed 11 poles and led 1,173 laps, yet finished a distant sixth in the championship standings to Matt Kenseth, who never started from pole once, had six fewer top-5s and led just 354 laps.That statistical imbalance, and the perception that Kenseth was somehow a less worthy champion than Newman, was what pushed NASCAR into action. Since then, the Chase has grown -- to 10, 12, 13, and finally 16 drivers, with the additional artificiality of a series of eliminations intended to mimic the format successfully used in stick-and-ball sports.To NASCARs credit, there has not been an unworthy champion during the Chase era. The Chase created the classic 2011 championship battle between Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart, which Stewart would not have been in if the traditional season-long format had been used.But its going to happen in the Cup Series one of these days. Newman nearly pulled it off in 2014 in the first year for the elimination Chase -- and wouldnt that have been the ultimate demonstration of poetic justice?What it all comes down to is a philosophy of managed competition, and NASCAR has long been the industry leader in that regard.You hear a lot of talk in America today about too much government, and that certainly applies in NASCARs case.?From makinng small adjustments to cars to ensure that no manufacturer gains the slightest advantage, to instituting increasingly gimmicky ways to guarantee the season championship goes down to the wire, NASCAR has always had a heavy hand when it comes to artificially spicing up the show.ddddddddddddIts not worth going back to add up the points the old way to figure out who would have been any Chase years moral champion -- though it can be fun -- because the advent of the various forms of the Chase fundamentally changed the way people raced throughout the season. It changed the entire dynamic of racing for a championship.And thats what is so frustrating. These days, once a team locks itself into the Chase, the rest of the regular season becomes pretty much irrelevant. The focus shifts to preparing for the final 10 races of the year rather than putting in 100 percent effort trying to be competitive and build a points cushion throughout the summer.One or two bad races used to be a bump in the road for a championship contender. But now, if it happens at the wrong time, it can ruin a whole years worth of work.I look back at 2007, my final year at Hendrick [Motorsports], and we were running pretty good, Busch recalled.?I think we were third in the Chase at the time, and we were either leading or running third at Kansas, and I think Junior [Dale Earnhardt Jr.] came off of 2 and wrecked me. From there on, that killed the rest of our mojo, our momentum, the things that we had going for us in that season.Then in 2008, right the exact year after that, we got into the Chase as the top seed, Busch continued. We won eight races, and then boom, right out of the gate in the Chase we tried to start doing things a different way. It messed us up, and we totally lost what we were doing and what our focus was. That killed us there.Im not saying that going back to a season-long championship slog is automatically going to make racing great again.But it would at least do a better job of recognizing greatness over the course of a calendar year rather than through a smaller sampling of a few weeks.This years Cup Series Final Four is representative of the best the 2016 season had to offer because there was a fair amount of parity throughout the field and no driver won more than four races. But that wont always be the case, and even this year, some drivers could argue that the system has been unfair to them -- among them, four-time winners Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr.Busch and Joey Logano would still be in the top four in the standings using the classic point standings, but Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson would rank seventh and ninth respectively. Points leader Kevin Harvick would theoretically clinch the championship Sunday with a top 20 finish under the old system, but hes not title-eligible.Time moves on, and sports gradually evolve, but you can be certain that NASCAR will never backtrack and revert to a classic, season-long championship format -- even though the advent of the Chase is the number one reason fans cite when asked about their declining interest in stock car racing.The Chase is here to stay, and if the drivers dont necessarily like it, they still generally respect the results it produces.Weve worked really hard to get here, said Logano.?I dont think its ever easy, and everyone is here for a reason.?These are the four best teams this year. Its been proven that theyve either been consistent, or can win when they have to.?If they had some troubles earlier in one of the rounds, everyone was able to get through. Theres not many guys who are able to do it, and obviously it was so close.?Theres a lot of pressure thats been put on these race teams, and these are the race teams that were able to handle it, he added.?A lot of people can go a different way when theres pressure put on them, but these teams here seem to be the ones that are best this year, and one of them will prevail at the end. ' ' '