Is the NFL declining?

[Chaos]

The Bills have certainly declined.  Unbelieveably stale at this point. 

[Shaw66]

Bills Titans is pretty boring in the stadium.

[stinky finger]

10 hours ago, mannc said:

It blows my mind when I see ostensible football fans advocate for less NFL football on TV, as if three nights a week for 18 weeks per year is just too much to handle…

 

Congrats! You like shittty football. Did you watch Pats Jags this morning?

[Sojourner]

Is this why they’re aiming to host a Super Bowl internationally? 
 

[BarleyNY]

While I agree that the NFL’s product has seen an overall decline, I gotta say that I really enjoyed today’s game. 

[mannc]

On 10/18/2024 at 12:21 PM, RoyBatty is alive said:

They are now and they were supposed to be at the start of the season.   Many "experts" thought they would win the AFC east. 

 

 If you dont think the Jets are a very good team now  (gunning for greatness) then we will disagree.

Still think the Nyets are a “very good team”?  They may actually be less of a threat than the Dolphins…

[SoMAn]

On 10/19/2024 at 12:03 PM, MikePJ76 said:

CBS were the kings of the intro's.  Simple and effective driven home by the greatest voice to ever call a football game in Pat Summerall.

 

The thing that kills me as an editor myself these pieces are easier to produce and make and are way more effective than the bright, loud highly fx filled pieces we get from all networks now.  I always wonder how they do not understand fans love the old cbs style and not the modern stuff?  I mean we went from these amazing intro's to a robot spiking a football on cbs and a fake country star who is highly sexualized for the male gaze covering a joan jett song.

 

this one for cowboys bears wild card from 91 is great.

 

1990 nfc championship intro....perfect.

 

I admittedly suffer from too much nostalgia, everything to me that was great is over and all I have left is nostalgia....but you can not deny CBS production levels for the nfl were amazing, they also had the conference with most of the stars and the best venues.

 

I have some work to finish over the next two weeks but I think when I get it done I am going to take a stab at making one of these for a Bills game in December.  I think Bills-Jets.  I can remake that graphic open and use a pat summerall AI voice!  Now I am excited to do this!

 

Speaking of Pat Summerall….his daughter, Susie (Summerall) Wiles, will be the chief of staff in the incoming administration. 

[Warriorspikes51]

On 10/20/2024 at 1:54 PM, Chaos said:

The Bills have certainly declined.  Unbelieveably stale at this point. 

 

I'm sorry....what? 

[sleeby]

Allow me to add clarity.  Fire collinsworth.  Ressurect Madden.  

[PaoloBillsFanFromItaly]

I like NFL more this year, defenses are more able to stop offenses and the game is hard fought and balanced, maybe this is also due to declining offenses.

Anyway the football of some years ago when lot of games were shoutouts was almost unwatchable.

 

From my point of view a great improvement will be:

less commercials

[Low Positive]

33 minutes ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

 

I'm sorry....what? 

I think he typed that during the first half of the Bills-Titans game.

[JP51]

On 10/18/2024 at 12:13 PM, 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. 

I will say this, I do see so many more unforced pre snap penalties then ever before it seems... the one thing I have noticed is the insane athleticism of WR the catches and body control they make/have to me is way other level... I think the other thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of good young QBs in the leauge where prior it was almost impossible to find them. 

[BADOLBILZ]

 

So we are resurrecting another "it's not that I am getting old it's that everything is just less fun" thread?    Why?   There will be a new one in a few months when the next guy hits manopause.

[BillsVet]

10 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

So we are resurrecting another "it's not that I am getting old it's that everything is just less fun" thread?    Why?   There will be a new one in a few months when the next guy hits manopause.

 

 

"I don't like everything the way it is now compared to the way it used to be."

 

[US Egg]

16 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

So we are resurrecting another "it's not that I am getting old it's that everything is just less fun" thread?    Why?   There will be a new one in a few months when the next guy hits manopause.

Guilty as charged. Reality is, sexagenarians, like myself, aren’t their target group. 

[Fleezoid]

39 minutes ago, sleeby said:

Allow me to add clarity.  Fire collinsworth.  Ressurect Madden.  

 

We have AI now. We can replace Collinsworth with Madden. And all will be right with the football world. 

[frostbitmic]

Pffffft this game has been in decline since they did away with the leather helmet.

[transplantbillsfan]

No. It's not 

[BillsShredder83]

31 minutes ago, US Egg said:

Guilty as charged. Reality is, sexagenarians, like myself, aren’t their target group. 

Whoa guys, this guy has to be smarter than all of us because he knows some cInNaMon for the word old lol

[bills_fan]

The best thing the NFL can do is make the referees full time and allow all calls to be reviewed/challenged.  I am so sick of so many games being decided by officials when its blatantly obvious and easy to review the play from multiple camera angles and get the call correct.  Have a team of full time employees work every game and that would include a group watching video after every play.  Call down to the in game official and get the damn call right.  

 

The "judgement" of a small number part time employees should not affect a billion dollar industry and millions of fans from every team/city in the country not to mention the economic impact games have on cities/regions etc.