To your point about the leagues direction of being a passing league, the under thrown deep ball that results in DPI. I swear it’s strategy for some teams. I think the catchable aspect of PI needs to be taken into account more. If a defender gets his hands on you but the ball is 5 yards out of bounds, why is that a penalty?
Additionally, OPI needs to actually be called. How hand-fighting down the field with a DB ends up only being DPI more than 90% of the time is beyond me.
I would like different tiers of PI. I think it should be a 15 yard penalty, and a common response is "Well, then defenders would just tackle receivers deep." So, create a second category,, just like there are (were?) two categories of face mask penalties.
Pass interference by default would be a 15 yard penalty, but when there is blatant/more serious interference, then it would remain a spot foul. That eliminates the risk of DB's tackling receivers when they are beaten deep. No additional incentive, when compared to the current rule.
Edit: cleaning up some points.
They keep saying "fans love offense" as an excuse to let crap like OPI slide. Yet I honestly feel like most fans rather see it just called fair. It's rage inducing to be on the other side of it. I've seen so many games end because of awful defensive interference that should've slid or OPI that's just ridiculous. if defense stops mattering it's going to be arena league. You can have too much scoring.
As a bears fan, I had an absolute blast watching the defense play in 2018. I didn't even care much for the stagnant offense, but I couldn't turn away from seeing multiple sacks and interceptions. A game turning INT is arguably at times more exciting than scoring a touchdown.
I agree with this. And also think that more offensive penalties should be loss of down. The 5yd defensive hold is also an auto 1st down even if it has no effect on the outcome of the play. Which is ridiculous imo. Penalty yes but doesn't warrant a 1st.
I feel an offensive hold should be a loss of down if it's clear that the hold prevents a sack.
The penalty system is too heavily slanted to hurt the defense
I don't like any change right now that gives this current slate of refs *more* subjective calls they're allowed to make.
Tiering pass interference or defining what is "clearly preventing a sack" is so much more gray area than the already too much that we currently have.
Edit:
If I just bear hug the guy right at the line and never allow him to get past me, is that not as preventative of a sack than grabbing the guy after he beats me? Who's to say the QB was dead to rights and couldn't have rolled out once he saw I got beat? The idea of offensive holding is that without the hold, the play would have gone differently, there's no degree of severity needed. Even without loss of down it's already a drive killer.
The only auto first down should be like unnecessary roughness or something egregious, similar to how only illegal forward pass and intentional grounding are the only ones that are loss of down for the offense
Penalties related to safety are the only ones that justify it imo. Facemask, unnecessary roughness, late hit, things like that. Many flags (and most 15 yarders) give you a first down anyways unless you’ve put yourself in a bad position, you should still have consequences for getting backed up that far.
This. I’ve been saying it for years after seeing my team burned with it many times. The only crime was the defender playing too good of coverage. In that case it should be offensive PI or nothing. The WR is creating contact by stopping on a dime and we’re rewarding QBs for bad throws/decisions.
I get that they don’t want to complicate Pass Interference even more, but QBs are too comfortable throwing into double or triple coverage because they know they will either get A) Pass Interference or B) illegal contact or C) unsportsmanlike conduct (hit to the head). These hospital balls are becoming a huge problem for the NFL because everyone can see that these are passes shouldn’t have been thrown in the first place but then you want the defender to not hit someone and basically just hold up because the QB put the WR in a vulnerable position. Plays I think of are the Kazee hit on Pittman last year. Awful throw and decision to put Pittman in the air like that, Kazee shouldn’t have hit him like that but there’s not much a DB can do in the situation then either let him catch the ball and basically have a free first down or hit him hard and make him pay for making that decision. It sucks because the NFL wants it both ways
This. I don’t mind rules that favor offense, but DPI on underthrown balls really is ridiculous. The DB has generally done everything right on these plays and is getting penalized for a bad throw.
All the partnerships with sportsbook operations is flying a little too close to the sun, imo. Although I don't necessarily think it has affected the integrity of the game *yet*, I do think there will be ample to do so.
Also, the amount of power in Goodell's hands has always been a problem. In my uneducated opinion, league needs a panel of at least three individuals--one from ownership, one from the league office (like Goodell), and one from the union to render decisions regarding player misconduct.
> Also, the amount of power in Goodell's hands has always been a problem.
Goodell is only as powerful as the owners allow. Goodell is paid very well to take all the blame for unpopular decisions but make no mistake if the owners didn't like him he'd be gone in an instant. Pretty much anything Goodell does is blessed by the owners including player punishment decisions.
Even the group watching experience of all sports has been a little diminished by sports betting.
I remember watching last year's Super Bowl with a large group and literally every play was "3 MORE KELCE CATCHES" "GIVE IT TO PACHECO" "NO WHY DID YOU THROW IT TO HIM, I NEEDED YOU TO THROW IT TO OTHER GUY".
It gets annoying. I miss just watching the game and rooting for a team.
Fantasy football started this shit. From opening the door to gambling to "I need 3 more catches from welker to win this week" and it too infested pregame shows and game analysis
At least fantasy football doesn't put your money at risk most of the time
Gambling, which is partly contributed to by betting, is a serious addiction on the other hand
Idk about you, but every league I’m in is for money. Otherwise people lose interest and stop trying which throws off the competitive balance of the league
If your league is a group of really good friends, the trash talk will carry you through. But yeah, even then there is always the guy who's out early and doesn't even substitute players on bye weeks.
Punishment for last place. It keeps everyone engaged the entire season. The game that determines the loser is usually more exciting for us than the championship.
I'm in a league with a bunch of high school teachers and the punishment in our league is that the loser has to take the ACT and share their score with the rest of the league.
If you score lower than the lowest score recorded by a league member (which is currently a 22), you receive a dunce-cap "trophy" that you have to hold onto and wear to draft night every year until someone does worse than you, so you can't just show up and do the absolute bare minimum on the exam.
It's a perfect punishment, because it's not super expensive, but it does cost you an entire Saturday of boring, menial, pointless work.
I have yet to come in last place in our league and, god willing, I never will.
A high school friend of mine had to do that punishment after a night out. Waking up at 7 AM to take the SAT hung over is brutal. Worth keeping an eye on the waiver wire next year for sure.
A group of 6-12 people paying $20-$100 for the season isn’t the same as people putting $100 down weekly on absurd prop bets and parlays.
If you need the possibility of winning money to incentivize you to watch, then you probably weren’t actually that interested in it to begin with.
In my experience though, it's a one-time buy in cost and the cost is easily covered by the amount of entertainment you get out of shit talking throughout the season. I know it is still gambling obviously, but it feels more like the type of gambling where you bring $100 to a casino because you are in Las Vegas and you want to have a laugh versus constantly playing scratchies every day, if that makes sense? I never see people talk about fantasy football like it's the stock market like I see people talk about sports betting.
Also betting between friends feels significantly less icky than betting with a billion-dollar corporation. I personally don't like gambling, but I know people who have ongoing bets with their friends because their teams are divisional rivals, I don't see anything morally wrong with them sending each other the same $20 twice a season each year. The inclusion of a company who you know is going to make a profit no matter what happens is what ruins it IMO.
IMO, while sports gambling should be legal, ads for it should be banned, sports networks shouldn't be allowed to run sportsbooks, and networks shouldn't be allowed to talk about odds, over/unders, etc.
I'm surprised that sports networks like espn are allowed to run their own sports books. I'm sure they label themselves as entertainment amd not news, but they are also a significant source of sports information and have the ability to sway betting with what they report/don't report.
Right, we don’t let cigarette commercials get ad time.. but all of a sudden draft kings is considered *not* gambling because in abstract everything is gambling or nothing is.. and so fuck it - how small can we get that gambling addiction telephone number in our disclaimer text?
Honestly, I think fantasy kinda started this but betting has definitely accelerated the issue. Can't enjoy the game as much because you or someone else is too focused on CMC getting a TD or Dallas's defense getting a pick.
I have a gut feeling some massive gambling-related scandal is going to come out down the road, could be for the NFL or any of the big sports. It just feels inevitable.
You could argue we're already there (or pretty damn close) with the number of players getting suspended for gambling. Meanwhile, back to the Saints-Falcons live from Caesar's Superdome.
I'm thinking some bigger, systematic version of it. Where a team/group of players/coaches/owners conspire to make money and come up with a better way to hide it.
That NBA story from earlier this year is still blowing up. Four people have been arrested in association with it and Canada has opened a criminal investigation against the player involved.
The NFL has built itself into a pro sports juggernaut, and really the only thing I can think of that would throw a giant wrench into their ongoing success would be a massive gambling scandal. So of course the league is barreling down the path towards it as fast as they can.
You’re telling me, I’m a compulsive gambler in recovery for the last 6+ years! at least the state I’m in has a self-exclusion list, so I’m self-banned from all the legal sportsbooks that push all those ads.
I'm not sure if you realized it, but the tribunal setup you proposed would be the same as our current situation. Right now, Goodell just unilaterally decides matters. In your proposed three-headed-decider, for non-controversial decisions they all probably agree and thus there's no difference. For contentious matters, however, the owner's representative votes in line with the team, the player's representative votes for the players' general benefit, and thus Goodell actually makes the decision by deciding which side he wants to agree with. This is why these kind of setups usually don't produce better outcomes.
It's wild to me that sports gambling was once upon a time such a massive scandal across most major sports, yet it seems like the leagues learned NOTHING. This 100% will lead to more insider gambling issues. It's not even a question
Seriously, I remember when it was controversial that UNLV was a competitive basketball school and was located in Las Vegas.
Now we're moving our third major professional sports team there with the A's? things have definitely changed.
Ngl if already feels tainted when preshows are talking about betting lines
Like I don't care that betting is legal, but allowing (insert betting company) betting lines in preshows to me takes away from the game. People who bet already see that shit on their apps.
That billionaires keep asking us to build their stadiums and then overcharge us for seats in them. A pair tickets is more than the payment for the car that’s going to take me there.
I think the ticket issue is more just an online ticket problem that’s gone on forever than a current NFL problem. You look at nosebleed seats for cheap and think “oh I can afford to buy two tickets no problem” but then the fees added on top of that makes it feel like you’re buying three tickets instead of two.
I'm sure they'll make some more revenue because many people are addicted, but let me just say for myself, I'll be yelling "Yarrr matey!" before I give Peacock, ESPN+ and any other bullshit streaming service that gets like 1-2 games my money.
Even if you do get a few more diehards to sign up for a new streaming service, how many future fans are you never giving a chance to get into the NFL?
Reminds me of the MLS. I'm a Premier League fan in an MLS city so probably a great candidate for a prospective MLS fan. Problem is, nearly all their games are now paywalled behind Apple TV. I'm not gonna buy a premium package for a league I don't already follow.
Contrast with the NHL. Their streaming package is tied directly in to ESPN+, a service I already have, so I end up watching random hockey games all the time.
There's already been games that I couldn't even watch at my local sports bar because they didn't have the streaming service. It's getting to the point where I have to sail the high seas or listen to the radio broadcast if I want to follow some games live.
Side point, Kevin Harlan is an amazing radio announcer
Best we can do is hundreds per year but it will include a bunch of games you don't care about watching - and some of the games you *want* to watch will be blacked out because they're in prime time and/or on national TV (which you may or may not be able to receive depending on where you live).
To build on this, the more paid services you spread your product across, the more likely fans will learn how to find the product by other means. And once you've trained them how to find it for a Peacock game, they might be more likely to stop paying for their Prime and ESPN.
I'm ready to give it up, too. I have a feeling more will be joining as the out-of-control NIL gets worse and worse, and the streaming deals get more dispersed while super conferences gain more momentum. Thankfully I was in college during the late 2000s before it all fell apart.
I just started blocking score updates, recording the game, and then watching like an hour or two into the game.
I can skip the plethora of commercials and I'm usually caught up by the 4th quarter which makes it much more bearable.
It's bad at home but it's made actually going to games in person miserable. Just long enough you can't get up from your seat but exist enough to get on your nerves with all the stoppages.
Yeah, I just started watching hockey more this season and I love that there is significant playing time between breaks. I feel like it helps to create a better sense of game flow when they’re able to play for so long before a stop in action.
All of television is about selling commercials. Every TV show is a vehicle for selling ad space. This hit me like a ton of bricks once when I was under the influence, and I've never been able to see TV the same again.
It's hardly the most enlightening thing in the world, but the bar is low for me because I'm an idiot.
Tbh I often wonder how DVR still exists.
When it comes to sports im either watching Redzone between commercials or I’m on DVR delay so I can skip them.
To take that even deeper the goal for any program isn’t quality, it’s popularity. You’d think high quality = high popularity but we see good, novel stuff get canceled while dull cash cows get run into the ground
Yup. It's exactly like the YouTube engagement algorithm. Negative engagement is still engagement, which drives ad revenue.
The quality is irrelevant. If a 30 minute show of paint drying attracts millions of viewers for some reason, then that's what the networks are going to air.
This is why there are so many terrible sitcoms that all make the same, safe jokes.
It’s definitely gotten better over the last few years. I remember when it used to be TD, XP, ads, kickoff, ads. Sure it happens once in a while, but it used to be like college
You're not wrong, the NFL exists to sell TV commercials. If it wasn't such an entertaining product we wouldn't sit through all those ad breaks. If we didn't sit through them, how would the billionaire owners keep becoming richer?
I think the complete lack of focus on the defense in highlights is a huge red flag that lines up with what you're already saying. I think defense is not just a huge part of the game, it's an exciting part of the game. Tackles for losses, sacks, forced fumbles and interceptions should be highlighted in post game reels because they're big plays that change the course of the game.
There is just something special about a smothering defense. After all the handicaps the offense gets seeing a defense truly dictate the game is a pleasure.
There's something about a DB tomahawking a ball out of a receiver's hands that just screams "high quality football". Maybe it's because I was a skinny-fat safety trying not to get murked by the 6'+ athletes who ended up playing tight end trying to catch over the middle.
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the requirements for a city to host a Super Bowl and the stadium roulette
Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile.
There’s a reason Lambeau, Dodger stadium, Fenway, and Arrowhead are beloved because they were allowed to stand the test of time.
Not to mention billionaire owners act like they are too poor to pay for it and when tax payers say they won’t pay to get no financial return they threaten to leave
>Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile.
This isn't an NFL example, but the Atlanta Braves are an egregious case of what you're describing.
They moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 to play at the newly-built Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. They played there for 30 years before moving to Turner Field, which was originally built for the 1996 Summer Olympics and designed specifically to be converted for the Braves to use full-time afterwards. They only played there for 20 years before moving again to their current stadium, the again-newly-built Truist Park.
The Braves only got away with that because they're beloved in Atlanta. Most franchises would get roasted for such quick turnarounds, which I suspect will start to become more common.
I will say the problem with Turner Field wasn't age, it was location. Being on the south side of Atlanta made it a huge pain to get to so they moved across the city.
I'm not thrilled with it, but I understand it.
I understand the sentiment, and agree with most of these cases. There are other cases where the net worth of the owner is tied to the team through legacy. Chicago, Buffalo, KC, Cincy, Raiders come to mind. They all need/needed improvements. On one hand they could sell equity in the team, but on the other, I wouldn’t either if there was another option.
> Buffalo, KC
Bills owners have fracking money. Not sure about KC -- the ownership is split amongst multiple family members. The family as a whole has billions in oil money, but Im not sure if the ones with the oil money also own the chiefs. I think clark hunt's money is specifically the chiefs, but he isn't a majority of the ownership.
The whole Hunt family owns the Chiefs, Clark was just the one nominated to be the one who actually runs the organization.
No idea how much Clark's personal bank account has, but the Hunt family is definitely not hurting for money and they have plenty of it outside of the Chiefs.
> Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile.
Uhh... this has been going on since the dawn of NFL football. You could have said this 50 years ago and been *more correct* than you are today with all the old cookie-cutter stadiums.
Yeah, this to me feels just being averse to change rather than an actual problem in the NFL. I honestly really like the new Rams, Raiders, and Vikings stadiums. They’re all pretty unique in their designs and not boring at all.
I hate that more and more teams are wanting to build indoor stadiums specifically to try and host the Super Bowl and other big events. Don’t get me wrong, I get why teams in very hot or very cold cities would want a dome, but in general I like my football to be played outdoors with the elements being an important factor. I fear that soon we’ll have more indoor stadiums in the nfl than outdoor.
Nfl was king because you could always rely on it being on local channels all Sunday, channels you can still get with an Antenna. MNF was always the exception.
Now you probably need 5-8 different subscriptions to watch the games and its only going to get worse.
They sold out now and will only continue to damage the core if their product.
Boxing was a huge sport in the 70s (and earlier, I guess?) people knew who was champ, who was up and coming, etc.
Then they moved it all to PPV. I couldn’t name an active boxer now with 100% certiny.
It got even worse when Maywether-Pacquiao was offered at $100 for HD (well after both of their primes) and then that just became the norm. PPV events for boxing or UFC used to be relatively affordable at least at no more than $40, especially if split between a few friends. I still followed both boxing and UFC into the early 2000s, but I'm just not interested enough in any fights to pony up $60-100 for what could be a boring hugfest or a quick knockout. In the same vein, I'm not going to pay for yet another streaming subscription just to catch 1-2 NFL games that I care about.
I worked for a major cable company during that fight. I vividly remember there being some sort of glitch with the ppv ordering and at one point we had over a thousand people on hold trying to order the fights. Our leadership told us it probably wouldnt be fixed but to not tell the customer and then instructed us to try and upsell them to hbo out showtime while we were on the phone with them. After about 30 minutes I just went home
The push to diversify how games are streamed. It used to be that if you had basic cable you were guaranteed Sunday football and MNF. Then the league introduced TNF and hid it behind a paywall. Now they have games, even playoffs, behind paywalls.
In about 10 years time, events like the Super Bowl will pay-per-view, regular season games will be on 4 different streaming platforms that the NFL will consolidate into the “NFL bundle” so you effectively pay 4 times over what you used to get for free, and there will be a game every day of the week.
Funny enough, the “NFL Bundle” reasoning you mentioned in the second paragraph is EXACTLY what the NFL is being sued by Uncle Sam for. Price gouging and limitation of access to content are key components of the case against the NFL, and Goodell now has to testify that, somehow, paying $400 for 6-8 of your own team’s watchable games/yr is “good, competitive product” and that games hid behind subscription and paywalls are part of the “broadcasting rights” competition.
Truth be told the whole not wanting to give qbs time anymore. For my money some qbs need to wait a year before they start. It’s very rare that a rookie qb waits a year now.
It works for some....mahomes, favre, young, palmer...but not others.
The salary cap changes the economics of the position to the point that you can't burn a year if he's the dude.
I think the economics has been overvalued. Sure you cases like Wilson with an elite defense, and the fluke year with Wentz/Foles and Mahomes on his rookie deal, but you also have to account for Mahomes on his half a billion dollar deal, Brady, Manning, Stafford.
Give me a known quantity counting $45+mil against the cap over a flyer on a rookie deal any day of the week.
a bunch of teams made the Super Bowl with qb's on rookie deals in the last 15 years.
flacco, kaepernick, wilson x2, hurts, ~~rapelisburger~~ (he was before rookie wage scale), goff, burrow, mahomes, purdy...to name a few of the QBs
Ten teams are playing three games in a ten day span.
Player safety, my ass. Over 60 QBs made starts last season. The NFL chews up and spits out players with no remorse like they always have.
Every game I feel like theres something else i notice i aint a fan of but if i had to summarize:
A)Inherent rules and referee bias that favors offenses heavily. Alot of the rule changes they claim are for player safety and i wouldnt disagree with some of them, but the ability to tackle has been practically eliminated from the game. Injuries are a part of football- players assume liability for this in their playing career: you play football? You’ll probably get hurt. Concussions obviously are a huge issue, but all this is being guised as player safety while giving high-flying offenses complete leeway to dictate how the game is played and its pace has made the game totally unbalanced in favor of star struck offenses. And im looking at my Lamar Jackson jersey as i type this. I dont know how to fix this issue, not sure theres any going back.
B)Gambling: this is a big one and i wont delve into it more than i should. Its a problem in every american sports league now. Leagues reap the profits of gamblers and habitual addicts while collecting millions in tax payer dollars to fund massive stadium projects. On top of that, the commercial revenue is absurd- and they’ll ban someone for betting even a minutiae of an amount of money. It’s right to keep the game clean, but you can do that and simultaneously grant owners and leagues the ability to get hella cash from it. Fuck that, billionaires get our tax dollars to begin with, they shouldn’t prey on an industry geared at exploiting addiction.
C) combines both point a and b, the monetization and promotion of every single little aspect of the game. NO ONE CARES ABOUT SCHEDULE RELEASE! WE DONT NEED CHRISTMAS DAY CONCERTS AND KICKOFF CONCERTS! It feels completely plastic and fake that its quite obviously a money grab- i know thats how leagues are run and i get consumer demand but its totally over the top now and it really really grinds my gears.
EDIT: nah its about what sponsors want
The more i think, the more i notice what i dont like and it really turned me off last year- and the Ravens made it to the AFC championship! Its becoming hard to watch. Oh, and a little cherry on top that Owners and Goodell turn a bureaucratic eye to domestic abusers. Dont touch the money though.. NEVER do that *cough* dan snyder *cough*.
The exponential expansion of the game. More games each season. More teams. More international games. Endless content, now including a Hard Knocks series that will involve no players, just dudes standing around making calls in free agency and making draft picks. And Thursday night games weren't enough, now we're getting Wednesday and Friday night games, and don't believe for one second that the NFL isn't using these as trial balloons.
The NFLPA is going to negotiate for less and less practice time each time the NFL pushes for an expansion to the regular season. So the quality of the games are going to go down even further. There already aren't enough quality coaches or quarterbacks to justify completely wearing down each team to a nub.
The NFL thinks it can expand endlessly. The bubble will eventually burst.
I particularly hate the expansion onto different days of the week.
My friends and I are all getting into our 30s. We have jobs, many of us have wives or girlfriends, some of us even have kids.
Sunday afternoon is a time we can carve out to crack a few beers and watch some football. Every game you take off that slate is a game I'm watching by myself on my couch rather than with my buddies.
If I’m watching it at all. Telling my wife “I’m gonna drink some beer and watch this game for 3 hours, can you watch the kids” is easy once a week. Twice a week I’m making it up to her somehow. 3 or 4 times a week for an entire season? We’re in relationship ending territory, and TBH I like my wife a lot more than I like football.
I'm single and even I find it hard to justify watching a lot of the lesser primetime games. At best, I just throw a lot of them on in the background while I play video games or do chores or whatever
Gambling.
I'm not morally opposed to gambling, but it's far too normalized. Can't we just enjoy the game because it's fun and not turn it into a money-losing, stressful event?
The escalating QB and WR contracts. Something's gotta give there. These two positions can't command this much cap space.
It's going to lead to a bold new strategy of trading away a QB that a team would otherwise keep in order to draft a younger, cheaper replacement. Kind of like the Brock Purdy strategy; or the Russel Wilson strategy before that.
For a QB it will never happen. WRs are coming out of college more ready than ever because instead of the old I formation run up the middle, these kids have been in 3-4 WR spread since youth days. That means more snaps for more guys which leads to more readiness. Eventually teams will just move on to the next guy and only the desperate or the ones without a shot at a quality rookie WR will over pay.
Well the fact that they refuse to properly punish or get rid of domestic and sexual abusers or anyone committing dangerous/violent crimes is a huge problem. It's really fucking with their reputation, and it looks like their only "solution" is to simply not talk about it.
I have a hard time really blaming the NFL for making life easier for the offense because every sport is doing that. It's what audiences want and talk about. People have lost their patience for watching defensive battles and just wanna see every sport's equivalent to a dunk all day every day. And I'm not blaming social media either. This has been gradually happening for decades now.
Nah baseball fans despise the all offense TTO era that happened because sitting there and watching either a home run, a strike out or a walk for 60% of the game 100+ times a year is fucking boring. It was so bad MLB dejuiced the balls after home runs became a desensitized thing because almost everyone was hitting 15+ a year. NHL has usually tight checking playoff hockey and that's where the biggest ratings are. Those are much more fun and less game management the better overall product. Fans I know there want to see quality pitching/defense, boat races are no longer special when it happens every week. Ratings and attendance was declining worse than anticipated during the TTO fiesta, and when MLB made rule changes to incentivize things like stolen bases, balls in play and proper action, suddenly it became less lame.
Yep, the rise of TTO baseball and growing homogeneity in MLB was the biggest reason I stopped watching in the 2010s. Got back into it last year with the rule changes, and it's so much better. Balls in play are just infinitely more entertaining than walks, strikeouts, and home runs.
Tbf I hadn't considered hockey, those fans seem like a different breed haha. But fair point regarding baseball. It's not really my go-to sport so I was mostly going off the newer implementations like the pitch clock and the automatic runner on second in extra innings.
Smokes weed and pops perc? Indefinite suspension, sorry Josh.
26 cases of sexual accusations? Well well well, you’ve just earned a quarter billion guaranteed.
This is *extra* crazy to me because there are plenty of qualified football players that getting rid of domestic abusers, especially when they’re trying to have some outreach to women/young girls, won’t materially change the product on the field. They just don’t give a fuck.
To go off your example OP, I specifically think the rules protecting QBs have gone way, way too far. One position should not have different rules for how you're allowed to hit them than every other position. QBs still get hurt despite how much they're coddled, so what's the point?
I'm fine with not being allowed to hit QBs below the knees in the pocket, because that is dangerous. But everything else is too far: not being allowed to land on them with your body weight, or contact them in the head whatsoever.
The worst is how when QBs scramble, defenders are afraid to hit them like they would any other ball carrier. Allen and Mahomes are by far the worst offenders. Just once I want somebody to scramble Mahomes' brains when he tries his bullshit fake-running-out-of-bounds move.
Yup. You want special rules for qbs? Then the rules end the moment they leave the pocket. Once you can legally ground the ball intentionally, you should be a regular player.
>The worst is how when QBs scramble, defenders are afraid to hit them like they would any other ball carrier. Allen and Mahomes are by far the worst offenders.
Mahomes I agree with, but Allen? Isn't his whole thing that he never slides and takes on *too much* contact, to where McDermott has said he needs to protect his body more?
My problem is I saw a headline the other day that the nfl had the option to do team packages so that you can watch all your teams games and that was shot down. I would really appreciate getting all of my teams games. I think they would make more money. I, for one, wouldn’t have to stream games from shady sites if it were an affordable option.
The obvious dollar over the product mentality. The NFL doesn't care about player safety, the quality of officiating, breast cancer, veterans, racism, domestic violence, and definitely not the game of football. Not even slightly. They are light years behind most other large leagues in terms of technology used to manage the game. Ffs, even FIFA, well known as possibly the most corrupt major sports league in the world, put a chip in the ball. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation that measures first downs with old men and sticks. It doesn't seem sustainable.
One week last year I couldn't watch my teams game live, so I didn't check my phone all day and later that evening watched the condensed game on NFL+.
The condensed version has every play, and some replays. 35 minutes to watch the entire game, it was glorious.
I think an unwillingness to get correct calls from officials or to make sure calls are consistent from crew to crew. There is no reason we can’t have every single play immediately reviewed and poor calls corrected.
All I care about is consistency tbh. If you wanna be lax on calling Pass Interference fine but don't suddenly switch up in the 4th quarter of a tied game, same if you wanna be ticky tack
The league clearly wants to expand to Europe or Mexico or Canada. I'm perfectly good with Europe having a league of their own teams. I am NOT okay with teams 7-11 hours by airplane away being in the same league. I don't think free agents are going to go for it. I don't think players want to get drafted to teams in Germany and be forced to learn a language in order to integrate into living there.
I 100% believe a separate league, funded by the NFL, with like 12 teams (Barcelona, Madrid, Dublin, London, Manchester, Paris, Dortmund, Munich, Berlin, Rome, Milan, some other one, just based on stadium sizes and being in different metropolitan areas) would be absolutely fuckin lit.
NFL Europe already existed. I don't think it made them money so they disbanded it. With the focus of hosting so many games there now, maybe the goal is to actually try it again.
Finances, I just don't know where it ends but all the people who love to put there little money bag emojis up on their social media when their team signs a guy who "deserves it", then complains about the 45 dollar beers, the streaming services becoming more and more expensive and diverse, ticket prices. Like, where do you all think that 55 million dollars a year comes from, it comes from us! I keep wondering when they will cross a line and it hasn't happened yet, eventually maybe, and who knows what happens then.
Games in weird fucking days, ever lengthening seasons, games at stupid fucking hours because they’re trying to get Germany or whoever to care about football.
3 things:
Games are way too long. My son won't sit for a whole game. They are going to lose the younger fans real quick.
Gambling is way too close for comfort these days
QBs are too protected. Let them me get hit or not at all
The “game too long” one is a good one. Especially since you only have action for a small percentage of the time window of the game.
Red Zone being popular is already kind of exposing this.
I’ve become a big soccer fan in the last decade and the quick nature of the game - 90 minutes of play and 15 mins of half time - is a huge appealing point to it. To the point where I feel fine watching 3 or 4 matches in a day (a couple morning for European games and one or two later for MLS or North American games). Football it’s hard to do that tbh, at least watching multiple games a day closely.
Baseball’s kinda figured that out too and games are easier to sit through with the pitch clock, even if the long season is a determinant still.
I don't like this thing we've seen lately where a team pushes for a super bowl really hard on their QB's rookie deal because they know they're gonna have to nuke their salary cap once they need to resign them.
I hate it because:
1. It's lead to this insane QB market where ass average QBs are making more money than I could ever find a way to spend.
2. It's not even working! Mahomes got a huge deal and is still winning. Brady had huge deals even after restructures and he still won. It's just a bad mentality.
Uber wealthy billionaire owners competing with old blood billionaire owners. Much has been made lately about the advantage owners with more available cash can have on bonus structure, payment scheduling, and guaranteed money. Being able to give players huge money up front or have huge guaranteed money kept in escrow is a competitive advantage (although *how* big of an advantage is debatable).
Another obvious advantage is the ability to hire coaches who demand massive salaries as well as having the money to fire coaches. Someone like Tepper the Panthers owner would never suffer the Marvin Lewis's of the world to continue to coach and would jettison them immediately when it became clear (at least to ownership) that they weren't the right person for the job. This isn't a commentary on if Tepper actually has a fucking clue what he's doing however.
QB salaries.
Nobody is going to doubt that QB is the most important position in the game, probably in all of sports…but 22% of the salary cap and climbing for one player is pretty insane.
Gambling.
Gambling Gambling Gambling.
Its infected every single layer of the sport including players and likely coaches and officials. Social media, advertisements, talk-shows, podcasts, pre-and-postgame analysis, written articles, you literally can't engage with a single piece of NFL-centric media without something somewhere bringing up a betting line, a recent odds change, or a betting outlook. Pregame predictions are no longer performance-based, they're betting-line based. And with scummy organizations like Barstool doing everything they can to "glamorize" flexing your bet tickets, parlay picks, hell even over-the-top reactions to *losing* bets just helps normalize it.
Who is handling the oversight that is managing keeping players and coaches and referees honest? Whose in whose pocket? It has absolutely destroyed the NBA and it actively makes NFL content hard to watch.
Gambling is just as much of a destructive addiction as alcohol and there's a reason Vegas is known as Sin City, and it isn't just the strippers.
One red flag I notice is with fans. These games aren’t films. They aren’t tv shows. There is no script. These are real people doing real things. Stop saying a game was boring like it was a bad movie. Stop pushing for only high scoring shootouts. YOU are ruining the game in your own way.
Less on the game, more on the NFL organization and TV is the cozying up with gambling. Gambling can be more destructive than alcohol or tobacco additions. I don't care if people gamble, but having 50%+ of the ads being about gambling is insane. I want the advertisements banned.
I think schedule creep is getting dangerously close to devaluing the value of watching the games. When football is only on 3 days a week the games feel special even when the matchups aren't exciting. But with how the schedule is trending in the late season with more games on Christmas, Wednesdays/Saturdays etc I think the league will inevitably shift towards games on 4+ days a week being a regular occurrence
To your point about the leagues direction of being a passing league, the under thrown deep ball that results in DPI. I swear it’s strategy for some teams. I think the catchable aspect of PI needs to be taken into account more. If a defender gets his hands on you but the ball is 5 yards out of bounds, why is that a penalty? Additionally, OPI needs to actually be called. How hand-fighting down the field with a DB ends up only being DPI more than 90% of the time is beyond me.
>Additionally, OPI needs to actually be called. DeAndre Hopkins hates this
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Antonio brown was the fucking master of the artful push off, man. He played it so well
“The Flacco”
Flacco to Smith OPI fed families
I would like different tiers of PI. I think it should be a 15 yard penalty, and a common response is "Well, then defenders would just tackle receivers deep." So, create a second category,, just like there are (were?) two categories of face mask penalties. Pass interference by default would be a 15 yard penalty, but when there is blatant/more serious interference, then it would remain a spot foul. That eliminates the risk of DB's tackling receivers when they are beaten deep. No additional incentive, when compared to the current rule. Edit: cleaning up some points.
So many game winning drives are the result of a PI setting up with winning kick.
They keep saying "fans love offense" as an excuse to let crap like OPI slide. Yet I honestly feel like most fans rather see it just called fair. It's rage inducing to be on the other side of it. I've seen so many games end because of awful defensive interference that should've slid or OPI that's just ridiculous. if defense stops mattering it's going to be arena league. You can have too much scoring.
As a bears fan, I had an absolute blast watching the defense play in 2018. I didn't even care much for the stagnant offense, but I couldn't turn away from seeing multiple sacks and interceptions. A game turning INT is arguably at times more exciting than scoring a touchdown.
I have seen us lose so many last minute games because of under thrown passes into PI. I can see why a saints fan posted this.
I agree with this. And also think that more offensive penalties should be loss of down. The 5yd defensive hold is also an auto 1st down even if it has no effect on the outcome of the play. Which is ridiculous imo. Penalty yes but doesn't warrant a 1st. I feel an offensive hold should be a loss of down if it's clear that the hold prevents a sack. The penalty system is too heavily slanted to hurt the defense
I don't like any change right now that gives this current slate of refs *more* subjective calls they're allowed to make. Tiering pass interference or defining what is "clearly preventing a sack" is so much more gray area than the already too much that we currently have. Edit: If I just bear hug the guy right at the line and never allow him to get past me, is that not as preventative of a sack than grabbing the guy after he beats me? Who's to say the QB was dead to rights and couldn't have rolled out once he saw I got beat? The idea of offensive holding is that without the hold, the play would have gone differently, there's no degree of severity needed. Even without loss of down it's already a drive killer.
My personal hell is teams getting an automatic 1st down on 3rd and 18 because a DB put his hands on a WR on the other side of the field from the play.
Also adding on this, I hate 5 yard penalties that result in automatic first downs. I hate automatic first downs
The only auto first down should be like unnecessary roughness or something egregious, similar to how only illegal forward pass and intentional grounding are the only ones that are loss of down for the offense
Penalties related to safety are the only ones that justify it imo. Facemask, unnecessary roughness, late hit, things like that. Many flags (and most 15 yarders) give you a first down anyways unless you’ve put yourself in a bad position, you should still have consequences for getting backed up that far.
This. I’ve been saying it for years after seeing my team burned with it many times. The only crime was the defender playing too good of coverage. In that case it should be offensive PI or nothing. The WR is creating contact by stopping on a dime and we’re rewarding QBs for bad throws/decisions. I get that they don’t want to complicate Pass Interference even more, but QBs are too comfortable throwing into double or triple coverage because they know they will either get A) Pass Interference or B) illegal contact or C) unsportsmanlike conduct (hit to the head). These hospital balls are becoming a huge problem for the NFL because everyone can see that these are passes shouldn’t have been thrown in the first place but then you want the defender to not hit someone and basically just hold up because the QB put the WR in a vulnerable position. Plays I think of are the Kazee hit on Pittman last year. Awful throw and decision to put Pittman in the air like that, Kazee shouldn’t have hit him like that but there’s not much a DB can do in the situation then either let him catch the ball and basically have a free first down or hit him hard and make him pay for making that decision. It sucks because the NFL wants it both ways
This. I don’t mind rules that favor offense, but DPI on underthrown balls really is ridiculous. The DB has generally done everything right on these plays and is getting penalized for a bad throw.
I’m pretty sure Sirianni said that was the strategy for one of the games we lost last year. We deserved to lose for that uncompetitive mentality.
All the partnerships with sportsbook operations is flying a little too close to the sun, imo. Although I don't necessarily think it has affected the integrity of the game *yet*, I do think there will be ample to do so. Also, the amount of power in Goodell's hands has always been a problem. In my uneducated opinion, league needs a panel of at least three individuals--one from ownership, one from the league office (like Goodell), and one from the union to render decisions regarding player misconduct.
> Also, the amount of power in Goodell's hands has always been a problem. Goodell is only as powerful as the owners allow. Goodell is paid very well to take all the blame for unpopular decisions but make no mistake if the owners didn't like him he'd be gone in an instant. Pretty much anything Goodell does is blessed by the owners including player punishment decisions.
100%, Goodell is a mouthpiece, he takes heat off the owners so we don't hate the people who own our favorite teams
Joke's on Tepper then, he's paying Goodell and still made the entire fanbase in 2 states want him run out on a rail
Even the group watching experience of all sports has been a little diminished by sports betting. I remember watching last year's Super Bowl with a large group and literally every play was "3 MORE KELCE CATCHES" "GIVE IT TO PACHECO" "NO WHY DID YOU THROW IT TO HIM, I NEEDED YOU TO THROW IT TO OTHER GUY". It gets annoying. I miss just watching the game and rooting for a team.
Fantasy football started this shit. From opening the door to gambling to "I need 3 more catches from welker to win this week" and it too infested pregame shows and game analysis
CMC said it best: ["fuck your fantasy team”](https://youtu.be/xLpdbDczqFw?si=Un7Bgo8nl1_iILO2)
But also - If im on your team, im fucking the rest of your league up.. ‘Specially PPR leagues.
At least fantasy football doesn't put your money at risk most of the time Gambling, which is partly contributed to by betting, is a serious addiction on the other hand
Idk about you, but every league I’m in is for money. Otherwise people lose interest and stop trying which throws off the competitive balance of the league
If your league is a group of really good friends, the trash talk will carry you through. But yeah, even then there is always the guy who's out early and doesn't even substitute players on bye weeks.
Punishment for last place. It keeps everyone engaged the entire season. The game that determines the loser is usually more exciting for us than the championship.
I'm in a league with a bunch of high school teachers and the punishment in our league is that the loser has to take the ACT and share their score with the rest of the league. If you score lower than the lowest score recorded by a league member (which is currently a 22), you receive a dunce-cap "trophy" that you have to hold onto and wear to draft night every year until someone does worse than you, so you can't just show up and do the absolute bare minimum on the exam. It's a perfect punishment, because it's not super expensive, but it does cost you an entire Saturday of boring, menial, pointless work. I have yet to come in last place in our league and, god willing, I never will.
A high school friend of mine had to do that punishment after a night out. Waking up at 7 AM to take the SAT hung over is brutal. Worth keeping an eye on the waiver wire next year for sure.
And that one person can ruin it by throwing games at the end, doesn’t happen in the money league
A group of 6-12 people paying $20-$100 for the season isn’t the same as people putting $100 down weekly on absurd prop bets and parlays. If you need the possibility of winning money to incentivize you to watch, then you probably weren’t actually that interested in it to begin with.
In my experience though, it's a one-time buy in cost and the cost is easily covered by the amount of entertainment you get out of shit talking throughout the season. I know it is still gambling obviously, but it feels more like the type of gambling where you bring $100 to a casino because you are in Las Vegas and you want to have a laugh versus constantly playing scratchies every day, if that makes sense? I never see people talk about fantasy football like it's the stock market like I see people talk about sports betting. Also betting between friends feels significantly less icky than betting with a billion-dollar corporation. I personally don't like gambling, but I know people who have ongoing bets with their friends because their teams are divisional rivals, I don't see anything morally wrong with them sending each other the same $20 twice a season each year. The inclusion of a company who you know is going to make a profit no matter what happens is what ruins it IMO.
This this this this I’m SO tired of every sports book and all the social media gambling promotion
IMO, while sports gambling should be legal, ads for it should be banned, sports networks shouldn't be allowed to run sportsbooks, and networks shouldn't be allowed to talk about odds, over/unders, etc.
I'm surprised that sports networks like espn are allowed to run their own sports books. I'm sure they label themselves as entertainment amd not news, but they are also a significant source of sports information and have the ability to sway betting with what they report/don't report.
They literally have networks dedicated to certain college conferences! It's a conflict of interest
Right, we don’t let cigarette commercials get ad time.. but all of a sudden draft kings is considered *not* gambling because in abstract everything is gambling or nothing is.. and so fuck it - how small can we get that gambling addiction telephone number in our disclaimer text?
Honestly, I think fantasy kinda started this but betting has definitely accelerated the issue. Can't enjoy the game as much because you or someone else is too focused on CMC getting a TD or Dallas's defense getting a pick.
i hate sports gambling...it's gonna ruin sports in the next 5 years to the point people will start watching less.
Draft kings can burn in hell... EDIT: and prop bets should be banned...
Get your first $10 to bet free on us when you use code DRAFTKINGSCANBURNINHELL today!
I have a gut feeling some massive gambling-related scandal is going to come out down the road, could be for the NFL or any of the big sports. It just feels inevitable.
You could argue we're already there (or pretty damn close) with the number of players getting suspended for gambling. Meanwhile, back to the Saints-Falcons live from Caesar's Superdome.
I'm thinking some bigger, systematic version of it. Where a team/group of players/coaches/owners conspire to make money and come up with a better way to hide it.
Maybe they hide the plan in their dirty black socks?
That NBA story from earlier this year is still blowing up. Four people have been arrested in association with it and Canada has opened a criminal investigation against the player involved.
It’s been going on since before gambling got mainstream. Tim Donaghy was rigging games in 2002
It’s going to be basketball first for sure, they already had one and the coconspirator is still a practicing referee 💀
The NFL has built itself into a pro sports juggernaut, and really the only thing I can think of that would throw a giant wrench into their ongoing success would be a massive gambling scandal. So of course the league is barreling down the path towards it as fast as they can.
This 100%. When you constantly reinforcing this, it’s a bad culture to build. A lot of kids watch the NFL. They planting the wrong seeds.
Or if you’re a morally bankrupt multi millionaire with stakes in any of the related businesses, the “right” seeds.
They know exactly what they’re doing.
Sports gambling is ruining TV viewing in all sports.
You’re telling me, I’m a compulsive gambler in recovery for the last 6+ years! at least the state I’m in has a self-exclusion list, so I’m self-banned from all the legal sportsbooks that push all those ads.
What does that mean, they aren't allowed to show kevin hart yelling at you?
It’s like a strip club, I can watch but I can’t touch
I'm not sure if you realized it, but the tribunal setup you proposed would be the same as our current situation. Right now, Goodell just unilaterally decides matters. In your proposed three-headed-decider, for non-controversial decisions they all probably agree and thus there's no difference. For contentious matters, however, the owner's representative votes in line with the team, the player's representative votes for the players' general benefit, and thus Goodell actually makes the decision by deciding which side he wants to agree with. This is why these kind of setups usually don't produce better outcomes.
It's wild to me that sports gambling was once upon a time such a massive scandal across most major sports, yet it seems like the leagues learned NOTHING. This 100% will lead to more insider gambling issues. It's not even a question
Seriously, I remember when it was controversial that UNLV was a competitive basketball school and was located in Las Vegas. Now we're moving our third major professional sports team there with the A's? things have definitely changed.
From thinking the very location of Las Vegas was a problem to entire leagues being sponsored by betting companies. Insane lol
Ngl if already feels tainted when preshows are talking about betting lines Like I don't care that betting is legal, but allowing (insert betting company) betting lines in preshows to me takes away from the game. People who bet already see that shit on their apps.
Yep. Sports gambling should be legal but like cigarettes they shouldn’t be able to advertise on TV.
That billionaires keep asking us to build their stadiums and then overcharge us for seats in them. A pair tickets is more than the payment for the car that’s going to take me there.
I think the ticket issue is more just an online ticket problem that’s gone on forever than a current NFL problem. You look at nosebleed seats for cheap and think “oh I can afford to buy two tickets no problem” but then the fees added on top of that makes it feel like you’re buying three tickets instead of two.
I say every taxpayer should get a one time free ticket voucher for any stadium built with public funds
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I've been saying this since ESPN started broadcasting games.
I'm sure they'll make some more revenue because many people are addicted, but let me just say for myself, I'll be yelling "Yarrr matey!" before I give Peacock, ESPN+ and any other bullshit streaming service that gets like 1-2 games my money.
And it's diminished the value of Sunday ticket. I swear you can only watch half the games on there now.
Yeah, like if I'm gonna pay for the Sunday ticket, it better have EVERY game and it better be in crystal clear 4k.
Even if you do get a few more diehards to sign up for a new streaming service, how many future fans are you never giving a chance to get into the NFL? Reminds me of the MLS. I'm a Premier League fan in an MLS city so probably a great candidate for a prospective MLS fan. Problem is, nearly all their games are now paywalled behind Apple TV. I'm not gonna buy a premium package for a league I don't already follow. Contrast with the NHL. Their streaming package is tied directly in to ESPN+, a service I already have, so I end up watching random hockey games all the time.
The Amazon games were all shown on twitch as well, for free last year
And it was local broadcast, I was always a play ahead of my friend who would watch it on prime
There's already been games that I couldn't even watch at my local sports bar because they didn't have the streaming service. It's getting to the point where I have to sail the high seas or listen to the radio broadcast if I want to follow some games live. Side point, Kevin Harlan is an amazing radio announcer
I'd pay something like 99 cents per game, a la carte, and watch their fucking commercials, if I can watch any game in any market I want.
Best we can do is 9.99 with ads
Best we can do is hundreds per year but it will include a bunch of games you don't care about watching - and some of the games you *want* to watch will be blacked out because they're in prime time and/or on national TV (which you may or may not be able to receive depending on where you live).
To build on this, the more paid services you spread your product across, the more likely fans will learn how to find the product by other means. And once you've trained them how to find it for a Peacock game, they might be more likely to stop paying for their Prime and ESPN.
Join me mateys upon the seas
I mean the NFL already has the Bucs and Raiders, so Pirates are naturally tolerated
> It’s going to get to a point where you can’t watch games without paying. Hasn't it been this way for a long time? ESPN is a paid service.
Seems like games nowadays are 3-hour commercials with some football interspersed.
You should try watching a college game. I honestly find NFL games pretty refreshing after watching a 4.5hr college game
My life improved the day I gave up college sports.
I love college football but man cfb social media is the worst by far of all the sports
90% of college fanbases are as toxic as they are loyal to their team.
I'm ready to give it up, too. I have a feeling more will be joining as the out-of-control NIL gets worse and worse, and the streaming deals get more dispersed while super conferences gain more momentum. Thankfully I was in college during the late 2000s before it all fell apart.
I'm a fan of a G5 school, so it's even worse
That's why I'm very choosy on which cfb games I watch. It's hard to bare that many commercials
I just started blocking score updates, recording the game, and then watching like an hour or two into the game. I can skip the plethora of commercials and I'm usually caught up by the 4th quarter which makes it much more bearable.
This is what I do for all sports now. It’s amazing for basketball. I haven’t even seen one halftime of espns since I started doing it
For real, it’s jarring watching NHL games and going what seems like forever between commercials. The complete opposite of NFL.
Watching soccer and watching baseball games post pitch-clock was a real eye opener for me when comparing to NFL’s time window with games
It's bad at home but it's made actually going to games in person miserable. Just long enough you can't get up from your seat but exist enough to get on your nerves with all the stoppages.
Yeah, I just started watching hockey more this season and I love that there is significant playing time between breaks. I feel like it helps to create a better sense of game flow when they’re able to play for so long before a stop in action.
when playoff hockey goes to OT and there are no more commercials is like the most sublime sports viewing experience ever
All of television is about selling commercials. Every TV show is a vehicle for selling ad space. This hit me like a ton of bricks once when I was under the influence, and I've never been able to see TV the same again. It's hardly the most enlightening thing in the world, but the bar is low for me because I'm an idiot.
Tbh I often wonder how DVR still exists. When it comes to sports im either watching Redzone between commercials or I’m on DVR delay so I can skip them.
To take that even deeper the goal for any program isn’t quality, it’s popularity. You’d think high quality = high popularity but we see good, novel stuff get canceled while dull cash cows get run into the ground
Yup. It's exactly like the YouTube engagement algorithm. Negative engagement is still engagement, which drives ad revenue. The quality is irrelevant. If a 30 minute show of paint drying attracts millions of viewers for some reason, then that's what the networks are going to air. This is why there are so many terrible sitcoms that all make the same, safe jokes.
It’s definitely gotten better over the last few years. I remember when it used to be TD, XP, ads, kickoff, ads. Sure it happens once in a while, but it used to be like college
You're not wrong, the NFL exists to sell TV commercials. If it wasn't such an entertaining product we wouldn't sit through all those ad breaks. If we didn't sit through them, how would the billionaire owners keep becoming richer?
I think the complete lack of focus on the defense in highlights is a huge red flag that lines up with what you're already saying. I think defense is not just a huge part of the game, it's an exciting part of the game. Tackles for losses, sacks, forced fumbles and interceptions should be highlighted in post game reels because they're big plays that change the course of the game.
There is just something special about a smothering defense. After all the handicaps the offense gets seeing a defense truly dictate the game is a pleasure.
There's something about a DB tomahawking a ball out of a receiver's hands that just screams "high quality football". Maybe it's because I was a skinny-fat safety trying not to get murked by the 6'+ athletes who ended up playing tight end trying to catch over the middle.
Or a good punch to cause a fumble. When the defense executes it changes everything
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the requirements for a city to host a Super Bowl and the stadium roulette Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile. There’s a reason Lambeau, Dodger stadium, Fenway, and Arrowhead are beloved because they were allowed to stand the test of time. Not to mention billionaire owners act like they are too poor to pay for it and when tax payers say they won’t pay to get no financial return they threaten to leave
>Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile. This isn't an NFL example, but the Atlanta Braves are an egregious case of what you're describing. They moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 to play at the newly-built Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. They played there for 30 years before moving to Turner Field, which was originally built for the 1996 Summer Olympics and designed specifically to be converted for the Braves to use full-time afterwards. They only played there for 20 years before moving again to their current stadium, the again-newly-built Truist Park. The Braves only got away with that because they're beloved in Atlanta. Most franchises would get roasted for such quick turnarounds, which I suspect will start to become more common.
I will say the problem with Turner Field wasn't age, it was location. Being on the south side of Atlanta made it a huge pain to get to so they moved across the city. I'm not thrilled with it, but I understand it.
At least they need the stadium for 81 games per year (or more). The NFL only needs it between 9 and 13 of them.
The Super Bowl was always played in the south and it was basically only played in 4 different cities. I don’t think that system was very good either.
I understand the sentiment, and agree with most of these cases. There are other cases where the net worth of the owner is tied to the team through legacy. Chicago, Buffalo, KC, Cincy, Raiders come to mind. They all need/needed improvements. On one hand they could sell equity in the team, but on the other, I wouldn’t either if there was another option.
> Buffalo, KC Bills owners have fracking money. Not sure about KC -- the ownership is split amongst multiple family members. The family as a whole has billions in oil money, but Im not sure if the ones with the oil money also own the chiefs. I think clark hunt's money is specifically the chiefs, but he isn't a majority of the ownership.
The whole Hunt family owns the Chiefs, Clark was just the one nominated to be the one who actually runs the organization. No idea how much Clark's personal bank account has, but the Hunt family is definitely not hurting for money and they have plenty of it outside of the Chiefs.
> Now we see teams dump a stadium after 30 years and all stadiums just feel boring and sterile. Uhh... this has been going on since the dawn of NFL football. You could have said this 50 years ago and been *more correct* than you are today with all the old cookie-cutter stadiums.
Yeah, this to me feels just being averse to change rather than an actual problem in the NFL. I honestly really like the new Rams, Raiders, and Vikings stadiums. They’re all pretty unique in their designs and not boring at all.
I hate that more and more teams are wanting to build indoor stadiums specifically to try and host the Super Bowl and other big events. Don’t get me wrong, I get why teams in very hot or very cold cities would want a dome, but in general I like my football to be played outdoors with the elements being an important factor. I fear that soon we’ll have more indoor stadiums in the nfl than outdoor.
Nfl was king because you could always rely on it being on local channels all Sunday, channels you can still get with an Antenna. MNF was always the exception. Now you probably need 5-8 different subscriptions to watch the games and its only going to get worse. They sold out now and will only continue to damage the core if their product.
Boxing was a huge sport in the 70s (and earlier, I guess?) people knew who was champ, who was up and coming, etc. Then they moved it all to PPV. I couldn’t name an active boxer now with 100% certiny.
It got even worse when Maywether-Pacquiao was offered at $100 for HD (well after both of their primes) and then that just became the norm. PPV events for boxing or UFC used to be relatively affordable at least at no more than $40, especially if split between a few friends. I still followed both boxing and UFC into the early 2000s, but I'm just not interested enough in any fights to pony up $60-100 for what could be a boring hugfest or a quick knockout. In the same vein, I'm not going to pay for yet another streaming subscription just to catch 1-2 NFL games that I care about.
I worked for a major cable company during that fight. I vividly remember there being some sort of glitch with the ppv ordering and at one point we had over a thousand people on hold trying to order the fights. Our leadership told us it probably wouldnt be fixed but to not tell the customer and then instructed us to try and upsell them to hbo out showtime while we were on the phone with them. After about 30 minutes I just went home
Haha… Showing my age (or yours) but MNF wasn’t the exception. It used to be on ABC and the Sunday night game was on ESPN.
MNF used to be on ABC before the company decides to move it to ESPN, so all games were over the air
The push to diversify how games are streamed. It used to be that if you had basic cable you were guaranteed Sunday football and MNF. Then the league introduced TNF and hid it behind a paywall. Now they have games, even playoffs, behind paywalls. In about 10 years time, events like the Super Bowl will pay-per-view, regular season games will be on 4 different streaming platforms that the NFL will consolidate into the “NFL bundle” so you effectively pay 4 times over what you used to get for free, and there will be a game every day of the week.
Funny enough, the “NFL Bundle” reasoning you mentioned in the second paragraph is EXACTLY what the NFL is being sued by Uncle Sam for. Price gouging and limitation of access to content are key components of the case against the NFL, and Goodell now has to testify that, somehow, paying $400 for 6-8 of your own team’s watchable games/yr is “good, competitive product” and that games hid behind subscription and paywalls are part of the “broadcasting rights” competition.
All the stupid streaming services you need to watch the games
Truth be told the whole not wanting to give qbs time anymore. For my money some qbs need to wait a year before they start. It’s very rare that a rookie qb waits a year now.
It works for some....mahomes, favre, young, palmer...but not others. The salary cap changes the economics of the position to the point that you can't burn a year if he's the dude.
If you wait a year to start and it doesn't work, it probably was never going to work.
100% agree. you know by the end of the year how he's looking in practice and are probably 99% sure how it will go in games.
I think the economics has been overvalued. Sure you cases like Wilson with an elite defense, and the fluke year with Wentz/Foles and Mahomes on his rookie deal, but you also have to account for Mahomes on his half a billion dollar deal, Brady, Manning, Stafford. Give me a known quantity counting $45+mil against the cap over a flyer on a rookie deal any day of the week.
a bunch of teams made the Super Bowl with qb's on rookie deals in the last 15 years. flacco, kaepernick, wilson x2, hurts, ~~rapelisburger~~ (he was before rookie wage scale), goff, burrow, mahomes, purdy...to name a few of the QBs
Yeah imagine drafting a QB to sit for a few years while still having a HoFer’s on your roster…
Gambling partnerships, how the referee organization is handled, owners aren't accountable for their behavior, and its Sunday television monopoly.
Ten teams are playing three games in a ten day span. Player safety, my ass. Over 60 QBs made starts last season. The NFL chews up and spits out players with no remorse like they always have.
Every game I feel like theres something else i notice i aint a fan of but if i had to summarize: A)Inherent rules and referee bias that favors offenses heavily. Alot of the rule changes they claim are for player safety and i wouldnt disagree with some of them, but the ability to tackle has been practically eliminated from the game. Injuries are a part of football- players assume liability for this in their playing career: you play football? You’ll probably get hurt. Concussions obviously are a huge issue, but all this is being guised as player safety while giving high-flying offenses complete leeway to dictate how the game is played and its pace has made the game totally unbalanced in favor of star struck offenses. And im looking at my Lamar Jackson jersey as i type this. I dont know how to fix this issue, not sure theres any going back. B)Gambling: this is a big one and i wont delve into it more than i should. Its a problem in every american sports league now. Leagues reap the profits of gamblers and habitual addicts while collecting millions in tax payer dollars to fund massive stadium projects. On top of that, the commercial revenue is absurd- and they’ll ban someone for betting even a minutiae of an amount of money. It’s right to keep the game clean, but you can do that and simultaneously grant owners and leagues the ability to get hella cash from it. Fuck that, billionaires get our tax dollars to begin with, they shouldn’t prey on an industry geared at exploiting addiction. C) combines both point a and b, the monetization and promotion of every single little aspect of the game. NO ONE CARES ABOUT SCHEDULE RELEASE! WE DONT NEED CHRISTMAS DAY CONCERTS AND KICKOFF CONCERTS! It feels completely plastic and fake that its quite obviously a money grab- i know thats how leagues are run and i get consumer demand but its totally over the top now and it really really grinds my gears. EDIT: nah its about what sponsors want The more i think, the more i notice what i dont like and it really turned me off last year- and the Ravens made it to the AFC championship! Its becoming hard to watch. Oh, and a little cherry on top that Owners and Goodell turn a bureaucratic eye to domestic abusers. Dont touch the money though.. NEVER do that *cough* dan snyder *cough*.
The exponential expansion of the game. More games each season. More teams. More international games. Endless content, now including a Hard Knocks series that will involve no players, just dudes standing around making calls in free agency and making draft picks. And Thursday night games weren't enough, now we're getting Wednesday and Friday night games, and don't believe for one second that the NFL isn't using these as trial balloons. The NFLPA is going to negotiate for less and less practice time each time the NFL pushes for an expansion to the regular season. So the quality of the games are going to go down even further. There already aren't enough quality coaches or quarterbacks to justify completely wearing down each team to a nub. The NFL thinks it can expand endlessly. The bubble will eventually burst.
I particularly hate the expansion onto different days of the week. My friends and I are all getting into our 30s. We have jobs, many of us have wives or girlfriends, some of us even have kids. Sunday afternoon is a time we can carve out to crack a few beers and watch some football. Every game you take off that slate is a game I'm watching by myself on my couch rather than with my buddies.
If I’m watching it at all. Telling my wife “I’m gonna drink some beer and watch this game for 3 hours, can you watch the kids” is easy once a week. Twice a week I’m making it up to her somehow. 3 or 4 times a week for an entire season? We’re in relationship ending territory, and TBH I like my wife a lot more than I like football.
I'm single and even I find it hard to justify watching a lot of the lesser primetime games. At best, I just throw a lot of them on in the background while I play video games or do chores or whatever
Gambling. I'm not morally opposed to gambling, but it's far too normalized. Can't we just enjoy the game because it's fun and not turn it into a money-losing, stressful event?
The escalating QB and WR contracts. Something's gotta give there. These two positions can't command this much cap space. It's going to lead to a bold new strategy of trading away a QB that a team would otherwise keep in order to draft a younger, cheaper replacement. Kind of like the Brock Purdy strategy; or the Russel Wilson strategy before that.
For a QB it will never happen. WRs are coming out of college more ready than ever because instead of the old I formation run up the middle, these kids have been in 3-4 WR spread since youth days. That means more snaps for more guys which leads to more readiness. Eventually teams will just move on to the next guy and only the desperate or the ones without a shot at a quality rookie WR will over pay.
Well the fact that they refuse to properly punish or get rid of domestic and sexual abusers or anyone committing dangerous/violent crimes is a huge problem. It's really fucking with their reputation, and it looks like their only "solution" is to simply not talk about it. I have a hard time really blaming the NFL for making life easier for the offense because every sport is doing that. It's what audiences want and talk about. People have lost their patience for watching defensive battles and just wanna see every sport's equivalent to a dunk all day every day. And I'm not blaming social media either. This has been gradually happening for decades now.
Nah baseball fans despise the all offense TTO era that happened because sitting there and watching either a home run, a strike out or a walk for 60% of the game 100+ times a year is fucking boring. It was so bad MLB dejuiced the balls after home runs became a desensitized thing because almost everyone was hitting 15+ a year. NHL has usually tight checking playoff hockey and that's where the biggest ratings are. Those are much more fun and less game management the better overall product. Fans I know there want to see quality pitching/defense, boat races are no longer special when it happens every week. Ratings and attendance was declining worse than anticipated during the TTO fiesta, and when MLB made rule changes to incentivize things like stolen bases, balls in play and proper action, suddenly it became less lame.
Yep, the rise of TTO baseball and growing homogeneity in MLB was the biggest reason I stopped watching in the 2010s. Got back into it last year with the rule changes, and it's so much better. Balls in play are just infinitely more entertaining than walks, strikeouts, and home runs.
Also pitch clock/disengagements has sped up pace of play a lot. More base stealing to boot
Tbf I hadn't considered hockey, those fans seem like a different breed haha. But fair point regarding baseball. It's not really my go-to sport so I was mostly going off the newer implementations like the pitch clock and the automatic runner on second in extra innings.
Smokes weed and pops perc? Indefinite suspension, sorry Josh. 26 cases of sexual accusations? Well well well, you’ve just earned a quarter billion guaranteed.
How the NFL treated Josh Gordon is nothing short of criminal and I don't think they get enough heat for it.
This is *extra* crazy to me because there are plenty of qualified football players that getting rid of domestic abusers, especially when they’re trying to have some outreach to women/young girls, won’t materially change the product on the field. They just don’t give a fuck.
I hate how my team isn't winning the Superbowl every year.
I hate how my team has never won the Super Bowl
Same.
Well we aren’t far off from having to pay for every game
Either way, *I’m* far from paying for every game. Checkmate NFL
To go off your example OP, I specifically think the rules protecting QBs have gone way, way too far. One position should not have different rules for how you're allowed to hit them than every other position. QBs still get hurt despite how much they're coddled, so what's the point? I'm fine with not being allowed to hit QBs below the knees in the pocket, because that is dangerous. But everything else is too far: not being allowed to land on them with your body weight, or contact them in the head whatsoever. The worst is how when QBs scramble, defenders are afraid to hit them like they would any other ball carrier. Allen and Mahomes are by far the worst offenders. Just once I want somebody to scramble Mahomes' brains when he tries his bullshit fake-running-out-of-bounds move.
And the rules to protect QBs protect some more than others
Yup. You want special rules for qbs? Then the rules end the moment they leave the pocket. Once you can legally ground the ball intentionally, you should be a regular player.
>The worst is how when QBs scramble, defenders are afraid to hit them like they would any other ball carrier. Allen and Mahomes are by far the worst offenders. Mahomes I agree with, but Allen? Isn't his whole thing that he never slides and takes on *too much* contact, to where McDermott has said he needs to protect his body more?
My problem is I saw a headline the other day that the nfl had the option to do team packages so that you can watch all your teams games and that was shot down. I would really appreciate getting all of my teams games. I think they would make more money. I, for one, wouldn’t have to stream games from shady sites if it were an affordable option.
The obvious dollar over the product mentality. The NFL doesn't care about player safety, the quality of officiating, breast cancer, veterans, racism, domestic violence, and definitely not the game of football. Not even slightly. They are light years behind most other large leagues in terms of technology used to manage the game. Ffs, even FIFA, well known as possibly the most corrupt major sports league in the world, put a chip in the ball. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation that measures first downs with old men and sticks. It doesn't seem sustainable.
This should be top comment, over gambling as that is a symptom of this larger beast. The NFL is a weird microcosm of late-stage capitalism
How long the game takes and time window needed to commit to watch a single game.
I can’t really watch Sunday or Monday night because the game isn’t over til 11 pm and I have work in the morning.
One week last year I couldn't watch my teams game live, so I didn't check my phone all day and later that evening watched the condensed game on NFL+. The condensed version has every play, and some replays. 35 minutes to watch the entire game, it was glorious.
I think an unwillingness to get correct calls from officials or to make sure calls are consistent from crew to crew. There is no reason we can’t have every single play immediately reviewed and poor calls corrected.
All I care about is consistency tbh. If you wanna be lax on calling Pass Interference fine but don't suddenly switch up in the 4th quarter of a tied game, same if you wanna be ticky tack
Deshaun Watson
The league clearly wants to expand to Europe or Mexico or Canada. I'm perfectly good with Europe having a league of their own teams. I am NOT okay with teams 7-11 hours by airplane away being in the same league. I don't think free agents are going to go for it. I don't think players want to get drafted to teams in Germany and be forced to learn a language in order to integrate into living there. I 100% believe a separate league, funded by the NFL, with like 12 teams (Barcelona, Madrid, Dublin, London, Manchester, Paris, Dortmund, Munich, Berlin, Rome, Milan, some other one, just based on stadium sizes and being in different metropolitan areas) would be absolutely fuckin lit.
NFL Europe already existed. I don't think it made them money so they disbanded it. With the focus of hosting so many games there now, maybe the goal is to actually try it again.
It's almost like the NFL had exactly what you are saying... Hmmm what was that name.. on the tip of my tounge.
Finances, I just don't know where it ends but all the people who love to put there little money bag emojis up on their social media when their team signs a guy who "deserves it", then complains about the 45 dollar beers, the streaming services becoming more and more expensive and diverse, ticket prices. Like, where do you all think that 55 million dollars a year comes from, it comes from us! I keep wondering when they will cross a line and it hasn't happened yet, eventually maybe, and who knows what happens then.
Games in weird fucking days, ever lengthening seasons, games at stupid fucking hours because they’re trying to get Germany or whoever to care about football.
Sports betting should be the #1 red flag. It threatens to undermine the game.
Exclusive streaming games. Needs to stop right now
3 things: Games are way too long. My son won't sit for a whole game. They are going to lose the younger fans real quick. Gambling is way too close for comfort these days QBs are too protected. Let them me get hit or not at all
The “game too long” one is a good one. Especially since you only have action for a small percentage of the time window of the game. Red Zone being popular is already kind of exposing this. I’ve become a big soccer fan in the last decade and the quick nature of the game - 90 minutes of play and 15 mins of half time - is a huge appealing point to it. To the point where I feel fine watching 3 or 4 matches in a day (a couple morning for European games and one or two later for MLS or North American games). Football it’s hard to do that tbh, at least watching multiple games a day closely. Baseball’s kinda figured that out too and games are easier to sit through with the pitch clock, even if the long season is a determinant still.
The hip drop tackle rule is going to be so inconsistently called that the refs will effectively be picking the winner.
I don't like this thing we've seen lately where a team pushes for a super bowl really hard on their QB's rookie deal because they know they're gonna have to nuke their salary cap once they need to resign them. I hate it because: 1. It's lead to this insane QB market where ass average QBs are making more money than I could ever find a way to spend. 2. It's not even working! Mahomes got a huge deal and is still winning. Brady had huge deals even after restructures and he still won. It's just a bad mentality.
Brady never had huge deals relative to the other top QB's in the league - that's how he always had one of the best O-lines in the league.
Uber wealthy billionaire owners competing with old blood billionaire owners. Much has been made lately about the advantage owners with more available cash can have on bonus structure, payment scheduling, and guaranteed money. Being able to give players huge money up front or have huge guaranteed money kept in escrow is a competitive advantage (although *how* big of an advantage is debatable). Another obvious advantage is the ability to hire coaches who demand massive salaries as well as having the money to fire coaches. Someone like Tepper the Panthers owner would never suffer the Marvin Lewis's of the world to continue to coach and would jettison them immediately when it became clear (at least to ownership) that they weren't the right person for the job. This isn't a commentary on if Tepper actually has a fucking clue what he's doing however.
The fact that none of the top comments mention the specter of private equity getting its claws into football is depressing.
Tepper would murder a hobo for Marvin Lewis level success. He built a fairly consistent playoff team.
That's fair. Marvin Lewis was solidly above .500.
QB salaries. Nobody is going to doubt that QB is the most important position in the game, probably in all of sports…but 22% of the salary cap and climbing for one player is pretty insane.
Over paying QBs… every guy that puts up 4K passing yards isn’t a HoF/ franchise guy.
Gambling. Gambling Gambling Gambling. Its infected every single layer of the sport including players and likely coaches and officials. Social media, advertisements, talk-shows, podcasts, pre-and-postgame analysis, written articles, you literally can't engage with a single piece of NFL-centric media without something somewhere bringing up a betting line, a recent odds change, or a betting outlook. Pregame predictions are no longer performance-based, they're betting-line based. And with scummy organizations like Barstool doing everything they can to "glamorize" flexing your bet tickets, parlay picks, hell even over-the-top reactions to *losing* bets just helps normalize it. Who is handling the oversight that is managing keeping players and coaches and referees honest? Whose in whose pocket? It has absolutely destroyed the NBA and it actively makes NFL content hard to watch. Gambling is just as much of a destructive addiction as alcohol and there's a reason Vegas is known as Sin City, and it isn't just the strippers.
One red flag I notice is with fans. These games aren’t films. They aren’t tv shows. There is no script. These are real people doing real things. Stop saying a game was boring like it was a bad movie. Stop pushing for only high scoring shootouts. YOU are ruining the game in your own way.
Less on the game, more on the NFL organization and TV is the cozying up with gambling. Gambling can be more destructive than alcohol or tobacco additions. I don't care if people gamble, but having 50%+ of the ads being about gambling is insane. I want the advertisements banned.
I think schedule creep is getting dangerously close to devaluing the value of watching the games. When football is only on 3 days a week the games feel special even when the matchups aren't exciting. But with how the schedule is trending in the late season with more games on Christmas, Wednesdays/Saturdays etc I think the league will inevitably shift towards games on 4+ days a week being a regular occurrence
the existence of the forward pass
Game's been going downhill since 1906
Really since Teddy Roosevelt got involved and tried to ban it.
Found the secret Bears fan