The NFL Has Never Been Better Entertainment; The Bills Have Never Been More Entertaining. It's Been a Great Season.

[The Frankish Reich]

OK, as the annoying Glass Half Full guy ...

 

Turn the clock back about a decade. The concussion crisis was real and the NFL's bad faith denial of it was threatening the league.

 

https://grantland.com/features/cte-concussion-crisis-economic-look-end-football/

 

Turn the clock back just a year. We know COVID protocols took away the in-person fan experience, but I don't think anyone could have expected it to kill TV ratings as well:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/01/08/in-2020-the-audience-of-nfl-regular-season-games-dropped/?sh=28aac747482e

 

And now? Well, all is good. It took way too long, but the concussion avoidance/safety protocols are working. When is the last time you saw a defensive back launch himself into a receiver? Or even deliberately go helmet-to-helmet? The bad (some really bad) concussions we've seen lately are more from tall, athletic players diving for a ball and landing on their heads. This isn't good, but it's something that can happen in soccer (and without a helmet). And QBs - the marquee entertainment talent out there - are being protected like never before and playing into their late 30s (and yes, 40s unfortunately) at extremely high levels. Ratings have recovered:  https://www.si.com/nfl/ravens/news/nfl-has-best-viewership-ratings-since-2015#:~:text=The 2021 NFL regular season,more than 10% from 2020.

 

Scoring is up. And it's staying up. Hard core fans profess a love of 3 yards and a cloud of dust football. They actually enjoy a great 42-36 game with 700 yards passing even more. We've seen scoring blips before that eventually petered out as defenses adjusted. Air Coryell and followers (Dolphins) in the late 70s/early 80s. The perfected West Coast Offense of the Niners in the 80s. Sam Wyche's Bengals and the K-Gun Bills of the late 80s/early 90s. The Greatest Show on Turf Rams of the turn of the millennium. Peyton Manning's Broncos from 2012-14. And most recently the speed/spread offenses of these same Chiefs and McVay's Rams just a few years ago (the classic 2018 54-51 shootout). The Bills and the Chiefs 2.0 are the leaders of the newest wave of unstoppable offenses. It's fantastic entertainment. I was getting texts from non-football fans last night watching the game. They would never watch a 9-6 defensive battle of "real" football. It's college football without the college corruption. It's fun. And we're in the thick of it this time. The entire NFL is trying to copy us. And I suspect the NFL won't let loose enforcement of the rules bring back the return of defense-oriented running game football. They know where their bread is buttered. This was the best weekend of football ever.

 

We're not going anywhere and neither are the Chiefs. I could grow to hate them the way I hated the Patriots. But I don't think so. Mahomes vs. Allen has more the look of the great matchups of those other high-scoring watermarks of the past decades like Fouts-Marino. I know it's officially part of the Bills fan's DNA to hate our best competitors but I can't hate this one. I just want to see more of it. Round 1: Chiefs by Knockout. Round 2: Chiefs by Split Decision (aided by antiquated OT rules). Round 3 will be ours.

 

Thanks to all the Bills players and coaches for a fantastically entertaining season. And Go Bills 2022!

 

[Success]

I've enjoyed the Allen era immensely so far.  I never thought the Bills would be part of a game like the one last night - or have a perfect game like last week.

 

During the drought, all I ever wanted was to be back in the mix. We are.  And it seems unlikely that the QB we have doesn't end up with a Lombardi at some point. 

 

And I'm with you.  I don't hate KC just because they beat us.  That will never be like the Pats for me. Their fans today are still saying "The Bills won their SB last week."  Which actually cheered me up, because it's such a sad thing to say for a fan of a team that got eliminated in the 1st round, and won't come near the division title again for years.