Is the NFL declining?

[947]

For the actual TV coverage, what bothers me the most is that they zoom in so much, that you can't see half of the field.

 

On a 3rd & 7, I want to see what formation the offense lines up in, I want to see pre-snap defensive coverage & what the Safeties do- but instead I get a a close-up of the QB's face yelling out his calls & cadence, or a graphic of some stupid thing like how a player is the career leader in Monday Night 3rd down targets. You have no idea what the teams are doing until after the snap when they zoom out.

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Einstein's Dog said:

For that point (team assembly) I think there are a couple of things at play.  One is the longer season and more injuries.  A move based on an injury makes a lot of sense for any contending team - this was our R Douglas move last year.  Kind of hoping KC is left out of it, but they would be in this category.

 

A second thing I think is starting to happen is the culture of playing hurt, coming back as soon as possible, is going away.  This year players with hanmy's are going on the IR - Nico Collins for example.  E Engram took 4 games from a pre-game hamstring.  C Kupp extended his time off and SF seems to be  load managing McCaffrey for the playoffs.  Even for the Bills, J Cook out with a toe injury.

 

And yes, I think Beane will keep looking at the possibility for another adjustment at S or LB if he can find one that fits.  I'm just glad he found the WR piece - because it makes me think this squad is a contender.

 

As to your overall thought in the OP, it's not declining for me.  Fantasy Football and betting aspects can make routine games interesting.

Good point about IR.   It feels like tams almost welcome a chance to put guys on IR for a break early in the season. 

3 minutes ago, 947 said:

For the actual TV coverage, what bothers me the most is that they zoom in so much, that you can't see half of the field.

 

On a 3rd & 7, I want to see what formation the offense lines up in, I want to see pre-snap defensive coverage & what the Safeties do- but instead I get a a close-up of the QB's face yelling out his calls & cadence, or a graphic of some stupid thing like how a player is the career leader in Monday Night 3rd down targets. You have no idea what the teams are doing until after the snap when they zoom out.

Yes!

[SoonerBillsFan]

5 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm watching less NFL that I have in recent seasons. Sunday I didn't start watching football until 6 pm or so. I'm less interested, and I think the quality of the product is down, which adds to my disinterest. 

 

I think Prime's broadcasts are terrible and actually leave me less interested in the NFL. They almost encourage me to turn it off. They do some tricked up digital manipulation of the images to give you a more in-your-face-sense to the whole thing, but all it does is make it more difficult to watch the game. I think they do the digital manipulation to try to cover up the fact that their shows are produced more cheaply, with fewer cameras and less talent. Al Michaels and Herbstreet are horrible. Everything about the product I see and hear makes me want to turn it off, and sometimes I do. I turned it on last night late in the third quarter, watched 15 minutes, and turned it off.

 

Bills-Jets on on ESPN on Monday night was a flop, too.  A lot of penalties, and a lot of indecisiveness by the officials really chopped up the pace of the game and the broadcast. And instead of saving the day with quality talk, Buck and Aikman stumbled through the broadcast all out of sync, too. At one point, no one seemed to know which team had taken a timeout, but the refs were proceeding with the game, unaware that everyone lacked this information. And Aikman and Buck were slow to pick up on the problem. Meanwhile, fans wanted to know. And the teams played sloppy, things were too chippy .  Add it all up - bad play, missed opportunities, too many penalties, indecisive officiating, broadcast team that fails to save the show, I can understand why some fans may start saying, "I don't need to watch every game."  It's not very good TV.

 

If I were the NFL, I'd want more control over production. I wouldn't let Prime screw around with the video presentation. 

 

I'd want better, more professional broadcasters from Fox and CBS. The color commentators, particularly, are weak. Former players trying to talk comfortably into a microphone about something meaningful but not too technical for about 25 seconds. That's hard to do, and if a former player is really good at it, he's Michael Strahan or Peyton Manning and he's not going to be doing color commentary.  So, you get a lot of amateurish chatter about the same old things - momentum, smash-mouth football, etc - coming from guys who simply are not professional talkers. I don't know what's to be done about it, but if I were the NFL, I'd be worried that people like me are finding it easier to turn off games. 

 

I said this to a friend of mine who sent me the following, which was published somewhere:

 

One of the reasons I'm less interested is that it still feels like preseason. More so than most years, teams are trying to figure out how to play, and week to week they look really good to really ugly. Denver's defense last night looked spectacular, playing the way the Bills want to play. They had speed at every position, they were getting pressure on the QB every play, challenging the entire offensive line. How much that had to do with the Saints being bad and not having Carr, I don't know. Whether Denver will be playing like that in December is anyone's guess. So, I view these games as expendable. In late November and December, we'll know which teams are at .500 or better, and that's when the real season will start. In the meantime, I don't care all that much what happens except, of course, to the Bills. 

 

And speaking of the Bills, they've given a good example of what I'm talking about. It used to be that teams fixed their rosters in the off-season, and then they played the season. It's almost as though the good teams now don't fix their rosters until October, when they make one or two splashy acquisitions. We spent a lot of time this summer talking about what the Bills' receiver room, and it was all rendered moot when they trade for Cooper. NOW the Bills have the receiver room that they intend to play the season with. In a sense, the first six games have been preseason games. The Bills have been resting their stars - Milano, Miller, Bernard, Cooper, Johnson while they've been giving other guys (Williams, Epenesa and Solomon, Spector, Coleman and MVS, and Lewis) opportunities to work on their games. I know the "rest" they were giving these guys was forced rest, not true rest, but the effect is the same: the Bills have 11 games left, they're 4-2, and in the coming weeks they'll be putting their real starting lineup on the field for the first time.  You can add Oliver and Cook to the list, too. 

 

The real season is about to start. 

Its gotten very old for me as well, Everything is watered down.

[Shaw66]

3 minutes ago, 947 said:

For the actual TV coverage, what bothers me the most is that they zoom in so much, that you can't see half of the field.

 

On a 3rd & 7, I want to see what formation the offense lines up in, I want to see pre-snap defensive coverage & what the Safeties do- but instead I get a a close-up of the QB's face yelling out his calls & cadence, or a graphic of some stupid thing like how a player is the career leader in Monday Night 3rd down targets. You have no idea what the teams are doing until after the snap when they zoom out.

Yes!

[Mr. WEO]

58 minutes ago, coloradobillsfan said:

 

 

If your audio setup includes a center channel, try muting just that speaker.  It should eliminate the announcer voices, leaving the sounds of the game intact.  It's not a perfect solution (I also turn down my subwoofer to mute the low end of their voices) but it's well worth a shot.  

 

this is a good tip! center channel in Dolby 5:1, 7:1 etc are usually assigned dialogue.

[gjv]

I guess for those who were fortunate enough to watch the NFL from the late "50s the game and TV production has changed radically, and perhaps for some not for the better.

[FireChans]

Very funny to me that all this yelling at the cloud energy is because it wasn’t worth finishing a 26-3 game in the third Q with Bo Nix dueling Spencer Rattler.

[HardyBoy]

It's all the gambling commercials and tie ins for me...it's really annoying and so toxic

[gregmo]

Fitzpatrick's outfit, beard, and hairy chest are the only reason to watch TNF.

[coloradobillsfan]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

this is a good tip! center channel in Dolby 5:1, 7:1 etc are usually assigned dialogue.

I've been doing this for over 10 years now.  My favorite is when I invite new friends over but don't tell them.. they are like 10 15 minutes into enjoying the game before someone finally says "hey what a minute!" 
I have to increase the overall volume to hear the crowd noise well (the curses come in nice and clear) but if I forget to mute the commercials some of their sounds BOOM while others are silent.  So it's not a perfect solution but overall it's been a revelation

[Jerome007]

6 hours ago, GETTOTHE50 said:

The quality is down bc we have the rare blessing to watch JA17 play every week. We are so spoiled it’s not even funny.

That is so true. I survived the drought and all, and since  I'm from Quebec, it was self inflicted misery by loyalty ha ha. Most of it was manageable. Not all of it, but most of it. But I fully realize that things are so fun with JA17, that there will most likely quite the void after he is gone. Let's enjoy!

[QCity]

7 hours ago, Warcodered said:

maybe it's saturation? They've flooded the market so much that people just want a break from stuff that doesn't really apply to the team they care about.

 

I think there is something to this. This may sound crazy, but it's just too much. On Sundays there are games on from 9AM to midnight, that's 15 hours of football. There were 2 Monday night games for the first few weeks, the Thursday night games, and even Friday night games at the beginning of the season.

 

I know rabid fans are screaming "YEAH! 15 hours of football! Give me more" but it's really not. It feels like 1 hour of football and 14 hours of commercials and talking heads in the studio.

 

Injury? Cut to commercial.

Timeout? Commercial.

Challenge? You get 1 replay and then cut to commercial.

[BillsShredder83]

7 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm watching less NFL that I have in recent seasons. Sunday I didn't start watching football until 6 pm or so. I'm less interested, and I think the quality of the product is down, which adds to my disinterest. 

 

I think Prime's broadcasts are terrible and actually leave me less interested in the NFL. They almost encourage me to turn it off. They do some tricked up digital manipulation of the images to give you a more in-your-face-sense to the whole thing, but all it does is make it more difficult to watch the game. I think they do the digital manipulation to try to cover up the fact that their shows are produced more cheaply, with fewer cameras and less talent. Al Michaels and Herbstreet are horrible. Everything about the product I see and hear makes me want to turn it off, and sometimes I do. I turned it on last night late in the third quarter, watched 15 minutes, and turned it off.

 

Bills-Jets on on ESPN on Monday night was a flop, too.  A lot of penalties, and a lot of indecisiveness by the officials really chopped up the pace of the game and the broadcast. And instead of saving the day with quality talk, Buck and Aikman stumbled through the broadcast all out of sync, too. At one point, no one seemed to know which team had taken a timeout, but the refs were proceeding with the game, unaware that everyone lacked this information. And Aikman and Buck were slow to pick up on the problem. Meanwhile, fans wanted to know. And the teams played sloppy, things were too chippy .  Add it all up - bad play, missed opportunities, too many penalties, indecisive officiating, broadcast team that fails to save the show, I can understand why some fans may start saying, "I don't need to watch every game."  It's not very good TV.

 

If I were the NFL, I'd want more control over production. I wouldn't let Prime screw around with the video presentation. 

 

I'd want better, more professional broadcasters from Fox and CBS. The color commentators, particularly, are weak. Former players trying to talk comfortably into a microphone about something meaningful but not too technical for about 25 seconds. That's hard to do, and if a former player is really good at it, he's Michael Strahan or Peyton Manning and he's not going to be doing color commentary.  So, you get a lot of amateurish chatter about the same old things - momentum, smash-mouth football, etc - coming from guys who simply are not professional talkers. I don't know what's to be done about it, but if I were the NFL, I'd be worried that people like me are finding it easier to turn off games. 

 

I said this to a friend of mine who sent me the following, which was published somewhere:

 

One of the reasons I'm less interested is that it still feels like preseason. More so than most years, teams are trying to figure out how to play, and week to week they look really good to really ugly. Denver's defense last night looked spectacular, playing the way the Bills want to play. They had speed at every position, they were getting pressure on the QB every play, challenging the entire offensive line. How much that had to do with the Saints being bad and not having Carr, I don't know. Whether Denver will be playing like that in December is anyone's guess. So, I view these games as expendable. In late November and December, we'll know which teams are at .500 or better, and that's when the real season will start. In the meantime, I don't care all that much what happens except, of course, to the Bills. 

 

And speaking of the Bills, they've given a good example of what I'm talking about. It used to be that teams fixed their rosters in the off-season, and then they played the season. It's almost as though the good teams now don't fix their rosters until October, when they make one or two splashy acquisitions. We spent a lot of time this summer talking about what the Bills' receiver room, and it was all rendered moot when they trade for Cooper. NOW the Bills have the receiver room that they intend to play the season with. In a sense, the first six games have been preseason games. The Bills have been resting their stars - Milano, Miller, Bernard, Cooper, Johnson while they've been giving other guys (Williams, Epenesa and Solomon, Spector, Coleman and MVS, and Lewis) opportunities to work on their games. I know the "rest" they were giving these guys was forced rest, not true rest, but the effect is the same: the Bills have 11 games left, they're 4-2, and in the coming weeks they'll be putting their real starting lineup on the field for the first time.  You can add Oliver and Cook to the list, too. 

 

The real season is about to start. 

100% yes. It's not just me, who would've called you names for suggesting it anytime before 2020. Bills are my top football experience, but over past 2 seasons college stole my heart

[L Ron Burgundy]

7 hours ago, TrentEdwardsCheckDownOn4th said:

The officiating is as poor as ever IMO. It also doesn't help that the chiefs seemingly get every crucial call.  

 

Most of the Thursday night games are snooze fests. But I actually enjoy the post game show with Fitz,  Sherman and the rest of them. 

 

 

Disagree.  The auto reviews of turnovers and tds has made a big difference in limiting game changing bad calls.  

[EasternOHBillsFan]

The quality of talking heads in the NFL space (commentators, studio hosts, in the week shows) had declined considerably. The professionals have been jettisoned because of their high salaries, gotten too old for the job or have died off. I STILL don't accept the fact that college football commentators are doing NFL football games and it is amateurish and frankly is an insult to the pro game. It's not just ESPN, but you see it on EVERY NETWORK... Fox, CBS, NFL Network, Prime, Peacock...

 

Nothing will change and I told my wife that I would much rather watch a game with the sound muted and music playing than listen to the never ending inane chatter. I have nothing against Scott Hansen from the Red Zone channel, but even his weekly presentations have gotten stale and repetitive.

 

 

[TBBills Fan]

7 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

Totally agree.  Everything is going to hell.  Have you noticed that soup isn't as hot as it used to be?

[In Summary]

1 Not enough top tier QB play

2 Flags and officiating

3 Timeouts

4 More emphasis on football related social media and politics than football itself

5 Announcers that spew sterile or useless content

 

[EasternOHBillsFan]

12 minutes ago, In Summary said:

1 Not enough top tier QB play

2 Flags and officiating

3 Timeouts

4 More emphasis on football related social media and politics than football itself

5 Announcers that spew sterile or useless content

 

 

I agree with everything except for #4... totally not a thing during games

[stuvian]

The constant tweaking of rules and schedules has changed the game. All the engineering attempts at creating more passing and scoring have failed as every team now plays a base nickel D. This is why running QBs are so important now. Thursday games and overseas games always look inferior.

 

The final nail in the coffin will be the 18 game schedule. The human body just can't sustain that much collision. It will require a second starting quality QB.

 

The next crisis will be parents' refusal to enroll their kids in football because of injury. Do you see how early players retire now? Aaron Donald still in his prime walking away. Unheard of ten years ago.

 

I still love it but more for the fan experience and tailgating than for the game itself. You can see its demise coming with the greed ***** of gambling and private equity money. Someday tourists will visit the Ralph like we visit the coliseum in Rome.  

[In Summary]

1 minute ago, EasternOHBillsFan said:

 

I agree with everything except for #4... totally not a thing during games

I agree. Not during games, but the pregame and such.

 

Luckily you get a good cut of football with Cover 1 and Locked On Bills.