State of the NFL and Packers

I had a conversation with my neighbor about when to plant garlic.  

She feels pretty strongly I waited to long,  

I had a discussion with my accountant about taxes.

He said, "Don't worry, those are for the little people."

I had a client come in to talk about taxes.

He just kept rambling about how Hundley was accurate, his timing was off

turns out he was a moth

Ted Thompson is one of the most overrated people of all time. And I don't know if there's a close second.

Jerry Jones has hired Harvey Weinstein’s defense attorney to block Goodell’s contract extension. He’s prepared to sue the NFL. 

The NFL is going to go away alot sooner than people think. Incompetence and greed are not a sustainable model.  Owners to League Office to NFLPA. Clown show. 

Cuban wasn’t wrong. 

Fidel, Che or Raul?

I had antiworst over to my house once.

...what the fukk am I talking about......no I didn't.

antiworst posted:

Ted Thompson is one of the most overrated people of all time. And I don't know if there's a close second.

There's an Obama joke in there somewhere, but we don't talk politics here.

ChilliJon posted:

Jerry Jones has hired Harvey Weinstein’s defense attorney to block Goodell’s contract extension. He’s prepared to sue the NFL. 

The NFL is going to go away alot sooner than people think. Incompetence and greed are not a sustainable model.  Owners to League Office to NFLPA. Clown show. 

Cuban wasn’t wrong. 

All kidding aside.

You nailed it.

Self-inflicted wounds. There is no bigger N.F.L. (and football fan) than moi---literally 24 hours of watching football per weekend (and Mondays and Thursdays) Guess what?  I kinda don't care anymore.

Tough to care when the best players are on IR, when the fights on the field are more interesting than the game, when the old players who should be carrying on the legacy and who you'd like to revere have jello for brains, when it costs a couple hundred to attend a game and there's only two of you, when billionaire owners want bazillion-dollar stadiums from the pockets of middle-class fans... and that's just for starters. As much as I love the Pack, it's tough to be a fan of the NFL these days.

The NFL also has a millennial problem as well. Fewer and fewer young people are watching games, and that's a big problem. They find ticket prices way too high, beer prices way too high and just have other interests then sitting for 3 hours on a Sunday.

And with the arrogance that is these owners, by the time they do something about the above it's going to be too little too late.

True, PB. When I ask my high school students who watches football, maybe two hands go up in a class of 25. They don't know and they don't care.

Not sure how long I will last as an NFL Fan.  I can't stand the greed.  I am ready to bail - just not yet.  Close though.  Love the Packers too much, but soon: the NFL hate > Packer Love, and then it'll be time for me to do the ole good bye x4 thread.  That's if the Boss doesn't bail first.

Good Topic T!

MLB, NBA, etc had to change, they were losing viewers.  The NFL has been doing nothing but printing money, so they keep trying to print more.  This is why you get asinine ideas like London games or Thurs night games.  Nobody would complain if they were removed (in fact I'd bet most fans would like them gone) but they add to the bottom line of the NFL so they stay.

For me the biggest issues is the injuries.  There's just so many now.  It almost feels like whoever has the least injuries is the one who gets the farthest in the post season.  Add on to the fact that all the rule changes to focus on passing and not running means QB play is even more paramount and when you don't have a QB, you have nothing.  There's no balance anymore.  A Barry Sanders or Walter Payton can't carry a team anymore.  It's QB or bust.

I watch a lot less football now because half the key players are injured any given game and it's just 40 yard passes back and forth until the clock expires.  I exaggerate but only just.  It makes for hectic back-and-forth endings, sure, but it just means that usually some crappy officiating call ends up deciding the game.

I want the old Black and Blue division back.

I had a discussion with Rand Paul over lawn clippings.

packerboi posted:

The NFL also has a millennial problem as well. Fewer and fewer young people are watching games, and that's a big problem. They find ticket prices way too high, beer prices way too high and just have other interests then sitting for 3 hours on a Sunday.

And with the arrogance that is these owners, by the time they do something about the above it's going to be too little too late.

I think most of the $$ comes through the boob tube...and Millennials are total sports hounds. Well, when there not shopping for girlie jeans and perfume.

For the last 3-4 years I have been telling my friends, and I may have mentioned it here, that the NFL was on the verge of sliding downward and IMHO it is almost in a free-fall now.   I have watched only Packers games this season.  And I plan not to watch any other teams regular games for the rest of 2017.  

My reasons then and now remain the same.  And I am more convinced than ever the NFL is in steady decline and Roger Goodell is the helm.  

Here is why:

Too, too, too much money in the game and in the players pockets.  

Too much high cost for everyday fans to attend live or watch games at home.  Since Goodell has taken over the price of games has risen to levels far beyond reach of the average fan.  Tickets, TV viewing, souvenirs, accessories, etc...  And he has done nothing to address it.

Too much parity.  Another word for mediocrity.  Dynasty is a forgotten word in the NFL.  Here one day and gone tomorrow champions.  Sooner or later everybody is a winner.  However, there is nothing wrong with having a dynasty to build or to topple.

Too much over-regulation by convoluted, tedious and ambiguous rules and over-officiated interpretation which has diluted the spirit of the game.  What is a catch...What is a legal hit...What is a penalty....  Why is this one way and then why is this one the other way?

Too much technology.  Players using iPads on the sidelines which replaced the photographs that they used to page through on the bench.  Guys are getting paid millions to perform...it should be up to the player and his coach via sideline telephones to communicate and interpret and then execute what is happening on the field.  Leave live video pads and photos out of it.

Too many statistics, graphs and trivial minutia included game broadcasts.  Most of it is worse than the incessant tracking of pitch-counts in MLB.

Too many over-opinionated announcers and analysts and fluff sideline reporting and locker room reporting.  The NFL has left almost nothing for our imagination.  Joe Buck often interjects his opinions as he calls plays instantaneously before viewers have a chance to observe and make up their own minds as to what they just saw on TV.  Sidelines and locker rooms used to be sacred ground and had a somewhat mysterious and alluring fantasy.  We could only hope and wish to know what goes on there...now we see it all and hear it all.  No more mystery and no more attraction...big deal, yawn.

Too much football...EVERYWHERE!  Football is on Thursday through Monday.  All Day.  All teams look and play the same style.  Toss in college football too.  College games look the same as the NFL games.  No longer do we see regional teams playing their regional style of play.  They all play the pro-set style.  Someone here on X4 once posted a quote that said something like "the more you give people what they want, the less they want what you give them".   I reckon so...

Too much control lies with the players.  Limited OTAs, practices, drills and exercises have made for sloppy play, far more injuries and less commitment.  Star player are getting hurt and teams are losing important leadership players.  Coaches must try to coach under players contractual limitations.  

Too much free-agency.  Players move too much.  No loyalties from org or player leaves fans with sense of abandonment and thus leading to less loyalty.

Too many "entertainment"  elements intermingled in the game.  Special theme MNF, SNF songs, special videos, special treatment for players.  We see the same cameos of all the same players.  Boring.  Half-time shows...boring.

Too many second and third chances given to players/orgs who violate rules.

Too many man-hugs on the field.  Too many hair-buns.  Hard to figure how these guys can play such a violent game against each other and then smile, man-hug and shake hands...probably go out to dinner afterwards in their girlie jeans.  

Too much political crap allowed  into the games.  The anti-anthem demonstrations are truly a pathetic display by some persons who do not understand just how insignificant they are compared to the real heroes who have fought, sacrificed, died and given much of their lives to defend America.

 

I have been a Packers fan since the 60s.  But seeing what has been happening to the NFL the last several years and witnessing now in this season has really tested my conviction.  In my business I have the daily opportunity to speak with many people and most have echoed some of what I wrote above.  I don't visit X4 much anymore because the NFL is just not as compelling as it once was.  

Like I said earlier, I will watch the Packers out of nostalgic loyalty to the Green Bay Packers and to Wisconsin.  But as for the other 31 teams, I won't give them any devoted time this year.  Who knows about next year?

THIS!

 

Too much football...EVERYWHERE!  Football is on Thursday through Monday.  All Day.  All teams look and play the same style.  Toss in college football too.  College games look the same as the NFL games.  No longer do we see regional teams playing their regional style of play.  They all play the pro-set style.  Someone here on X4 once posted a quote that said something like "the more you give people what they want, the less they want what you give them".   I reckon so...

 

.....people talked 20 years ago about overexposure & now it is coming to fruition. Year-around talk shows, fantasy football, games on 4 days a week...just like the regular news, everyone is looking for a story & negative sells, when you get this much scrutiny, you are going to get a lot of negativity 

That's the thing-  I watched a lot of college football this past Saturday.  Why?  Look at the matchups and the outcomes!   I'm not an Iowa or O$U fan but that was fun to watch.  Michigan State and Penn State was entertaining.  OU and Okie State was even better.   The rivalries and storylines certainly make a difference.

The NFL used to capture my attention like that but if the Packers aren't playing I rarely watch.  I happened to tune in to Atlanta and Carolina and quickly went to something else. And that was supposed to be one of the better matchups of the weekend. 

 

Indeed - Goodell and the owners got greedy and somewhere along the line lost the understanding of the value of scarcity. The market saturation in all dimensions has far more to do with this decline than national anthem scapegoat being tossed about. In fact, I really don't recall the anthem being televised except at the premier championship games.

I like the game and when the Packers are in the hunt for the SB, I like to pay attention to all the games to understand how that affects the Packers. Now that they are a laughing stock, I only pay attention to the Packers game, and anyone I think that can beat the Patriots.

FLPACKER posted:

THIS!

 

Too much football...EVERYWHERE!  Football is on Thursday through Monday.  All Day.  All teams look and play the same style.  Toss in college football too.  College games look the same as the NFL games.  No longer do we see regional teams playing their regional style of play.  They all play the pro-set style.  Someone here on X4 once posted a quote that said something like "the more you give people what they want, the less they want what you give them".   I reckon so...

 

.....people talked 20 years ago about overexposure & now it is coming to fruition. Year-around talk shows, fantasy football, games on 4 days a week...just like the regular news, everyone is looking for a story & negative sells, when you get this much scrutiny, you are going to get a lot of negativity 

THIS is the answer to me.  If you think about it you get the NFL on Thursday night, Sunday during the day, Sunday night, and Monday night.  And you have college football Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I am the biggest football fan in the world and it is just being oversaturated.  Business 101 is that you give the consumer just enough to make them way hungry for more and the hungrier they are the more they will buy from you.  The NFl is in danger of over saturating itself with so many things and I think that is turning fans away.  

Other factors to me is FFL which changes the watching habits of football fans.  Again I am the biggest fan in the world but it has changed how I watch the game.

Parity.  I think right now one of the things that is happening is extreme parity.  You don't have a team or two on top that captures our hatred.  sure the Pats are good I think you can see them starting to corrode a bit and are sliding back to the pack.  There just aren't compelling teams right now.

And my last thought is that I do not want to even go anywhere near the politics of these anthem protests.  All I will say about it is that MANY of the fans I know all they want is 3 hours away from the daily politics and just want sports.  For those few hours a day many of us just want to get away from that.

 

 

Where would the NFL be without fantasy football.  The only reason I pay attention to any games other than the Packers is to see how bad my fantasy team did this weekend.

College football doesn't have fantasy football ( I know it exists, but it is not why people watch the games) and I find myself intrigued by games between teams I barely care about.

4 preseason games is utter bull**** as well. Especially when a key player (see Jordy Nelson) can blow an ACL in a meaningless game and derail a season. Cut them down to 2.

Thursday games are also ridiculous. Bodies cannot heal from a Sunday game. They just can't.

And then I wonder if players are secretly juicing or taking something that's not showing up in drug testing that's causing all these damn non-contact injuries. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. but I swear I cannot remember a time in the NFL where players who are seemingly just standing there or making the slightest physical move blows an ACL or tears an Achilles tendon.

Quinton Rollins was literally just standing in EZ and his Achilles is blown. Huh? What? Bulaga's ACL tear also non contact. Hamstrings are taking forever to heal when you have a guy like Morgan Burnett with a hammy out for weeks who then can't last 3 quarters and now has a pulled groin.

You see it all over the NFL.

It just doesn't make sense.

They are not allowed to practice as hard as they used to. That is on the players.

Injuries.....

I get that everyone is more careful with injured players.  The days of "rub some dirt on it" are long gone.  I understand the concern about concussions....

But I am sorry, when every week finds most of the games being played by back-ups it gets old fast. (and I don't mean just the Packers).

I have always hated the way players jump around in MLB.  The Brewers used to have a different washed up 2nd baseman every year (Dickie Thon, Willie Randolph...).  It's now the same thing in the NFL, just its different players every week.  It is difficult to grow an attachment to players who are constantly sitting out for weeks at a time.

vitaflo posted:

MLB, NBA, etc had to change, they were losing viewers.  The NFL has been doing nothing but printing money, so they keep trying to print more.  This is why you get asinine ideas like London games or Thurs night games.  Nobody would complain if they were removed (in fact I'd bet most fans would like them gone) but they add to the bottom line of the NFL so they stay.

For me the biggest issues is the injuries.  There's just so many now.  It almost feels like whoever has the least injuries is the one who gets the farthest in the post season.  Add on to the fact that all the rule changes to focus on passing and not running means QB play is even more paramount and when you don't have a QB, you have nothing.  There's no balance anymore.  A Barry Sanders or Walter Payton can't carry a team anymore.  It's QB or bust.

I watch a lot less football now because half the key players are injured any given game and it's just 40 yard passes back and forth until the clock expires.  I exaggerate but only just.  It makes for hectic back-and-forth endings, sure, but it just means that usually some crappy officiating call ends up deciding the game.

I want the old Black and Blue division back.

When you negate an essential position in the scheme of football to a bit part, something is wrong.  Pretty much agree.  I miss bruising defensive battles instead of one or two teams having note worthy defenses.  

GBFanForLife posted:

They are not allowed to practice as hard as they used to. That is on the players.

The product on the field has suffered directly as a result of this. This is how they’re losing the old timers and football purists. This combined with the Thursday night product and the raging dumpster fire that is and you have crappy football. Good football trumps frequent football every time. 

This will not happen, but if they wanted to put the best product on the field, they'd reduced the number of games and plan for more rest. You could set up a system where the Thursday games were only played after a bye week for both teams previously so that they had 10 days on both sides of that game. Then you'd get good football instead of what usually ends up happening in the Thursday games which is half the guys can barely move because they are still beat up from the previous Sunday game.

Play about 12-14 games with a couple of byes, 2-3 Thursday games built around those byes, and the players would be much healthier. I'd rather see less football with the best players than 16 games with some scrubs.

The old timers played OL at 240-250 pounds. The LBs were in the low 200s. The weightlifting and the PEDs (legal or illegal) put a lot of stress on the joints and tendons/ligaments.

 

Football is becoming a doomed sport for many reasons. Concussions and injuries are a big reason. The League taking the game away from the fans with new definitions of what a catch is, to the player with the ball making a "football move" after the catch, to bad officiating inserting itself into a game to take away momentum from a team about to score. The greed associated with the billionaire owners, the price of publicly paid for stadia, ticket pricing and merchandising costs. I can see players being excluded from the "greed" conversation, to a point, when any game can be the last game they ever play. An exception may be on draft day when unproven draftee rookies sign huge contracts worth millions before they ever step onto the field and that goes for other sports, as well.

Too many tents on the sidelines! I loved it when the players had to sprint to the lockerroom or peed/shat their pants!

That scenario may help the week-to-week injury situation but the real problem is the blue chips on IR.  Their injuries aren't typically from fatigue or wear and tear, especially in the first 8 weeks of the season.  I don't think there is a viable solution to that problem other than genetically engineering muscles, tendons and ligaments not to give out.  Sometimes when doing nothing out of the ordinary.  

Rampant free agency and fantasy football took the heart and soul out of the NFL for me.  

I never play ff but when you're watching a GB game in a crowd and a fan gets pumped because an opposing player on his fantasy team scores and nobody bats an eye, I get really lost.  FF is the antithesis of the game.  

This thread is a great read! I actually like parity, because that's what makes fans interested, that their team can compete for the playoffs every year (unless you're the Browns). But I think the NFL is suffering from two main things: scarcity of players, and oversaturation of games. The oversaturation thing has been covered above. As for scarcity, there are just not enough QBs to fill 32 teams in a QB-driven league. And if the QB is the key, then having a capable backup is essential. There aren't enough of those to go around either. Finally, with the increase in attention and caution with head trauma, injuries, etc., there is not enough roster depth to compensate when starters are held out or are on IR. The NFL never will, but they need to pare down the number of teams by at least 2.

MichiganPacker posted:

You could set up a system where the Thursday games were only played after a bye week for both teams previously so that they had 10 days on both sides of that game. Then you'd get good football instead of what usually ends up happening in the Thursday games which is half the guys can barely move because they are still beat up from the previous Sunday game.

 

I've been wanting this for a couple of years now.  Get rid of 2 pre-season games, go back to 2 byes per team, and it wouldn't be too hard to set up the Thursday schedule (since they are here to stay) so the two teams are coming off the bye.

The National Anthem protests did not help any.

The overexposure was in response to what was seen to be a cash cow for the league and the networks. It was overplayed.

Fantasy Football pulls some fans way from being devoted to a single team.

And due to population mobility people don’t grow up with a single team.

 

 

50k Club posted:

 As for scarcity, there are just not enough QBs to fill 32 teams in a QB-driven league. And if the QB is the key, then having a capable backup is essential. There aren't enough of those to go around either. Finally, with the increase in attention and caution with head trauma, injuries, etc., there is not enough roster depth to compensate when starters are held out or are on IR. The NFL never will, but they need to pare down the number of teams by at least 2.

It'll never happen, but I'd actually drop the league by 4 teams. Shut down franchises like the Browns who are sucking up talent only to piss it away and are constantly horrible and teams like the Chargers, Jacksonville where fans simply don't go to games or watch them.

But again. that would require an ego check of owners. That ain't happening.

Lotta old guard type's in the owner list. Next TV deal/negotiations will be interesting, especially with the half trillion $$ behemoth Amazon in the discussion. 

The owners are pushing hard to make sure Goodell’s next contract is not guaranteed. They want it to be purely performace based predicated on hitting revenue targets and profit. 

Think about that for just a second. A league with a commissioner who is solely focused on driving revenue. You think it’s all about money today? 

Apparently Goodell is pissed the owners are trying to rally support amongst themselves to make this happen. He feels slighted that he’s made all of them a lot of money and now they want him to go on a pay as you go arrangement. 

Every player contract isn’t guaranteed. But these guys have no time to quarrel about that. 

Also, a point was made earlier about being disenfranchised with the NFL based on the money the players are being paid. I can’t disagree with this strongly enough. Brutal profession. Thursday football has stressed them even further. Short career lifespan. You’re body is essentially broken if you happen to make it past your rookie deal. 

Bottom line is the NFL becomes a little more broke and closer to irrelevancy every year.

How the thinkers in the league haven’t come to grips that Thursday Night football needs to be nuked immediately is mind blowing. Every piece of data says it’s **** concept that isn’t working. For anyone. 

But if the owners get their non-guaranteed contract with incentive escalators for the Ginger we might see Friday Night Football as well. 

How about game coverage?  Really who is an announcer that you would tune in to hear?  It may sound stupid to some but remember when we got excited on this board when we got Madden and Summerall?  I may be showing my age but I enjoyed the TV broadcast more when it was simpler.

Development of players is another thing for me.  Not to get in to comparing NFL schemes to college schemes but I think with all the spread offenses in the college game I do believe it might be harder for players to make that massive jump.  Not all of them of course but I have read and heard some coaches/GM's say that even getting decent offensive linemen is tough right now because many don't even learn how to work out of a 3 point stance and run block anyone and that is one of the reasons offensive line play is kind of crappy right now. So many may disagree but I think the style of players in the college game is struggling to catch up when they get to the NFL and I think that is hurting the product on the field.

I for one don't think NFL football is doomed and it will go away but I do believe that in say a decade or so the game will be very different and we won't even recognize it.  I think it will be very flag football like down the road.