I'm losing my excitement for the game

[Diehardblues]

And that sucks! Been the most diehard fan of the Cowboys and the NFL in general for almost 45 years now. The excitement just isnt there anymore, at least not like it was. Nothing the Cowboys really did either, more just the state of the league. Free agency and the cap REALLY hurt the game worse than any of some of the younger fans will ever know. It takes years to build a championship caliber team, and one offseason to tear it down because you cant get under the cap.

So lemme get this straight.......You spend a few years really knocking it out of the park come draft day, really doing it right,....and your reward for doing a great job is to sit back and watch half your players leave because you cant pay all the big name players you were smart enuff to draft and groom and still be under the cap. REALLY? By the same token,.... you spend years drafting a bunch of worthless BUMS and your reward is having plenty of money to sign as many talented players as you want away from the teams who were proficient at their job. REALLY? The NFL is actually penalizing excellence and rewarding failure......... NOT GOOD.

Other thing is all the rule changes. D.B's are pretty much defenseless nowadays. You touch someone....... penalty. All to promote passing. The game doesnt even resemble the great game I grew up loving.

Goodell and his crap and unfair treatment of our team. Its just too much anymore.

Players SOOOO STUPID that they cant stop stepping on their own johnsons and getting suspended all the time. Its just on and on and on.

I'll always be a big fan,... but it will NEVER be what it once was. Real shame too.

Like with anything you have passion for..the better you are at it the more you get into it usually.

Do you think you’d be more into the Cowboys this era if we had the success the Patriots have?

Winning always makes it more fun.

 

[cffl2323]

Reviews and penalties are what have robbed the game of its excitement, for me at least. Nothing is final anymore. Big play, wait to see if there’s a flag. Turnover/TD, wait a few minutes and get some commercials in while it’s reviewed. It has made for very anti-climatic moments, that used to be jump out of your seat moments.

 

[Fletch]

I love football. Last year was a down year for me. A down year for any Cowboys’ fan.

But I’m back, baby! Just witnessed a helluva draft. Got rid of our so called and overrated #1 WR, Witten (love him) no longer taking snaps and slowing down the offense. Old guard out to pasture, let’s move forward!

 

[cffl2323]

Reviews and penalties are what have robbed the game of its excitement, for me at least. Nothing is final anymore. Big play, wait to see if there’s a flag. Turnover/TD, wait a few minutes and get some commercials in while it’s reviewed. It has made for very anti-climatic moments, that used to be jump out of your seat moments.

 

[Corso]

And that sucks! Been the most diehard fan of the Cowboys and the NFL in general for almost 45 years now. The excitement just isnt there anymore, at least not like it was. Nothing the Cowboys really did either, more just the state of the league. Free agency and the cap REALLY hurt the game worse than any of some of the younger fans will ever know. It takes years to build a championship caliber team, and one offseason to tear it down because you cant get under the cap.

So lemme get this straight.......You spend a few years really knocking it out of the park come draft day, really doing it right,....and your reward for doing a great job is to sit back and watch half your players leave because you cant pay all the big name players you were smart enuff to draft and groom and still be under the cap. REALLY? By the same token,.... you spend years drafting a bunch of worthless BUMS and your reward is having plenty of money to sign as many talented players as you want away from the teams who were proficient at their job. REALLY? The NFL is actually penalizing excellence and rewarding failure......... NOT GOOD.

Other thing is all the rule changes. D.B's are pretty much defenseless nowadays. You touch someone....... penalty. All to promote passing. The game doesnt even resemble the great game I grew up loving.

Goodell and his crap and unfair treatment of our team. Its just too much anymore.

Players SOOOO STUPID that they cant stop stepping on their own johnsons and getting suspended all the time. Its just on and on and on.

I'll always be a big fan,... but it will NEVER be what it once was. Real shame too.

It'll be back when you see LVE flying all over the place making tackles... Trust.

 

[The Fonz]

1-sport is a business it is about money $$$( they took the fun out of it).
2- players movements between teams.( they play for contacts)
3- too much exposure( 24hrs talking heads)
4-Internet,phones& TV stations.( the entertainment age)
5- We have other priorities in life.

 

[Whyjerry]

And that sucks! Been the most diehard fan of the Cowboys and the NFL in general for almost 45 years now. The excitement just isnt there anymore, at least not like it was. Nothing the Cowboys really did either, more just the state of the league. Free agency and the cap REALLY hurt the game worse than any of some of the younger fans will ever know. It takes years to build a championship caliber team, and one offseason to tear it down because you cant get under the cap.

So lemme get this straight.......You spend a few years really knocking it out of the park come draft day, really doing it right,....and your reward for doing a great job is to sit back and watch half your players leave because you cant pay all the big name players you were smart enuff to draft and groom and still be under the cap. REALLY? By the same token,.... you spend years drafting a bunch of worthless BUMS and your reward is having plenty of money to sign as many talented players as you want away from the teams who were proficient at their job. REALLY? The NFL is actually penalizing excellence and rewarding failure......... NOT GOOD.

Other thing is all the rule changes. D.B's are pretty much defenseless nowadays. You touch someone....... penalty. All to promote passing. The game doesnt even resemble the great game I grew up loving.

Goodell and his crap and unfair treatment of our team. Its just too much anymore.

Players SOOOO STUPID that they cant stop stepping on their own johnsons and getting suspended all the time. Its just on and on and on.

I'll always be a big fan,... but it will NEVER be what it once was. Real shame too.

I am a bit younger than you. Would put my fandom at about 40 years. The game of the 70s, 80s, and 90s is gone. I liked the old Monday Nigh Football anthem, not Faith Hill. I heard that they are likely to get rid of kickoffs all together. Player safety? Yet they still have the Thursday night game and refuse to expand the rosters. Money drives everything, player safety is secondary and they are obvious liars to try to project anything else. I think Goodell had done a lot of damage to the older fan base. All in favor of getting a few more female and international fans. I think that strategy ultimately fails. I would agree that the game has lost me a bit. Still love the Cowboys but not like I did in the 90s. Thanks for this post. I bet a lot of fans 40+ years old feel the same way.

 

[ChronicCowboy]

When your favorite team has been absent of any sustained success for a generation it’s easy to be jaded.

 

[Blackspider214]

I do not get excited for sports in general these days like I did growing up. I have my own life and responsibilites now. A social life. A career. I still watch sports for sure and support my teams but it's not the end of the world if they lose any longer like it used to be. My outlook has changed.

 

[Clove]

As much as I love Cowboyszone, it's an addiction for me. I sit on here reading all day long sometimes, it's dumb. One day, i will disappear from this site and from social media for good, it will be the best thing for all Cowboys fan to do eventually. Back in the 70s and 90s, you could just enjoy football without all of these other distractions. I just wish I could watch on game day and not participate in all the other stuff until game day, but I'm stuck.

 

[windward]

I really wish football would take some of the rules of soccer. IE a champions league and each team wins or goes down a level. Say only 16 teams in the Champions league, playing each team one time, and the bottom 2-4 teams switch or have a playoff game to stay in this league. The bottom league plays to get in the Champions league.

Would make it more interesting to me.

Promotion/relegation is the perfect antidote to the tanking mentality that has taken ahold of American sports.

 

[CouchCoach]

As much as I love Cowboyszone, it's an addiction for me. I sit on here reading all day long sometimes, it's dumb. One day, i will disappear from this site and from social media for good, it will be the best thing for all Cowboys fan to do eventually. Back in the 70s and 90s, you could just enjoy football without all of these other distractions. I just wish I could watch on game day and not participate in all the other stuff until game day, but I'm stuck.

If not for the former DC.com and now CZ, I doubt that I would even follow the NFL any longer. It is not the sport that I would miss, it's the people on the forums, they've become far more important to me than the Cowboys or the NFL. I watch to be able to halfway carry on a conversation here.

 

[TheSkaven]

I can kinda relate, but I think for me it's more about me just getting older and the game becoming less serious to me. I told Hostile at the other place recently that with each passing year I get better at placing the journey over the destination. After all, that's what it's really about...

I couldn't have said it any better. In our youth we live and die with every game. But as we are fans for 10, 20, 30 years (gulp), you don't see things game to game or even season to season anymore.

Instead it's just about being a Cowboys fan. It's about rallying the family on Sunday and putting the jerseys on the kids. It's about the star, rooting for the team, whether they're 12-4 or 4-12. It's the journey to get there - and we will get there - that makes it special.

For me personally, I root for the star, not any specific player, and I just enjoy being a fan. I think the one thing that free agency did do that was bad for the game (and fantasy football contributed as well) was make people more a fan of specific players rather than the team. That explains why there's so much venom on this board, why we are still talking about Romo and we'll be talking about Dez for 5 more years.

By the way, you can always find ways to keep your best players. Guys like Romo, Rodgers, Brady, Witten, etc - they generally start and end with the same team.

 

[cowboyblue22]

hard to get excited when your team is done pretty much at the end of December every year the late sixties through the mid eighties and early nineties were great the last 25 have been awful and football in the nfl has really changed player safety entertainment money its sure not what it used to be

 

[gmoney112]

I probably get more excited about CZ and just strategy than I do about games other than the Boys.

The league sucks right now. It's an over commercialized product that's way too dependent on officials "judgment" calls that absolutely influence games week in and week out, largely negatively.

If FF didnt get as big as it was, the NFL would be in bad shape. It's also a testament to how bad the game is now, that the only reason most people pay attention to other games now is because of FF

 

[BigD_95]

I have always hated the cap and free agency

 

[CouchCoach]

I can relate to the OP and let me say kudos for no one telling him to take a hike. Man, I hate that response.

I started feeling the way Hayseed does now a few years back and after leaving MLB and the NBA/NCAA basketball behind, the only sports I had left were NCAA and NFL football, in that order. I didn't want to be sportless but what had once been the easiest of passive participation, I absorbed football, was becoming active. I was making myself watch and creating reasons to watch.

First it was DFS, then I added a Pick 6 League, then I added 3 squares leagues and this year, nothing. None of that worked as I could no longer force interest. What at one time made me happy only irritated me. I'd finish games and wish I hadn't watched. I was not being entertained.

The greed of the NFL and filter down to the players has irritated me, the showing off after just a play for the cameras irritates me, the stop down for so many commercials irritates me, the same damned commercial playing in September, or worse from the year before, all the way through the playoffs irritates me, the rule changes to appease the Golden Goose TV nets irritated me, the ridiculous amount of time to review a play irritates me, the incessant rambling of the analysts and noise pollution during the game irritates me and the overexposure of the product steals my passion . That's a pretty fat list of irritants for a guy that supposedly loves football.

This year is my experimental year. Only college games because the irritant factor is greatly reduced, except by Gary Danielson, and the fact that they don't play for money gets them a partial pass. And I am on college ball on Saturday's from 8a-12m and watch part of at least a dozen games. And Cowboys games unless I see anything close to what I saw in Atlanta because then I will be done until this coaching staff is done. That will keep me abreast of the Cowboys stuff and able to participate out here in gen pop but if I have to give that up, I am prepared to just haunt the Members and Off Topic Zones. I have never been so close to not giving a damn as I am now and I've been watching the NFL for 60 years and never thought it could come to this.

Let me admit that part of that could just be the aging process and a general "get off my lawn" attitude but I do not play the wayback card a lot with the younger fans because there are a lot of things better today than then. But I did grow up with that, so it was better for me back then than it has become today. There was less of it so it was special. It was like having ice cream as a special treat as opposed to anytime I wanted it.

Sorry for the length of this, wait, no I am not. This is a topic really close to me and one I thought of starting but thought better of it. But now, instead of people that aren't where some of us seem to be, instead of telling us to take a hike or that we're just old farts and not worth the effort, how about trying to convince us to rekindle what we once had and are lamenting the loss of now. All threads are not about frustration or venting, we're a community here and sometimes posters are asking "help me out here, help me to see this differently as I do not like the way I am feeling right now".

It's the same thing when a fan posts some negative feelings about the team and this season. Why not try to convince that poster that maybe they haven't examined everything instead of suggesting the Browns need fans?

 

[windward]

The league is in as bad a shape as I’ve ever seen it right now.

I know it seems that way, but man it still is such a fin coal powerhouse, I don’t see it being knocked from its perch anytime soon.

 

[aria]

I almost stopped watching 2 years ago due to the horrendous officiating league wide. I was sick lf seeing the officials determine the outcome of the game instead of the playera, no matter what team it was. Last year wasn’t much better and the rules are only getting worse. How many judgemental game deciding penalties will there be this year due to a RB dropping their helmet?

The cap situation, meh. The Patriots are lucky enough to be in the easiest division in the league every year but they make it work. That requires a competent front office and coaching that knows how to utilize the talents he has. Not looking to start a debate here.

Goodell sucks but I don’t blame him for 20+ years of Cowboys failures. It does suck that he’s not going anywhere though.

This sounds weird but I also blame all these new “fancy” stadiums. Just like too many commercials are a distraction to the game and make it hard for people to stay interested, all the extra BS at some of these stadiums takes away from the game IMO. Give us a stadium like Lambeau, Soldier Field or Arrowhead and you may find we have a better home field advantage.

P.S NCAA football is 10X better than the NFL.

 

[Idgit]

I know it seems that way, but man it still is such a fin coal powerhouse, I don’t see it being knocked from its perch anytime soon.

I think they're actually doing a great job of maximizing revenue. It's just coming at the expense of hollowing out the product. We haven't seen it yet, but when it gets hollowed out enough--if they don't reverse the trend before that--then when it does finally crash, it's going to crash hard. Sort of like ESPN has. They were traveling down that road to hell for years and just didn't do anything about it.