Open Letters: Dear NFL, It's not me, it's you.

Hello "The Shield."

Rough game last night.

In fact, Rough few years.

For all of the sturm und drang surrounding Colin Kaepernick, President Trump, your multi-Million dollar contract with the Military that's forcing all of this on us, my real problem with you of late is that your on-field product is increasingly unwatchable.

And violent.

By now, with all of the information that we have at our disposal surrounding concussions and CTE there's no reason that the 'kill shot' tackle is still a part of the game. There's no reason you haven't taken college football's admittedly flawed targeting rule and implemented it in a better way to clean up the game and prevent shit-shows like we saw last night from appearing on our TV.

I don't tune in to watch people get hurt, although I understand that's an unfortunate part of any sport, nor do I like listening to your paid analysts and team employees telling me, "It's just part of the game" or that it's "AFC North Football".

No, it's not.

Cheap shots and projectile "tackling" with the head down isn't a part of any football, nor should it be.

Now, granted, I give you that us, as fans, shoulder some of the blame. For a few years there we cheered mightily (and some still do) at "big hits" and ESPN ran "Jacked up" with players getting eight bells knocked out of them and we cheered. I think that all stopped though with the Junior Seau tragedy and it certainly has no place in the modern game.

The problem is that the "Modern NFL" game isn't all that good. You give us a slew of bad teams in prime time games in a league where maybe only a third of the teams put forward a really good product. You can't even fill a playoff bracket with 12 teams that deserve to be there.

Beyond the hits, the quality of play is atrocious. The coaching is overly conservative (Another field goal?) the offenses are stale and the defenses, when they're not busy knocking their opponents out, are about as sophisticated as the Wing-T offense of old.

There's little drama, an even smaller chance of upsets (have you seen how the favorites are doing in Vegas lately?) and no compelling reason to tune in.  In fact, there are more reasons to not watch your product than there are to spend most of my Sunday watching sub-par, poorly officiated, socially inept football players competing in a game that's feeling more like a grind than entertainment.

Everything you do is manufactured. You can't even get touchdown celebrations right. No one knows what a catch is or isn't any longer to the point that so-called "rules experts" for the networks are incorrect over half the time regarding the results of instant replay.

You've done a great job of creating an arbitrary rules framework for a game built on the precise. The result of this is an unwatchable product that drones on, 4 yard play after 4 yard play with the "wildcat" still being considered edgy. You're a copycat league, trailing behind college football innovation by around 5 years.

All of this and we haven't even mentioned Roger Gooddell yet.  Your commissioner seems to view the rules and norms of punishment and investigatory best practices to be annoyances to his wish to pursue and punish at his whim. But he's very good at negotiation apparently, which is why your labor contract is head and shoulder's more owner friendly than any other sport.

You think this is a good thing but the result is that there's a level of distrust between the players and the league that permeates every thing you do, every decision you make and taints every so-called "player friendly" action you take.

That you're mostly a bunch of unlikable sots only adds to the dysfunction. Every community outreach, charitable event that you hold feels forced, like you're only catering to the fans suddenly because you feel the need to after years of ignoring them.

The problem, NFL, is that many of us have decided that it's past time for us to start ignoring you.

I, for one, am finding better things to do on my Sundays, and I'm noticing that my life is no less fulfilled without you in it than it was when I was watching.

That should worry you, but I know it won't as long as the money is coming in and the taxpayers are still willing to be fleeced for Multi-Billion dollar shrines to your glory.

By the time you do worry it will probably be too late.  It might already be. (for you)