Fahrenhype
Third String But Playing on Special Teams
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2007
- Messages
- 650
- Reaction score
- 1
There are some things the NFL cannot avoid - star players being injured, some teams being chronically inept at drafting or trading for a good QB, weather events rearranging timing or venues. But it seems like a lot of issues are self inflicted, and no, I'm not even getting into anthem protests because I really don't care about that.
01. Bad prime time games - There was a lot of this last year, despite being a super entertaining season overall. But this year is just getting ridiculous. Just look at the past few days and the near future - super lower ratings for Panthers vs. Dolphins (duh), and not even remotely close game between the Steelers and Titans, and what I expect to be an unmitigated bloodbath on Sunday night between the Eagles and Cowboys. These games are total shrugs to impartial viewers. The NFL seems like it has always done good business gaining eyeballs from people who aren't particularly fond (or have a tremendous dislike of) either team. That seems to be diminishing rapidly. I figured I'd watch the Falcons/Cowboys games before Pats/Broncos on Sunday, and that didn't last until the end of the first quarter. It was boring.
02. Predictability - Recently, the NFL has had this idea that keeping a lot of division games until late in the season adds drama, and outside of Antonio Brown's catch against the Ravens last year, I think this concept has failed miserably. The Patriots will be have been done with the AFC West and NFC South by the time they play a second division game. With the Bills suddenly changing QBs, nobody in the division is catching them. There isn't even another team with a winning record in the AFC North to threaten the Steelers. So on top of kinda already knowing who has the wildcard weekend off (I think the Steelers actually have inside track on #1 because Green Bay without Rodgers is a free win, but that's another topic), it seems like a bunch of other stuff can be predicted:
A. The Cowboys and Packers are screwed. Rodgers injury and Elliot being suspended mid season seem to have written this in stone. Stranger things have happened, but perhaps owing to the NFC having two copies of the Cleveland Browns this year (Giants and 49ers), wins are consolidating around one or two teams per division - or in the case of the NFC East and NFC North - one team in each division. Chasing potential ten or eleven win teams for a wildcard spot is rough - the Patriots missed the playoffs in 2008 with more wins than either of these teams are likely to end the season with.
B. The Vikings will seed ahead of the Rams not because they're better, but because of schedule. Look at who each team is playing the rest of the year.
C. Blake Bortles could through an INT every five minutes and the Jaguars would make the playoffs... because of the remaining schedule.
D. Some of the teams playing in the wild card round are not going to be very good, even if they have a winning record. Too much of it will have been earned as a result of injuries, suspensions, or having a league worst team as a two game punching bag.
03. Saturation - I agree that Thursday Night Football is diluting Sunday. Not because great games are being shuffled to week nights (a lot of these games, including the one just aired, have been bad), but because it is definitely leaving too much room for really bizarre programming decisions. A few weeks ago, a Bills/Raiders game was being aired wide swaths of the country that DO NOT care about either team. How much is the ad revenue getting burned when you have teams most of the country doesn't care about being broadcast to most of the country?
04. Not enough QBs - If the AFCG is Steelers/Pats as many predict, this will be the 14th time in 15 years that the AFC QB is either Brady, Roethlisberger, or Manning. Hell, even if the Chiefs are in that game, it's probably the Steelers or Patriots they are playing against. Keep in mind, this is the third season that Manning is watching from home with it being his second year of retirement, and one year lost to neck injury. Brady was out for basically the whole 2008 season as well. Unless you've got the Ravens 2012 defense, this has to seem somewhat futile to fans of teams that give out $100M+ contracts to QBs that haven't won a single playoff game.
The whole things feels like a recipe of indifference when your particular team isn't playing. This season has to be an all time low for the number of non-Patriots games I've watched. It just seems like a bunch of mediocre, roughly predictable football.
01. Bad prime time games - There was a lot of this last year, despite being a super entertaining season overall. But this year is just getting ridiculous. Just look at the past few days and the near future - super lower ratings for Panthers vs. Dolphins (duh), and not even remotely close game between the Steelers and Titans, and what I expect to be an unmitigated bloodbath on Sunday night between the Eagles and Cowboys. These games are total shrugs to impartial viewers. The NFL seems like it has always done good business gaining eyeballs from people who aren't particularly fond (or have a tremendous dislike of) either team. That seems to be diminishing rapidly. I figured I'd watch the Falcons/Cowboys games before Pats/Broncos on Sunday, and that didn't last until the end of the first quarter. It was boring.
02. Predictability - Recently, the NFL has had this idea that keeping a lot of division games until late in the season adds drama, and outside of Antonio Brown's catch against the Ravens last year, I think this concept has failed miserably. The Patriots will be have been done with the AFC West and NFC South by the time they play a second division game. With the Bills suddenly changing QBs, nobody in the division is catching them. There isn't even another team with a winning record in the AFC North to threaten the Steelers. So on top of kinda already knowing who has the wildcard weekend off (I think the Steelers actually have inside track on #1 because Green Bay without Rodgers is a free win, but that's another topic), it seems like a bunch of other stuff can be predicted:
A. The Cowboys and Packers are screwed. Rodgers injury and Elliot being suspended mid season seem to have written this in stone. Stranger things have happened, but perhaps owing to the NFC having two copies of the Cleveland Browns this year (Giants and 49ers), wins are consolidating around one or two teams per division - or in the case of the NFC East and NFC North - one team in each division. Chasing potential ten or eleven win teams for a wildcard spot is rough - the Patriots missed the playoffs in 2008 with more wins than either of these teams are likely to end the season with.
B. The Vikings will seed ahead of the Rams not because they're better, but because of schedule. Look at who each team is playing the rest of the year.
C. Blake Bortles could through an INT every five minutes and the Jaguars would make the playoffs... because of the remaining schedule.
D. Some of the teams playing in the wild card round are not going to be very good, even if they have a winning record. Too much of it will have been earned as a result of injuries, suspensions, or having a league worst team as a two game punching bag.
03. Saturation - I agree that Thursday Night Football is diluting Sunday. Not because great games are being shuffled to week nights (a lot of these games, including the one just aired, have been bad), but because it is definitely leaving too much room for really bizarre programming decisions. A few weeks ago, a Bills/Raiders game was being aired wide swaths of the country that DO NOT care about either team. How much is the ad revenue getting burned when you have teams most of the country doesn't care about being broadcast to most of the country?
04. Not enough QBs - If the AFCG is Steelers/Pats as many predict, this will be the 14th time in 15 years that the AFC QB is either Brady, Roethlisberger, or Manning. Hell, even if the Chiefs are in that game, it's probably the Steelers or Patriots they are playing against. Keep in mind, this is the third season that Manning is watching from home with it being his second year of retirement, and one year lost to neck injury. Brady was out for basically the whole 2008 season as well. Unless you've got the Ravens 2012 defense, this has to seem somewhat futile to fans of teams that give out $100M+ contracts to QBs that haven't won a single playoff game.
The whole things feels like a recipe of indifference when your particular team isn't playing. This season has to be an all time low for the number of non-Patriots games I've watched. It just seems like a bunch of mediocre, roughly predictable football.
