NFL fans don't cheer for business.

[StanleySpadowski]

Emmitt Smith, Larry Allen, Dexter Coakley, Ebenezer Ekuban, Michael Myers,
Joey Galloway, Rocket Ismail, Tim Seder, Peppi Zellner, La Roi Glover.

And not a single one of them was a cap casualty.

 

[peplaw06]

And not a single one of them was a cap casualty.

While Emmitt wasn't "a cap casualty" per se, he was definitely allowed to walk partly because of cap concerns. If there was no cap, JJ probably would have paid him his asking price for him to retire as a Cowboy... at least I'd like to think so.

It's probably the same for a lot of those guys... not cut only for cap concerns, but it was a factor. It's always a factor these days.

That said, the cap is a necessary evil. Otherwise, the NFL becomes baseball and big market big revenue teams take over. Good for us, yes, but for the NFL as a whole, interest is lost in 60-75% of the NFL cities.

And nathan, I think you misunderstand the way we're thinking about home-grown players... We're talking about guys who are drafted, or are rookies on the roster. Give their original team incentives for resigning them. But it couldn't be so big that it becomes prohibitive to allow them to become free agents if their busts. The state or school player comes from has nothing to do with it.

And your player salary scale is still ridiculous. Like I asked earlier, does Peyton Manning make the same as Aaron Brooks did last year. You can't make things equal, because things are never equal. That's why you're being compared to a communist.

And you can't prevent players from having to learn new systems either. The game of football is constantly evolving. There are new schemes developing every decade or so, and new coaches. New coaches = new schemes. The way coaches are traded in and out these days, that's just a part of it now.

 

[ZeroClub]

Its clear the product is not as good as it was 15 years ago. No arguement. But that is reality. The NFL made a conscious decision to destroy the possibility of real dynastys in the interest of parity and giving every team a chance to make the playoffs. So far it has worked- more casual fans and more interest by the less then die hard fans. Money talks. I loved the NFL in the 70's to the 90's even when the Boys were not winners and ready to go to the SB. Because there were great TEAMS and watching them was sufficient while I waited for the Boys to rebuild. Now, watching the slop that is the current NFL product hurts sometimes. I remember how it was and that is my problem. the younger fans from the late 90s on know nothing about great teams- some of them think the Pats are a great team and dynasty. Please. The Bills, 9rs, Boys, Packers, Broncos from the mid 90s would have ate the current pats right up. 35-10 average score. As more and more of us older fans die off - in 10-15 years only a small fraction of older fans will be left. Just the way it is.

Quite accurate, IMO.

I believe that improvements can be made to today's game. And need to be made.

The minute the NFL gets fat and happy (and stops trying to improve itself), the league becomes vulnerable. American sports fans are fickle. Boxing used to be a huge sport. Now it is mostly a joke. MLB used to be the national game. The NFL must be careful, or they too will fall from their position of #1.

IMO, the NFL has two issues that it would be smart to address:

1. Overly complex, inconsistently called, game stopping and/or game-changing penalties.

2. Excessive player movement.

These issues could be addressed without implementing abrupt and radical changes. No need to engage in union busting or to end free agency, etc. Just tweak the contingencies a bit, and things will keep on rolling along.

But if you get fat and happy and refuse to tweak some things over time, things start heading south before you know it. And it is MUCH tougher to play catch up ....