The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

When I was young the NFL was the Greatest Show on Earth and we used to walk to school barefoot through the snow.

Well the first part of that sentence is true. And yeah I'm an old fart. But the game we're watching today is a poor imitation of what it was in 60's and 70's. It started when free agency was introduced in the early 80's. I understand that it had to happen. For the first time the players began to control their own careers, it was only fair. Before you know it the idea of parity began to take hold and there's a lot of positives to the idea that any team no matter how bad could turn it around quickly by signing the best players away from the more powerful teams.

The big draw back to that is that there are no great teams anymore. Yeah there are franchises who are great in that they manage to put a superior product on the field year after year but the teams themselves aren't great. If you never got to see the Lombardi Packers, Knoll's Steelers or Shula's Dolphin I'm sure it's hard for you really agree with what I'm saying. I think probably the last great team was the Cowboys team that featured Aikman and Emmit Smith. Parity has led to mediocrity.

As if that isn't bad enough the NFL has decided that what we want to see is run away scoring and unstoppable offense. Defense has become a dirty word. Even mediocre QBs are throwing for 35-40k on a regular basis. The rules have turned every defense in the League into the Washington Generals. A good hit is just as likely to draw a 15 yard penalty as a high five and heaven forbid a DB should break up a pass with by thumping a WR. (Oddly enough RBs are still fair game)

It's barely even football any more.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

And cars aren't what they were and the country isn't what it was and foreign competition isn't what it wasn't...

Sports are so big now that they are included in the public microscope of judgement. How does the saying go - 'adapt or die'?

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Cars are better, phones are better, TV is better, women stay hotter longer.

The NFL isn't as good as it used to be. (Ask Dick Butkus).

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

hey boutte.after reading your ever so truthful post. I have to believe i am not the olddest fart on here. I always told myself that they brought on free agency was to keep the franchizes from cheating there way to championships. And to bring up one team i dispized all my years was san fransico. And eddie the mob boss debartillo. Remember them years and the beatings we took. Just took me back to those lean years. Thanks boutte.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

"They" (NFL) didn't really buy into it. The were dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. Oddly enough our own Bobby Hebert was the first player to win his case against the NFL which allowed him to become a free agent. He and a couple of player strikes finally forced the NFL owners to recognize that the times were indeed a changing. Being the smart group that they are they took the ball and ran with it. They may be greedy SOBs but they're smart ones.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

The NFL got one thing right - they have a salary cap that has some substance to it...

...And credit the owner in the biggest market for seeing the bigger picture and greater good, Mr. Wellington Mara...

If more business and government were run that way, even sometimes, the country would be a much better place...

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

You're right, it's a far different NFL today ... Bud Grant's Vikings, those two upstart, AFL QBs (Len Dawson/Joe Namath) having the audacity to win SuperBowls, Madden's Raiders, Landry's Cowboys ... those were teams, that's when the league commanded some respect. Sometimes when I watch the prima-donnas of today's game celebrating a score, a sack, a tackle, a good play, I find myself speculating if they would have been able to handle the day-to-day life of the NFL in the '60s & '70s or even the '80s. Probably not.

If it weren't for the NHL being on strike, I would have checked out of this NFL season back in October or so. It's almost getting to be Arena Football, for crissake.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

From your perspective, yes.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Of course. And it's all just my personal opinion. I'm sure there are people out there who've watching football for just long as I have who like the game better today. I'm not going to tell them or anyone else they're wrong. It's a matter of taste.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Since the Salary Cap came in, we saw alot more parity, Falcons, Saints, Bucs, Panthers, Cardinals, Seahawks, and few more teams went to the SB that was thought to never ever make it to that stage.

If things stayed the same, none of those teams would of gotten there.

But it has also created controversy, to where now you wonder is the best teams going into the playoffs?

Their was no arguing who belonged in the playoffs prior to the mid 1990s. But now when you start seeing 9-7 teams go to the SB and 1 of them win it, and the 13,14, and 15 win teams are losing out, you just begin to question the playoff formula. Most of this is due to some very absurd scheduling from season to season.

Take the Falcons this season, does anyone really believe they would even be near 12 wins this season with a more tougher schedule like the Saints have had? More so speaking in where the game is at and what time of the season....

Or if last years Packers that went 15-1 didnt face cupcake teams like the AFC West and hosting the only NFC South team that was dangerous in their opener along with the fact the rest of the NFC North completely collapsed?

Its these type of scheduling from season to season that has made or break an entire NFL season, its become too much of a factor since the Division Realignment which was 4-5 years after the cap was in place, I recall back in the early 90s and all through 80s where their was no team in the NFL who would have a too hard of a schedule or too easy of a schedule, now a days you see schedules like the Falcons...........its like WTF?

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Nope, you're wrong, because you are completely right. Its not just your personal opinion. The NFL is not what is used to be.
Its like the argument about music being a matter of perspective. Rap is actually garbage, not music, and I know this, because I've heard real music. I was around when they played it on the radio. Well I was around to see the NFL in its old incarnation too, so I have that to compare to today.

The NFL you're getting today is a watered down version. The games take now have more tv timeouts. This means you get less football and more commercials.

Replay. The whole point of replay was to stop glaringly huge mistakes. If its not obvious in about 30 seconds, then its not reversable. Replay should not microscopically analyze & legislate the game from a booth. Used to be when someone scored a TD, you could cheer. We now cheer rulings.

Again, the game is the same length, so youre getting more commercials and lenghty replays, and less football.

Head hits, horse-collars, touching the QB, they're not allowed to tackle anymore. The whole purpose of the Bountygate penalties was to avoid getting sued. Lawyers have again ruined Life.

Cost. Beer, parking, tickets, and the biggest scam in sports- the PSL.
This is all because they cant reign in player salaries. These salaries hurt every aspect, and dont even help the players, who still sometimes go broke.

Pimpage. Also traceable to ridiculous salaries. Its only a matter of time until team names have corporate sponsors. The Geico Insurance New England Patriots. The Depends Undergarments New Orleans Saints. Used to be, we didnt know or care who made the team uniforms, which were pure of corporate logii. Its all over the stadium. Its all over everything. You cant talk to the person next to you with the big screen commercials screaming louder than Led Zeppelin, in between every series of plays.

The speakers are too loud. Lets let the crowd make the noise.

Stupid stadiums. A bunch of short attention span bells and whistles. Reliant
Stadium. That stupid thing in Dallas. The other stupid thing in Phoenix. The Morgue in St. Louis. I hate amenities. I want football, grass, hell-raising, and beer. This is what makes football great. Not Disney stuff. Real Stadiums: Lambeau, Wrigley, old Cleveland Municipal, Candlestick, the Orange Bowl, Baltimore Memorial, Busch Stadium, The Astrodome, and you and I couldnt hack the heat, but old guys will tell you, there was NOTHING like a day in Tulane Stadium.

The broadcast is now Short Attention Span Theatre: Robots, exploding helmets, laser sound effects, or the stock market report on the bottom of the screen. I cant tell you how many times I've seen replays or even plays where you couldnt see the ball thru the FREAKIN GRAPHICS. For the love of God, can you get all the crap off the screen and just show me the game? In the 70s the only thing they put on the screen besides the grass, was clear white or yellow letters/numbers. And you could see thru them.

Dumb Uniforms now. The Broncos should be orange, Patriots should be red, and not every team needs to be black, blue, blackblue, blueblack, and blueblack and black. The Raiders are black. Are we scared of them? Statistics will back me up: The Chargers scored more points when they wore Yellow britches. This is a fact.

The Whole Pussified Tone of the broadcast. In the 70s, if you wanted social justice commentary, you went and talked to a bunch of hippies. Football broadcasts should have guts, mud, X's and O's. We need more Madden, and less Bob Costas.

The only thing that is better about football now is the tailgating.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

The NFL has "jumped the shark" YES !!!!!

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

I agree 100% with this -- more than the salary cap or changes to the rules, it's the constant jiggery of scheduling and tinkering with teams (ie suspending coaches for a YEAR, thankyouverymuch) that has really affected the game, to manipulate the schedule to give favorable results or influence outcomes. It's little subtle things, like scheduling the Falcons at the Saints after the Falcons get a long bye week, but when the Saints come to the Georgia Dome it's a short week...some teams get their difficult games ALL at home while others have them ALL on the road...some teams get their hard games stacked right at the beginning, from the season opener, others get to open a few cupcake games in a row, as a gift from the scheduling gods, so they can get their act together....I'm not talking about just bias against the Saints, there is a LOT of manipulation in the league schedules, if you really study and look into it...

It's gotten really transparent, how they are jiggering and tinkering with the scheduling to make certain teams have an easier or harder time of things, depending on how they want the outcome to be....all in the interest of ratings or making weak teams do better so owners make more money. Then some of the "good" teams are sacred cows who can do no wrong, while others get given all the bad breaks....been watching this get worse and worse for a long time.

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

I think your a few years too late.
I think the NFL jumped the shark in '93 when Fox outbid CBS for TV rights.
That one deal brought to light how much money could be made.
One year later, Deion made this...
I NEVER RECOVERED

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Very interesting..........

Re: The NFL has "jumped the shark"
 

Yeah its getting beyond ridiculous.

What caught my eye about the Falcons schedule this year, they do not have a back to back Away game, its Away, Home, Away, Home, all through the season, its quite an absurd schedule outside the fact the toughest team they had to face on the road was the division rival Saints, which they lost, they went to Carolina and lost. They got the comfort of hosting Denver, Dallas and NY in their own stadium, most likely they faced all 3 of those teams at the right time. NY is a roller Coaster though.

Most will say.........."well the schedule is made 3-4 years in advance"

But most of the scheduling problems I see is not always necessarily from what we know 3-4 years in advance on what teams we know a team will face the following season, it has been more about the placement of them and what week you get them.

I will use the Falcons as a prime example because their schedule was a joke when I saw it before the season started, but most of the teams that are real mediocre early in the season that is getting hotter later in the season, is the same teams you found in the first few weeks for Atlanta instead of later in the season. You flip their schedule upside down and go from bottom to top and they dont even have 10 wins yet on the season.

The NFL and scheduling gods have enough brain power to know how to set up the schedule that will give certain teams an advantage. That has been pretty apparent since the Division Realignment.

Last year Week 1 @GB. Sorry to say I chalked that up as a loss because of the timing, had this been later in the season, I think we would of see GB and N.O. finish 14-2 on the season.

Its things like this that really pisses me off, they could of Put Chicago in that game and it would be more feasible IMO.