Your take on the current state of the game

[sheajets]

I would have to say that while I am somewhat agitated at the direction the NFL has taken...I'm still hopelessly obsessed with the league. They have me hooked and they know it

I don't like how pitch and catch the league has become. Sound secondary play (and the looming threat of a bing thumper at safety scaring wide receivers) is totally gone. Receivers nowadays are these tiny gnats wearing the smallest equipment imaginable...doing olympic sprints with no resistance at the snap of the ball. Yardage is just being ripped off in chunks now. 3rd and 15 is nothing. 20 yards, 30 yards. Everything is free and easy. I miss big secondary collisions, I miss guys having to fight through tight coverage. For a while you had safeties still laying the boom on guys but...looks like the league has finally conditioned them to stop hitting (Calvin Pryor had a nice one on a Dolphin a few weeks ago, but it's still quite rare)

I don't even know how to interpret stats anymore. I'm still conditioned to seeing 3,000 yards passing a season and thinking "Yea, QB X threw for a good amount of yards"

Then I realize 4,000 yards literally means nothing. 4,500 yards is now the baseline for "A lot of yards"

Another thing I lament is how the NFL has essentially scrubbed the dirt and grime from the game. Sure their are grass fields and plenty of them, but the grass is cut super short and the way the fields are maintained you never see them get chewed up or nasty anymore. When is the last time you saw a dirty, muddy, beat up uniform? never. Every game looks like it's being played on sterile field turf. No more grass stains, no more mud.

One thing I'm on the fence about is QB protection. Nobody wants to see a game with middling backups completing 30% of their passes (think back to Jets-Cards 7-6 of 3 years ago) but they have to do something about the QB flopping. Eli Manning did it last night. When D players for the most part hold up but still make contact, you can't have NFL qb's flopping like a soccer player to draw flags.

Also I wonder, with all the insane catches we see nowadays (not just Beckham) how much these ridiculous gloves receivers wear have an impact. Not saying they're not talented...but I've been told by people in the know that the gloves a lot of these guys wear on the field essentially have suction cup effects. And the NFL likes this...the more circus catches they can promote the better.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/11/how-muc ... ing-gloves

[JWL]

I caught the very end of a Rick Reilly segment last night and even he was making one-handed catches with ease.

I dislike artificial fields and wish there was more dirt and mud in the sport. At least the Ravens are going back to grass. It really seems wrong that Notre Dame doesn't play on real grass anymore.

Calvin Pryor and Kam Chancellor have influenced games with big hits in recent seasons but there are not many safeties like them anymore. Many players cannot get away with hits anyway.

The sport is worse now in many ways. One would like to see a rival league started but that seems very unlikely because of the cost of running a football league and the safety worries.

[BD Sullivan]

One would like to see a rival league started but that seems very unlikely because of the cost of running a football league and the safety worries.

The biggest drawback here is that they'd have no TV contracts, since NBC, CBS and Fox all have deals with the NFL. ESPN (is the same thing as ABC Sports) also does, so they (along with all the Fox cable entities) are not going to show them. Who knows, perhaps streaming games might end up allowing some league to develop--although it would be a massive undertaking regardless, where few people would want to take the risk involved.

[Mark L. Ford]

One would like to see a rival league started but that seems very unlikely because of the cost of running a football league and the safety worries.

The only way that there would be a rival league is if the existing NFL was forced to break up into smaller units by a judgment in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. And given that mergers like ExxonMobil merger took place even during a very liberal presidential administration, I think the chances of an antitrust suit against the NFL range from "unlikely" to "never gonna happen". There will never be another independent challenger to the National Football League; the USFL had it relatively easy compared to what it would take now. Mere millionaires are no longer able to try their hand at this.

[mwald]

Well....despite all the ridiculous numbers, scoring has changed very little. Sure, it's crept up slightly the last couple years, but I think the late 1940s was still higher. And while passer rating has evolved (gotten higher) over the years, YPA hasn't, at least not materially. Strong organizations still win, and weak organizations don't. In that regard, nothing's really changed from a competitive standpoint. The details have changed, but the essence of the product hasn't.

Regarding Ford's point, agree it's doubtful something could compete with or replace the NFL if whoever attempted to take them on made that their specific goal. What's more likely to happen is something could come along that would render the NFL passe or uninteresting in comparison, like the UFC did to boxing.

[JWL]

I don't like how pitch and catch the league has become. Sound secondary play (and the looming threat of a bing thumper at safety scaring wide receivers) is totally gone. Receivers nowadays are these tiny gnats wearing the smallest equipment imaginable...doing olympic sprints with no resistance at the snap of the ball. Yardage is just being ripped off in chunks now. 3rd and 15 is nothing. 20 yards, 30 yards. Everything is free and easy. I miss big secondary collisions, I miss guys having to fight through tight coverage. For a while you had safeties still laying the boom on guys but...looks like the league has finally conditioned them to stop hitting (Calvin Pryor had a nice one on a Dolphin a few weeks ago, but it's still quite rare)

I want to see a team use multiple big backs (like Kansas City when they had Christian Okoye and Barry Word) and pound opponents. I did not do any research but I wouldn't be surprised if the average weight of defensive regulars has gone down the past few years. There are more defensive backs getting action these days and we are seeing some light linebackers like Deonne Bucannon and Mark Barron.

The most recent team that really tried to maximum the quarterback position and bludgeon opponents on the ground was maybe the 2009 Jets. Two years later the Jets tried to change their identity and it did not work.

Seems to me a team with a good ball protecting quarterback (not necessarily an elite QB; just one who doesn't fumble and throw interceptions too much) could commit to an old school running attack and be successful.

[Ronfitch]

I don't like how pitch and catch the league has become. Sound secondary play (and the looming threat of a bing thumper at safety scaring wide receivers) is totally gone. Receivers nowadays are these tiny gnats wearing the smallest equipment imaginable...doing olympic sprints with no resistance at the snap of the ball. Yardage is just being ripped off in chunks now. 3rd and 15 is nothing. 20 yards, 30 yards. Everything is free and easy. I miss big secondary collisions, I miss guys having to fight through tight coverage. For a while you had safeties still laying the boom on guys but...looks like the league has finally conditioned them to stop hitting (Calvin Pryor had a nice one on a Dolphin a few weeks ago, but it's still quite rare)

I want to see a team use multiple big backs (like Kansas City when they had Christian Okoye and Barry Word) and pound opponents. I did not do any research but I wouldn't be surprised if the average weight of defensive regulars has gone down the past few years. There are more defensive backs getting action these days and we are seeing some light linebackers like Deonne Bucannon and Mark Barron.

The most recent team that really tried to maximum the quarterback position and bludgeon opponents on the ground was maybe the 2009 Jets. Two years later the Jets tried to change their identity and it did not work.

Seems to me a team with a good ball protecting quarterback (not necessarily an elite QB; just one who doesn't fumble and throw interceptions too much) could commit to an old school running attack and be successful.

As amazed as I am on the throwing accuracy I see in the NFL, I also miss a two-back attack and a fullback who runs the ball, not just in for blocking. But the first NFL offense I followed was the Brockington-Lane Packer offense of the early '70s ... and that was more like a two FB formation.

[rhickok1109]

One would like to see a rival league started but that seems very unlikely because of the cost of running a football league and the safety worries.

The only way that there would be a rival league is if the existing NFL was forced to break up into smaller units by a judgment in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. And given that mergers like ExxonMobil merger took place even during a very liberal presidential administration, I think the chances of an antitrust suit against the NFL range from "unlikely" to "never gonna happen". There will never be another independent challenger to the National Football League; the USFL had it relatively easy compared to what it would take now. Mere millionaires are no longer able to try their hand at this.

Before the Department of Justice can file an antitrust lawsuit, congress would have to pass a bill removing the NFL's antitrust exemption. That's been threatened a few times in recent years, but there's never been sentiment in favor of doing it.

[James]

I still watch all the time, but the NFL has gotten so pussyfied, it's not even funny. You can't hit, if you touch the QB with your pinky, it's a 15 yard penalty. No mud, it's really sad if you ask me. Sometimes I wonder why I still watch game son Sunday.

[Bryan]

Well....despite all the ridiculous numbers, scoring has changed very little. Sure, it's crept up slightly the last couple years, but I think the late 1940s was still higher. And while passer rating has evolved (gotten higher) over the years, YPA hasn't, at least not materially. Strong organizations still win, and weak organizations don't. In that regard, nothing's really changed from a competitive standpoint. The details have changed, but the essence of the product hasn't.

I think the increase in scoring noticeable. Including this season, 4 of the 7 highest scoring seasons in NFL history have occurred in the last 4 seasons. I'd say that's a pretty significant change. From 1950-2015, the 9 of the top 10 highest net yards per pass attempt seasons have been 2015, 2014, 2011, 2010, 2013, 2012, etc....the lone exception being the 1962 season. To think that the NFL product hasn't changed in the last few seasons flies in the face of all quantifiable evidence.

I already made my thoughts known in the "integrity of the game" thread, but to sum up, the NFL has become too sterile for my taste. I find myself watching more football on Saturdays than Sundays now. If I feel the need to watch night football, I usually tune in to some midweek Bowling Green-Toledo MACtion as opposed to watching the terrible production known as Thursday Night NFL Football.