Disclaimer: I understand that the NFL has the most talent and the best players and the quality of said talent is way higher than College Football, that's not what I'm talking about here.
Real, live, NFL football that counts was played yesterday and the on-field product was ....... meh.
The most exciting game of the day, the Los Angeles Ram's 46-9 destruction of the Colts, was only so because it was funny seeing just how bad Scott Tolzein could be. Outside of that?
- Only two teams broke the 30 point barrier (The Lions [35] and the Eagles [30])
- Six teams couldn't muster 10 points (The Texans [7], Bengals[0], Colts [9], 49ers[3], Seahawks [9], and Giants[3]
- The Colts, Bengals and Texans all had greater than 4 turnovers.
- Only 3 games were decided by a single score.
The fact is the NFL is not only producing a lot of bad football, but it's producing boring football as well. Then there's the problem of the NFL's exclusive market issue. I live in Houston, so my only choice for NFL football on Sunday was either to watch a horrible Texans team, or spend money going to a sport's bar, or buy shitty DirectTV service, that I don't want, to pay a lot of money for a NFL package that I will only get to see if it's not raining.
Then, on Sunday Night, the league force-feeds us Giants/Cowboys for the umpteenth time.
Even worse, ESPN is continuing to punish us with it's "Opening week Monday Night Football Doubleheader" which means that one game will kick-off before many people are home from work, and the next will kick off after many people have gone to bed.
It's as if the NFL doesn't want us to watch.
Yes, I understand that there is a hard-floor for NFL ratings, that there are some die-hard souls who will watch it no matter what, in part because they've convinced themselves of the lie that "they're watching sports at the highest level".
I'd get that if what the NFL was putting on the field WAS the sport played at the highest level, but it's not. What the NFL is currently is the sport played without risk. And sport without risk is boring. No NFL coach will take 1/8th of the risks college football coaches take because they're going to lose their jobs if they do. No GM is going to risk trying to build a roster that would match a collegiate offensive skill-set.
And, even when they do (see: Carolina) every attempt is made to mold the players into the NFL norm, the run-the-same-six-plays-over-and-over again snooze-fest that is increasingly making viewers turn away. I know last Sunday that I found better things to do with my time.
During the first half of the Texans game I went and had a massage. During the 2nd half I went grocery shopping. During the afternoon game-window I took a nap, and during the Sunday Night Game I decided that the 2018 Miss America Pageant had more entertainment potential than the Giants at the Cowboys. I wasn't wrong (If you've never seen the "talent" segment of Miss America then you're missing one of the best awful-comedy bits in the world, plus, swimsuit round yo)
On Saturday mornings I wake up before 8 o'clock to turn on College Game Day and will frequently stay up past Midnight to watch the last televised game. This Saturday that game (Boise St @ Wazzu) ended at 2AM CT. It was a 3 OT thriller that involved a furious Wazzu comeback in the 4th quarter. There was nothing close to it on the TV on Sunday.
That's a problem for the NFL and judging by the ratings it's not one they're doing a good job addressing. It's very easy to blame Colin Kaepernick or the scourge of domestic violence for the league's TV problems but I think the heart of the issue is much more basic than that.
In short: The product on the field is just not all that compelling.
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