I’ve been watching the NFL since I was a kid, and I’ve been a die-hard New England Patriots fan since the late 90s. I’ve watched the NFL grow into a behemoth, capitalizing on the blood, sweat, and grit of its players for decades. I’ve cheered, I’ve shed tears (2007…), and considered Fall and Winter Sundays as “off-days” all the while. In fact, there was a point where I would turn off my phone, stay off the internet (beyond checking occasional fantasy updates), and just absorb myself in football from 9:30am to 8:30pm, stopping occasionally for food and the bathroom along the way. I would watch as many games as I could, regardless of team, regardless of time, regardless of relevance to the Patriots.
Fastforward to the present day, and just I don’t have the same lust for the game. Friends are shocked when I say I’m free on Sundays, and even my fiancée is surprised at how much unexcitable I am when watching games. This is something I’d never dreamed of: I’d rather putter around, go out, see friends, do whatever, rather than watch most NFL games. And I’m not alone. NFL ratings have plummeted this year. People blamed the election. That’s come and gone. People blamed other things on TV, such as an exciting MLB playoffs. That’s come and gone. So what gives?
A quick list of reasons off the top of my head why the NFL sucks:
- Referees suck. All sports fans complain about referees. That’s sports. But when a Patriots fan starts feeling sorry for the Buffalo Bills because the refs screwed them out of a game, something is wrong. And this is recurring. Every week, games are decided because of absolutely horrid officiating, and it’s not getting better. It takes away the intensity of the game when fans (and maybe even players) feel like a bad ref call or no-call is going to decide a game more than on-field play.
- Player safety is a joke. The commissioner and the league claim they care about player safety. Yet they’re trying to add more games. They have sloppy Thursday Night games where players have to throw themselves at each other without proper recuperation time. You have idiots like Vontaze Burfict and other blatantly dirty players who CLEARLY try to injure others, and they get slapped with fines instead of suspensions or bans. Huh?
- Speaking of Thursday Night games…I don’t want to watch football 3 days a week (and 4 when the season is nearing an end). I have other stuff going on. The product on Mondays and Thursdays usually sucks anyways, so I’m not spending 3 hours to watch commercials.
- Commercials. Oh my God. Touchdown-commercial-kickoff-commercial-one play-timeout-commercial. I’ve seen that sequence before. Cut down the damn commercials. With the increase in cord cutting (therefore, less DVR), the NFL can’t afford to be a commercial-fest. But I don’t expect Roger Goodell to understand that.
- Speaking of fines…punishments. The aforementioned Vontaze Burfict launches himself at someone’s head, tries to take out someone’s knees, and tries to stomp on someone’s ankle when that player is in a pile on the ground. And this repeat offender gets…a fine. A slap on the wrist. No wonder he keeps doing it. He’s like the bad toddler who knows he can get away with being a brat because his parents are too worried about other things like making an extra buck at work. Ray Rice gets 2 games for clocking his wife unconscious, yet players get 4 games for smoking weed or maybe vaguely having something to do with football air pressure. And Goodell doesn’t learn his lesson either. The Josh Brown thing? Why do the commissioner and the Giants owner DEFEND this guy after proof comes out that he’s beating the crap out of his wife?
- “No Fun League”. Let players celebrate touchdowns. This isn’t PeeWee football. People get paid to play this game. Is the other team getting butthurt because the winning team is showing off? Try stopping them.
- Bad games. The NFL doesn’t understand that it needs more flexibility in scheduling where it matters. No one wants to see the 5-6 Indianapolis Colts play the 3-8 New York Jets on Monday Night Football, yet here we are. I get TV stations get dibs on games on Sundays, but something needs to be done. I can guarantee you I won’t be watching that game, even if I have fantasy players in it. Even when a good team is on primetime, it’s often a blowout or just a crappy game (Seahawks-Cardinals 6-6 tie, anyone?)
- Bad games in bad places. Certain teams draw ratings. That’s the honest truth. The Patriots draw ratings. This season, the Cowboys draw ratings. Yet certain markets are stuck with teams that just don’t matter. Keep the Raiders in Norcal when they’re playing a junk team. Give the rest of California, the rest of the West Coast, an enjoyable game with two even teams, or a marquee team that everyone wants to see no matter what.
- Other sports. Basketball is getting more interesting, and stars are stepping up. Look what the Warriors have done for the NBA. Look what the Cavs did in the Finals to spark interest. Look what the Cubs did as a story for the MLB. I’m aware these other sports don’t sniff the NFL’s ratings most of the time, but as a guy who NEVER watched anything else when football was on, I’ll take a good NBA game now over a bad NFL game, which most are.
- The commonality with all this: the commissioner has to go. I won’t go in-depth here, but almost every bullet points directly relates to Roger Goodell being a shitty commissioner.
It’s not rocket science, NFL folks. The product is bad. The commissioner is an absolute disgrace, and a sorry excuse for a leader. There’s no equity in items that come from the league office. Fix your product before you start running off to England, Mexico, and China, or I promise you, more folks like me will happily stroll around a mall instead of watching football, which is a damn shame.
