NFL, Cowboys, and Football all feel "off" to me this season

[Redball Express]

NFL / Cowboys / Football all feel "off" to me this season and I wonder if we'll look back at the 2017 season someday as being the year where things started going south in a big way. Random thoughts on this topic:

• The incredible unfairness of the NFL's prosecution (so to speak) of the Zeke Elliot suspension. I don't think Elliot is a choir boy, however, in this country we strongly believe that someone is "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't think anyone has any faith the NFL has any more insights on Zeke's innocence / guilt than the legal system did

• Unexciting football. The Salary Cap, Parity, whatever you want to call it -- there are really no great/dominant teams with the exception of <maybe> the Patriots. It's hard to hate other teams with a passion like yesteryear.

• Extreme emphasis on offensive football and passing in general. I think they've gone too far with it.

• Watering down of football -- NFL games on Thursday Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, and Monday Night might be one day to many for me. I could do without Thursday night football

• The anthem thing. I will refrain stating my opinion on this other than to say the whole thing, top to bottom, is a huge black-eye for the players, owners, and the NFL. Putting the actual act aside for a moment, the players and NFL front office, and NFL league office have handled it horribly

• NFL head injuries (concussions) changing the way football is viewed by kids and parents of kids. I see a trend where I live where parents (especially dads) no longer urge their boys to play football. Most of them, and as a father of a 12 year old I fall into this category, am <OK> if they just stick to soccer / basketball / etc. Striving to play in the NFL someday is no longer a wonderful thing when we are finding the 50-75% of NFL players retire with CTE

• Beyond kids not opting to play football, my limited view of my son and his friend group (all 12-13 years old) is NONE of them care about the NFL. They are all passionate about the NBA and generally speaking I think the NBA is doing a great job of tailoring their sport to today's youth. Basketball, like soccer, is an infinitely more approachable sport than football. Anybody can play basketball or soccer to a certain extent. My main point here is the general sadness that my son doesn't seem to care, despite my best efforts, about the NFL and I don't get to enjoy the experience with him. I end up watching NBA games with him, the NBA will never be anything but slightly interesting to me

• Removing violence (bit hits, tackling a QB low, etc) from the game IMHO is taking a slow toll on the game. Don't get me wrong, each of these things taken by itself, seems like a good decision. Having said that, the game almost seems to be trending to towards flag football.

Sorry for the rant. It's probably just me, however, the game seems to be losing some of it's luster for me. I am less excited about Sundays. I care MUCH LESS about watching football outside of the Cowboys playing than ever before. Just feels weird.

Anybody else feeling this way?

Having been a fan since 1965..

I have seen this team have to overcome adversities.

Many of them..

And the silver lining has always been the team comes back and wins.

better than before.

I can remember the Meredith-Morton debate..

the Morton-Staubach debate..

the Danny White era with multiple losses in the Confernce games

consecutive losses in '66-'67 in the Championship games..

the '71 loss in the SB then the '72 SB win..

so I just don't get to excited.

The leaders on this team have to hold things together.

I believe we can do it.

In 2014 we were 2 games behind the Eagles with 4 to play and won the Division.

That was not long ago and we had no DAK or Zeke.

So I say relax and wait for the fat lady to sing before we worry.

 

[logan]

I felt the same way about basketball after the 2006 NBA Finals. No one will ever be able to convince me that series wasn't rigged.

 

[StarBoyz83]

I felt the same way about basketball after the 2006 NBA Finals. No one will ever be able to convince me that series wasn't rigged.

Don't know about 2006 but the 2011 finals sure seemed rigged.

 

[Echo9]

Having been a fan since 1965..

I have seen this team have to overcome adversities.

Many of them..

And the silver lining has always been the team comes back and wins.

better than before.

I can remember the Meredith-Morton debate..

the Morton-Staubach debate..

the Danny White era with multiple losses in the Confernce games

consecutive losses in '66-'67 in the Championship games..

the '71 loss in the SB then the '72 SB win..

so I just don't get to excited.

The leaders on this team have to hold things together.

I believe we can do it.

In 2014 we were 2 games behind the Eagles with 4 to play and won the Division.

That was not long ago and we had no DAK or Zeke.

So I say relax and wait for the fat lady to sing before we worry.

I think you may have missed the OP's point. It's not about worrying if the Cowboys will get better, It's an overall concern (and surprise) to realize that it simply doesn't matter much anymore. Not about "believing we can do it." but about not caring much if we do or don't - and feeling down about realizing that.

That's just how I took it anyway.

 

[Zordon]

For me, the Dez catch/non-catch against Green Bay was a real tipping point. It was the start of my descent.

Bingo.

The fact that Blandino still jokes about that call on twitter really turns me off to this farce of a league.

 

[Zordon]

Does anybody know if fantasy football participation has gone down this year?

 

[Ranching]

NFL / Cowboys / Football all feel "off" to me this season and I wonder if we'll look back at the 2017 season someday as being the year where things started going south in a big way. Random thoughts on this topic:

• The incredible unfairness of the NFL's prosecution (so to speak) of the Zeke Elliot suspension. I don't think Elliot is a choir boy, however, in this country we strongly believe that someone is "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't think anyone has any faith the NFL has any more insights on Zeke's innocence / guilt than the legal system did

• Unexciting football. The Salary Cap, Parity, whatever you want to call it -- there are really no great/dominant teams with the exception of <maybe> the Patriots. It's hard to hate other teams with a passion like yesteryear.

• Extreme emphasis on offensive football and passing in general. I think they've gone too far with it.

• Watering down of football -- NFL games on Thursday Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, and Monday Night might be one day to many for me. I could do without Thursday night football

• The anthem thing. I will refrain stating my opinion on this other than to say the whole thing, top to bottom, is a huge black-eye for the players, owners, and the NFL. Putting the actual act aside for a moment, the players and NFL front office, and NFL league office have handled it horribly

• NFL head injuries (concussions) changing the way football is viewed by kids and parents of kids. I see a trend where I live where parents (especially dads) no longer urge their boys to play football. Most of them, and as a father of a 12 year old I fall into this category, am <OK> if they just stick to soccer / basketball / etc. Striving to play in the NFL someday is no longer a wonderful thing when we are finding the 50-75% of NFL players retire with CTE

• Beyond kids not opting to play football, my limited view of my son and his friend group (all 12-13 years old) is NONE of them care about the NFL. They are all passionate about the NBA and generally speaking I think the NBA is doing a great job of tailoring their sport to today's youth. Basketball, like soccer, is an infinitely more approachable sport than football. Anybody can play basketball or soccer to a certain extent. My main point here is the general sadness that my son doesn't seem to care, despite my best efforts, about the NFL and I don't get to enjoy the experience with him. I end up watching NBA games with him, the NBA will never be anything but slightly interesting to me

• Removing violence (bit hits, tackling a QB low, etc) from the game IMHO is taking a slow toll on the game. Don't get me wrong, each of these things taken by itself, seems like a good decision. Having said that, the game almost seems to be trending to towards flag football.

Sorry for the rant. It's probably just me, however, the game seems to be losing some of it's luster for me. I am less excited about Sundays. I care MUCH LESS about watching football outside of the Cowboys playing than ever before. Just feels weird.

Anybody else feeling this way?

I appreciate your views, me personally, I just enjoy football. All the off the field crap is a downer, but i dont let it bother me. As a former coach, I've seen a lot of off the field stufff and I just worried about what I could control. Like a friend of mine used to say, Just Play Football!

 

[haleyrules]

So many great posts regarding the decline of the NFL product. Its hard to add more. When the league decided to remove or reduce the hard hits and basically degrade the defenses it killed a lot of interest in the game for me. Since, I enjoyed the Defensive part of the sport. It seems to me that this was driven by a desire of the owners to increase the TD's and offensive sizzle aspect of the game and this was a degradation of the fundamentals of the original design. So for those that watched the game for the tough defenses the game has become much ,much less enjoyable.

 

[Ranching]

So many great posts regarding the decline of the NFL product. Its hard to add more. When the league decided to remove or reduce the hard hits and basically degrade the defenses it killed a lot of interest in the game for me. Since, I enjoyed the Defensive part of the sport. It seems to me that this was driven by a desire of the owners to increase the TD's and offensive sizzle aspect of the game and this was a degradation of the fundamentals of the original design. So for those that watched the game for the tough defenses the game has become much ,much less enjoyable.

It's not only the NFL. Texas HS football is only allowed 90 minutes of contact a week.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

I'm still watching. I'm still enjoying. Still great games being played.

If anything has sucked this year it's all the injuries to great players.

 

[lurkercowboy]

I feel the same as many of you. The interest just isn't there like in previous years. I wonder what is going on for so many of us to feel this way? Is there something in the water or air or the zeitgeist or what? I used to watch every game available and consumed all NFL news I could find. Now I watch cowboys games and maybe a few plays here and there of other games. Interesting to see it is not just me. Has the NFL changed or have we?

 

[landryscorner]

All I have watched is cowboys highlights I haven't even watched one single whole game yet..and I have not watched any other games from other teams this season a first for me also.

 

[Cowboysfan917]

I honestly think all of these reasons will cost goodell his job. He was not proactive enough to several issues and sometimes not even reactive

 

[Everson24]

NFL / Cowboys / Football all feel "off" to me this season and I wonder if we'll look back at the 2017 season someday as being the year where things started going south in a big way. Random thoughts on this topic:

• The incredible unfairness of the NFL's prosecution (so to speak) of the Zeke Elliot suspension. I don't think Elliot is a choir boy, however, in this country we strongly believe that someone is "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't think anyone has any faith the NFL has any more insights on Zeke's innocence / guilt than the legal system did

• Unexciting football. The Salary Cap, Parity, whatever you want to call it -- there are really no great/dominant teams with the exception of <maybe> the Patriots. It's hard to hate other teams with a passion like yesteryear.

• Extreme emphasis on offensive football and passing in general. I think they've gone too far with it.

• Watering down of football -- NFL games on Thursday Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, and Monday Night might be one day to many for me. I could do without Thursday night football

• The anthem thing. I will refrain stating my opinion on this other than to say the whole thing, top to bottom, is a huge black-eye for the players, owners, and the NFL. Putting the actual act aside for a moment, the players and NFL front office, and NFL league office have handled it horribly

• NFL head injuries (concussions) changing the way football is viewed by kids and parents of kids. I see a trend where I live where parents (especially dads) no longer urge their boys to play football. Most of them, and as a father of a 12 year old I fall into this category, am <OK> if they just stick to soccer / basketball / etc. Striving to play in the NFL someday is no longer a wonderful thing when we are finding the 50-75% of NFL players retire with CTE

• Beyond kids not opting to play football, my limited view of my son and his friend group (all 12-13 years old) is NONE of them care about the NFL. They are all passionate about the NBA and generally speaking I think the NBA is doing a great job of tailoring their sport to today's youth. Basketball, like soccer, is an infinitely more approachable sport than football. Anybody can play basketball or soccer to a certain extent. My main point here is the general sadness that my son doesn't seem to care, despite my best efforts, about the NFL and I don't get to enjoy the experience with him. I end up watching NBA games with him, the NBA will never be anything but slightly interesting to me

• Removing violence (bit hits, tackling a QB low, etc) from the game IMHO is taking a slow toll on the game. Don't get me wrong, each of these things taken by itself, seems like a good decision. Having said that, the game almost seems to be trending to towards flag football.

Sorry for the rant. It's probably just me, however, the game seems to be losing some of it's luster for me. I am less excited about Sundays. I care MUCH LESS about watching football outside of the Cowboys playing than ever before. Just feels weird.

Anybody else feeling this way?

I've felt this way too. I started feeling this way when it appeared that the NFL was on a witch hunt and had their minds made up that they were going to hang him no matter what.
I used to watch all the pregame shows too and now I rarely watch any during the week.The game itself is a terrible product also. They are taking hitting out of the game, the limited padded practices cause injuries and terrible tackling.

Far too many commercials and all the flags and replays just slow it down even more. And maybe the most disgusting thing I see about the game is the biased officiating. In our game against the Commanders, there was little dought that the officials got the message from some higher-ups to keep the Commanders in the game due to all their injuries.Some of those calls against us were just a little too obvious. The Dez catch still irks me to this day. If anyone doesn't think we get shafted by the refs have never sat down and watched the calls the Steelers get. It seems every Sunday evening I stop and wonder why I wasted valuable time with this watered down, corrupt and biased league. I am so ready to watch the whole thing burn to the ground.

Not long ago I refused to think that the NFL was fixed. Now I feel like I did when I was first told that there was no Santa Claus. I want Santa again and I want my 1970s-1990's NFL back again too.

 

[waving monkey]

NFL / Cowboys / Football all feel "off" to me this season and I wonder if we'll look back at the 2017 season someday as being the year where things started going south in a big way. Random thoughts on this topic:

• The incredible unfairness of the NFL's prosecution (so to speak) of the Zeke Elliot suspension. I don't think Elliot is a choir boy, however, in this country we strongly believe that someone is "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't think anyone has any faith the NFL has any more insights on Zeke's innocence / guilt than the legal system did

• Unexciting football. The Salary Cap, Parity, whatever you want to call it -- there are really no great/dominant teams with the exception of <maybe> the Patriots. It's hard to hate other teams with a passion like yesteryear.

• Extreme emphasis on offensive football and passing in general. I think they've gone too far with it.

• Watering down of football -- NFL games on Thursday Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, and Monday Night might be one day to many for me. I could do without Thursday night football

• The anthem thing. I will refrain stating my opinion on this other than to say the whole thing, top to bottom, is a huge black-eye for the players, owners, and the NFL. Putting the actual act aside for a moment, the players and NFL front office, and NFL league office have handled it horribly

• NFL head injuries (concussions) changing the way football is viewed by kids and parents of kids. I see a trend where I live where parents (especially dads) no longer urge their boys to play football. Most of them, and as a father of a 12 year old I fall into this category, am <OK> if they just stick to soccer / basketball / etc. Striving to play in the NFL someday is no longer a wonderful thing when we are finding the 50-75% of NFL players retire with CTE

• Beyond kids not opting to play football, my limited view of my son and his friend group (all 12-13 years old) is NONE of them care about the NFL. They are all passionate about the NBA and generally speaking I think the NBA is doing a great job of tailoring their sport to today's youth. Basketball, like soccer, is an infinitely more approachable sport than football. Anybody can play basketball or soccer to a certain extent. My main point here is the general sadness that my son doesn't seem to care, despite my best efforts, about the NFL and I don't get to enjoy the experience with him. I end up watching NBA games with him, the NBA will never be anything but slightly interesting to me

• Removing violence (bit hits, tackling a QB low, etc) from the game IMHO is taking a slow toll on the game. Don't get me wrong, each of these things taken by itself, seems like a good decision. Having said that, the game almost seems to be trending to towards flag football.

Sorry for the rant. It's probably just me, however, the game seems to be losing some of it's luster for me. I am less excited about Sundays. I care MUCH LESS about watching football outside of the Cowboys playing than ever before. Just feels weird.

Anybody else feeling this way?

Perry this is a well written piece and I'm on board.
The CTE point has me concerned also. In my later years its beginning to look quit damaging to young men for my pleasure.
Like all of you I love this game.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

So many great posts regarding the decline of the NFL product. Its hard to add more. When the league decided to remove or reduce the hard hits and basically degrade the defenses it killed a lot of interest in the game for me. Since, I enjoyed the Defensive part of the sport. It seems to me that this was driven by a desire of the owners to increase the TD's and offensive sizzle aspect of the game and this was a degradation of the fundamentals of the original design. So for those that watched the game for the tough defenses the game has become much ,much less enjoyable.

The whole point of football was offense and defense. What fun is it if it's just offense all the time. Go play Madden for that. I miss the way football was played back in the 70's and 80's.

 

[Staubacher]

Does anybody know if fantasy football participation has gone down this year?

Honestly I think fantasy football is the only thing holding the NFL together at this point. Hardly anyone I know cares about the games, just the individual players. And they can follow their stats without watching the game.

The NFL will never be what it was. Everything changes.

 

[haleyrules]

The whole point of football was offense and defense. What fun is it if it's just offense all the time. Go play Madden for that. I miss the way football was played back in the 70's and 80's.

Amen.

 

[Shake_Tiller]

Frost --

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

 

[coult44]

NFL / Cowboys / Football all feel "off" to me this season and I wonder if we'll look back at the 2017 season someday as being the year where things started going south in a big way. Random thoughts on this topic:

• The incredible unfairness of the NFL's prosecution (so to speak) of the Zeke Elliot suspension. I don't think Elliot is a choir boy, however, in this country we strongly believe that someone is "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't think anyone has any faith the NFL has any more insights on Zeke's innocence / guilt than the legal system did

• Unexciting football. The Salary Cap, Parity, whatever you want to call it -- there are really no great/dominant teams with the exception of <maybe> the Patriots. It's hard to hate other teams with a passion like yesteryear.

• Extreme emphasis on offensive football and passing in general. I think they've gone too far with it.

• Watering down of football -- NFL games on Thursday Night, Sunday, Sunday Night, and Monday Night might be one day to many for me. I could do without Thursday night football

• The anthem thing. I will refrain stating my opinion on this other than to say the whole thing, top to bottom, is a huge black-eye for the players, owners, and the NFL. Putting the actual act aside for a moment, the players and NFL front office, and NFL league office have handled it horribly

• NFL head injuries (concussions) changing the way football is viewed by kids and parents of kids. I see a trend where I live where parents (especially dads) no longer urge their boys to play football. Most of them, and as a father of a 12 year old I fall into this category, am <OK> if they just stick to soccer / basketball / etc. Striving to play in the NFL someday is no longer a wonderful thing when we are finding the 50-75% of NFL players retire with CTE

• Beyond kids not opting to play football, my limited view of my son and his friend group (all 12-13 years old) is NONE of them care about the NFL. They are all passionate about the NBA and generally speaking I think the NBA is doing a great job of tailoring their sport to today's youth. Basketball, like soccer, is an infinitely more approachable sport than football. Anybody can play basketball or soccer to a certain extent. My main point here is the general sadness that my son doesn't seem to care, despite my best efforts, about the NFL and I don't get to enjoy the experience with him. I end up watching NBA games with him, the NBA will never be anything but slightly interesting to me

• Removing violence (bit hits, tackling a QB low, etc) from the game IMHO is taking a slow toll on the game. Don't get me wrong, each of these things taken by itself, seems like a good decision. Having said that, the game almost seems to be trending to towards flag football.

Sorry for the rant. It's probably just me, however, the game seems to be losing some of it's luster for me. I am less excited about Sundays. I care MUCH LESS about watching football outside of the Cowboys playing than ever before. Just feels weird.

Anybody else feeling this way?

Agree 10000%

We blasted Mark Cuban when he told us this would happen.