A league of quicksand we didn't create

[Rockport]

Never have I enjoyed a football season less. I'm ready for the 2017 season to just end.

I'm up to here with Zeke talk. Jerry is now suing anything that moves, weeks after being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I've learned more, and now know less, than I ever have about the US judicial system. Colin Kaepernick has been anointed as the Dr. Martin Luther Unitas of football. Flags are flying out of referee pockets like they're wrapped in fire ants. Targeting hits are now grounds for Harvey Weinstein scorn.

And all the while, the games are just putrid. Bad football by dudes from college who aren't prepared for NFL football. Teams no longer practice for more than 10 minutes at a time. Hamstrings are getting pulled more than Harvey Weinstein's....oops, already used that one.

This seems like a conflation of so many related and unrelated events, movements, and issues all coming to a collective head simultaneously. It's been brewing inside and outside of football for a long, long time obviously.

********************
The Owners: The NFL is gorged with a band of megalomaniacs, who appointed a wannabe owner with a God-complex to protect them from themselves. Jerry Jones has never been puppeteered like this in his life, and Roger Goodell seems to have him by his genital shorthairs. Same goes for a collection of owners who pride themselves on unrestrained and unquestioned power. They've cornered themselves by their own doing, and now they're eating their own in a dogpile to re-establish the pecking owner. This is going to get ugly.

The Players: Today's players suffer from the same sense of entitled and unchecked ego as their owners, believing somehow that they are "owed" these lavish lives by some form of self-indoctrination. They are largely just simpletons with born physical genetics, and so little more, yet they equate their abilities with an intellectual prowess they simply don't have but for rare exceptions. They are literally pissing on their lottery tickets by pretending to be more than what they are, and soon to be less than most. The regrets of fallen athletes is cliché to the point of boring anymore, yet still a huge percentage of them conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field, behaving like they just don't care, which they don't. They are becoming less and less likeable with each passing season.

The League: The NFL has developed a false sense of itself and overreached its limitations in hopes of creating new fanbases out of thin air. *******ized rules now confuse its most ardent and knowledgeable followers, who played and watched a very different game than what's presented these days. Oversaturation of this "different" style of football is hurting the league as well, as games are too many and too often, including faraway places that would rather watch cricket than football. The build-up of each week is gone. All football all the time is taking away the mystique and special occasion that the NFL once held. The insatiable pursuit of money has castrated this game of its greatness. The aura is gone.

Us: And then there's the United States of America today that is encroaching on everything the game stands for. The masculinity of football is being attacked from all sides. Academia has put its crosshairs firmly on football, not to make it safer, but to eliminate it altogether through predetermined CTE theories that are being "proven" before qualitative data has been established. "Bullying" is now a thing in the locker room. Seriously, bullying. Gay rights for draft picks became a 24-hour debated topic for weeks on end. Pregame anthems have become social battlefields. There's as much NFL on CNN and Fox as there is on ESPN, and you can't tell which channel you're actually watching.

****************
Ratings are dropping for lots of reasons, not just those bandied about among the agenda-laden talking heads. The NFL has changed, and not for the better. It's leaving those of us most loyal and in love with football out to roost and find our way alone.

I'm getting tired. I watch every Cowboys game, and I root like always. But it doesn't feel the same. I'm not as emotionally invested as I should be, like I've always been. Some of that is because of Zeke and Goodell and Jerry and endless legal motions and appeals and rulings. But a lot of it is just because of everything else.

Maybe the NFL will enact massive social changes and re-invent itself as a more palatable and less brutish sport for future generations. Perhaps there's a way to electronically tackle somebody coming soon that will save brains and prevent injuiries. Perhaps we can figure out a way to perfectly and equally represent every race, religion, nationality, and gender across the spectrum of owners, players, referees, and broadcasters.

Maybe football utopia really is possible. Big goals and aspirations are great, I suppose. These are just the required painful steps.

Not me.

I just wish I could have my old football back. Can you imagine if I actually said that out loud in public?

So much doom and gloom. Depressing.

 

[hornitosmonster]

I mean we probably thought the same of the 90's Cowboys vs the 70's Cowboys (bigger, faster, stronger). The reality is that an old Randy White put a prime Charles Haley on his head. Stone cold one punch knock out

 

[erod]

I mean we probably thought the same of the 90's Cowboys vs the 70's Cowboys (bigger, faster, stronger). The reality is that an old Randy White put a prime Charles Haley on his head. Stone cold one punch knock out

The early 90s Cowboys would smoke this league. Today's players are so undisciplined. They can't tackle, and they make silly mistakes constantly.

 

[bark]

This is what I miss...70's football!

For my money the greatest season in Dallas Cowboys history

 

[Bohuntr97]

This is true.

I admit to some red zone channel watching for noon games when the Cowboys aren't on. But you won't catch me in a fantasy football league.

I used to love fantasy football, played for over 25 years. Then the whole "technology" boom happened. Live drafts where everyone got together for an afternoon were replaced with logging onto a website from home. People no longer wanted to meet up at a local sports bar on Sundays to watch the players and talk smack. It was replaced by live scoring updates on smartphones. The whole fun and social value to me of playing was gone. It became more like work just trying to keep up with the league. Stopped playing 3 years ago and haven't looked back.

 

[Aven8]

I still love football, and the NFL is the best form with the best players.

Roger is a stooge on a power trip. Brent Musburger said today on ESPN that it's ridiculous going after Zeke, he should have left it alone since he wasn't charged. He then talked about how much the NFL has spent on lawyers that could have gone to ex hurt NFL players. He was fired up!

I watch all games whether they suck or nut, Thurs, all day Sunday, and MNF. I think the issue now is that the NFL only has Brady and Bree's now really from the old great regime of QB's. The new ones coming up are not there yet, Dak, Cam, Wentz, and even Russell. Once they prove to do it year in and year out and be great, it will change IMO.

 

[River82]

Some of the defence in that video is horrid and players are noticeably slower. People looking back at that time with 10 sets of rose colored glasses. Modern teams are too fast and linesmen are much stronger, these physical attributes would more than make up for any technical superiority the teams of the 70s have. It's like the debate in basketball - Jordan would eat everyone alive, players today while better athletes aren't as good as technically as 20 years ago. Well no, different rules today.

In fact go to any sport around the world and the old fans always think the game was better back in their day. Then the next generation believes the same. And the generation after that believes the same. If the fans are right, take this trend, give it a hundred years and everybody will be so clumsy and incompetent they'll run out onto the field, everyone will trip and fall, they'll all break their ankles, sport is cancelled worldwide, and we'll all head inside and watch people play Call of Duty or something.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Never have I enjoyed a football season less. I'm ready for the 2017 season to just end.

I'm up to here with Zeke talk. Jerry is now suing anything that moves, weeks after being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I've learned more, and now know less, than I ever have about the US judicial system. Colin Kaepernick has been anointed as the Dr. Martin Luther Unitas of football. Flags are flying out of referee pockets like they're wrapped in fire ants. Targeting hits are now grounds for Harvey Weinstein scorn.

And all the while, the games are just putrid. Bad football by dudes from college who aren't prepared for NFL football. Teams no longer practice for more than 10 minutes at a time. Hamstrings are getting pulled more than Harvey Weinstein's....oops, already used that one.

This seems like a conflation of so many related and unrelated events, movements, and issues all coming to a collective head simultaneously. It's been brewing inside and outside of football for a long, long time obviously.

********************
The Owners: The NFL is gorged with a band of megalomaniacs, who appointed a wannabe owner with a God-complex to protect them from themselves. Jerry Jones has never been puppeteered like this in his life, and Roger Goodell seems to have him by his genital shorthairs. Same goes for a collection of owners who pride themselves on unrestrained and unquestioned power. They've cornered themselves by their own doing, and now they're eating their own in a dogpile to re-establish the pecking owner. This is going to get ugly.

The Players: Today's players suffer from the same sense of entitled and unchecked ego as their owners, believing somehow that they are "owed" these lavish lives by some form of self-indoctrination. They are largely just simpletons with born physical genetics, and so little more, yet they equate their abilities with an intellectual prowess they simply don't have but for rare exceptions. They are literally pissing on their lottery tickets by pretending to be more than what they are, and soon to be less than most. The regrets of fallen athletes is cliché to the point of boring anymore, yet still a huge percentage of them conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field, behaving like they just don't care, which they don't. They are becoming less and less likeable with each passing season.

The League: The NFL has developed a false sense of itself and overreached its limitations in hopes of creating new fanbases out of thin air. *******ized rules now confuse its most ardent and knowledgeable followers, who played and watched a very different game than what's presented these days. Oversaturation of this "different" style of football is hurting the league as well, as games are too many and too often, including faraway places that would rather watch cricket than football. The build-up of each week is gone. All football all the time is taking away the mystique and special occasion that the NFL once held. The insatiable pursuit of money has castrated this game of its greatness. The aura is gone.

Us: And then there's the United States of America today that is encroaching on everything the game stands for. The masculinity of football is being attacked from all sides. Academia has put its crosshairs firmly on football, not to make it safer, but to eliminate it altogether through predetermined CTE theories that are being "proven" before qualitative data has been established. "Bullying" is now a thing in the locker room. Seriously, bullying. Gay rights for draft picks became a 24-hour debated topic for weeks on end. Pregame anthems have become social battlefields. There's as much NFL on CNN and Fox as there is on ESPN, and you can't tell which channel you're actually watching.

****************
Ratings are dropping for lots of reasons, not just those bandied about among the agenda-laden talking heads. The NFL has changed, and not for the better. It's leaving those of us most loyal and in love with football out to roost and find our way alone.

I'm getting tired. I watch every Cowboys game, and I root like always. But it doesn't feel the same. I'm not as emotionally invested as I should be, like I've always been. Some of that is because of Zeke and Goodell and Jerry and endless legal motions and appeals and rulings. But a lot of it is just because of everything else.

Maybe the NFL will enact massive social changes and re-invent itself as a more palatable and less brutish sport for future generations. Perhaps there's a way to electronically tackle somebody coming soon that will save brains and prevent injuiries. Perhaps we can figure out a way to perfectly and equally represent every race, religion, nationality, and gender across the spectrum of owners, players, referees, and broadcasters.

Maybe football utopia really is possible. Big goals and aspirations are great, I suppose. These are just the required painful steps.

Not me.

I just wish I could have my old football back. Can you imagine if I actually said that out loud in public?

 

[xwalker]

I don't like the NFL due to abuse of power and authority. They are corrupt as politicians.

I'm all for making the game safer to cut down on head trauma. Perhaps better helmets that actually fit might be a good place to start.

Did you know they prevented players from using the "concussion prevention" helmets (Procap) in the nineties?

It was the ones with a cap that popped off when they got hit hard. The Bills Safety Mark Kelso wore one but when the NFL signed a deal with Riddell, they would not let players wear the ProCap.

 

[Corso]

Did you know they prevented players from using the "concussion prevention" helmets (Procap) in the nineties?

It was the ones with a cap that popped off when they got hit hard. The Bills Safety Mark Kelso wore one but when the NFL signed a deal with Riddell, they would not let players wear the ProCap.

Nobody wears those huge neck supporters like Christian Okoye anymore that limited the freedom of motion to the head from a hit...
Huh.

 

[xwalker]

Nobody wears those huge neck supporters like Christian Okoye anymore that limited the freedom of motion to the head from a hit...
Huh.

DWare wore one some years.

 

[irving]

Never have I enjoyed a football season less. I'm ready for the 2017 season to just end.

I'm up to here with Zeke talk. Jerry is now suing anything that moves, weeks after being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I've learned more, and now know less, than I ever have about the US judicial system. Colin Kaepernick has been anointed as the Dr. Martin Luther Unitas of football. Flags are flying out of referee pockets like they're wrapped in fire ants. Targeting hits are now grounds for Harvey Weinstein scorn.

And all the while, the games are just putrid. Bad football by dudes from college who aren't prepared for NFL football. Teams no longer practice for more than 10 minutes at a time. Hamstrings are getting pulled more than Harvey Weinstein's....oops, already used that one.

This seems like a conflation of so many related and unrelated events, movements, and issues all coming to a collective head simultaneously. It's been brewing inside and outside of football for a long, long time obviously.

********************
The Owners: The NFL is gorged with a band of megalomaniacs, who appointed a wannabe owner with a God-complex to protect them from themselves. Jerry Jones has never been puppeteered like this in his life, and Roger Goodell seems to have him by his genital shorthairs. Same goes for a collection of owners who pride themselves on unrestrained and unquestioned power. They've cornered themselves by their own doing, and now they're eating their own in a dogpile to re-establish the pecking owner. This is going to get ugly.

The Players: Today's players suffer from the same sense of entitled and unchecked ego as their owners, believing somehow that they are "owed" these lavish lives by some form of self-indoctrination. They are largely just simpletons with born physical genetics, and so little more, yet they equate their abilities with an intellectual prowess they simply don't have but for rare exceptions. They are literally pissing on their lottery tickets by pretending to be more than what they are, and soon to be less than most. The regrets of fallen athletes is cliché to the point of boring anymore, yet still a huge percentage of them conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field, behaving like they just don't care, which they don't. They are becoming less and less likeable with each passing season.

The League: The NFL has developed a false sense of itself and overreached its limitations in hopes of creating new fanbases out of thin air. *******ized rules now confuse its most ardent and knowledgeable followers, who played and watched a very different game than what's presented these days. Oversaturation of this "different" style of football is hurting the league as well, as games are too many and too often, including faraway places that would rather watch cricket than football. The build-up of each week is gone. All football all the time is taking away the mystique and special occasion that the NFL once held. The insatiable pursuit of money has castrated this game of its greatness. The aura is gone.

Us: And then there's the United States of America today that is encroaching on everything the game stands for. The masculinity of football is being attacked from all sides. Academia has put its crosshairs firmly on football, not to make it safer, but to eliminate it altogether through predetermined CTE theories that are being "proven" before qualitative data has been established. "Bullying" is now a thing in the locker room. Seriously, bullying. Gay rights for draft picks became a 24-hour debated topic for weeks on end. Pregame anthems have become social battlefields. There's as much NFL on CNN and Fox as there is on ESPN, and you can't tell which channel you're actually watching.

****************
Ratings are dropping for lots of reasons, not just those bandied about among the agenda-laden talking heads. The NFL has changed, and not for the better. It's leaving those of us most loyal and in love with football out to roost and find our way alone.

I'm getting tired. I watch every Cowboys game, and I root like always. But it doesn't feel the same. I'm not as emotionally invested as I should be, like I've always been. Some of that is because of Zeke and Goodell and Jerry and endless legal motions and appeals and rulings. But a lot of it is just because of everything else.

Maybe the NFL will enact massive social changes and re-invent itself as a more palatable and less brutish sport for future generations. Perhaps there's a way to electronically tackle somebody coming soon that will save brains and prevent injuiries. Perhaps we can figure out a way to perfectly and equally represent every race, religion, nationality, and gender across the spectrum of owners, players, referees, and broadcasters.

Maybe football utopia really is possible. Big goals and aspirations are great, I suppose. These are just the required painful steps.

Not me.

I just wish I could have my old football back. Can you imagine if I actually said that out loud in public?

I disagree with with you when you say a huge percentage of players conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field. you couldn't' be more wrong in that statement. The fact is the overwhelming majority of NFL players conduct themselves as well if not better than the general public does in their everyday life. It is a small percentage of players that continually find themselves in trouble with the league and the law. In fact statistics show that NFL arrest rates lower than for all males age 20-39 , the NFL is far below the national average. I'm not saying you were just speaking of arrest, but the truth is most NFL players are decent law abiding citizens. No disrespect meant to you.

 

[Bohuntr97]

I disagree with with you when you say a huge percentage of players conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field. you couldn't' be more wrong in that statement. The fact is the overwhelming majority of NFL players conduct themselves as well if not better than the general public does in their everyday life. It is a small percentage of players that continually find themselves in trouble with the league and the law. In fact statistics show that NFL arrest rates lower than for all males age 20-39 , the NFL is far below the national average. I'm not saying you were just speaking of arrest, but the truth is most NFL players are decent law abiding citizens. No disrespect meant to you.

Huh? I agree with your statement but I can't find anywhere, in such a well written post, where @erod referred to "players conduct themselves like predatory ingrates".

 

[River82]

Huh? I agree with your statement but I can't find anywhere, in such a well written post, where @erod referred to "players conduct themselves like predatory ingrates".

The Players: Today's players suffer from the same sense of entitled and unchecked ego as their owners, believing somehow that they are "owed" these lavish lives by some form of self-indoctrination. They are largely just simpletons with born physical genetics, and so little more, yet they equate their abilities with an intellectual prowess they simply don't have but for rare exceptions. They are literally pissing on their lottery tickets by pretending to be more than what they are, and soon to be less than most. The regrets of fallen athletes is cliché to the point of boring anymore, yet still a huge percentage of them conduct themselves like predatory ingrates off the field, behaving like they just don't care, which they don't. They are becoming less and less likeable with each passing season.

 

[Bohuntr97]

My bad @River82, I missed that. My apologies. I got caught up in the "gist" of his post.

 

[ElGatoGrande]

Come on. is it macho to put a bullet in your chest at 54 years of age?

Pretty sure that wasn't CTE dude,,, it was global warming. It's stressing everybody out.

 

[LocimusPrime]

Technology ruined the NFL.

 

[Bohuntr97]

Technology ruined the NFL.

Yep!

 

[jjtrcka22]

These teams had Offensive Linemen who were lucky to be 260 pounds. They were a bunch of slow slobs at 260 also.
You can point to a select few hall of famers but the reality is the guys now are bigger stronger and faster overall than they were in the 70's and 80's.
Remember guys like Tom Rafferty? He weighed 250 Lbs. He is would be steam rolled by these 280 lb monsters rushing the QB these days.
The players today are just bigger stronger and faster as a whole.

Mike Webster weighed 249 pounds and he is in the hall of fame I believe. 6 foot 1' 249 isn't getting it done today my friend.

Pre-90s lineman were definitely smaller, but the 90s were different. 90s cowboys had Allen at 330, Nate at about 340, Eric Williams at about 320, tuinei around 310 I believe. Stepnoski was undersized but Ray Donaldson and Kennard were huge.

I think there listed size might have been smaller, but I actually remember a 90s game where fox had a graphic showing Dallas lineman listed weight and then there actual weight. Madden was leading that discussion during the game (that was a fun time).

It is actually pretty interesting that lineman sizes pretty much reached their ceiling in the 90s. Still basically the same sized dudes now. Dline has better athletes (more of them anyway) than there were.

 

[Fizziksman]

Technology ruined the NFL.

sure in the sense that it has allowed players too get to big and too fast for their brains to handle the punishment of concussive blows.