Is the NFL declining?

[Cusefan66214]

I only watch the bills (because I'm a fan) and the chiefs (because I live in KC and I want them to lose)

[Skyline Chili]

NFL play is good, but too many damn commercials and unnecessary stoppages.  All about the green

[Governor]

Yup, it’s been awful across the board. It’s totally unwatchable.

 

I must add that most of the teams suck. None of these games are interesting matchups and I no longer care who wins. Players also move around too much so you don’t have any cool narratives in play year to year. I have no idea who’s on what team anymore and I don’t even care. The history is all gone. 2003 was probably the last year I thoroughly enjoyed. The media saturation with podcasts from guys living in the grandma’s basements has kinda ruined it too.

 

Now It’s a bad product and gambling and ratings can’t hide that forever. The sport is in decline.

Edited October 19 by Governor

[LarryMadman]

NFL has lost me, new kickoff sucks, refs suck, London sucks, Brazil sucks, Washington is the Redskins forever, no hitting anymore or its a penalty sucks, all the different channels the NFL is on sucks, Roger Godell sucks and is destroying the NFL. Not a huge fan of run first QBs, I want to see precision passing talent not QBs running all over the place, I'll watch college or high school if I want to see QBs running all over. I watch the Bills and the occasional game here and there but if I miss games, oh well. Plus I only watch the game, no pre game, no half time, no post game and not a single football show during the week, can't stand all the opining on every player on every team, don't care one effing bit what some former player turned hot air media wind bag has to say, don't care! Quickly getting to the point of I can't stand the NFL anymore and won't watch any games.

Edited October 19 by LarryMadman

[uninja]

I used to watch a lot more football because I always wondered why the Bills didn’t look as good. 
 

Now I watch less football because watching the Bills play is better than watching most other teams play.

[DuckyBoys]

Dont watch much besides the Bills anyways and with half interest  Its become more about gambling.fantasy and endless off the field content than the actual football games.  Also most of the players are far from relatable.  Actual game play the defense basically almost cant hit and the refs are far too involved.  Spoiled watching this era w Josh  When that ends its going to be tough to stay interested

[BuffaloRebound]

It’s too violent of a game to play a 17 game season.  And now that 7 teams make the playoffs, there’s a lot of games that mean nothing in the first half of the schedule so there’s no reason to play in these early season games if your banged up.  Add in the Thursday night, Monday night, and international games and it’s a watered down disjointed schedule and feels like an inferior product compared to even 10 years ago.  

[dgrochester55]

I think that the NFL is worse for traditional fans, but more appealing to the casual and non football fans.  To me, it is harder to watch each year. When I was younger, I wouldn't miss NFL football for the world, every Sunday from beginning to end, even it if was a boring game. Now unless it is the Bills or Red Zone I can't sit through an entire game.

 

-I am tired of the 2 hours of commercials in a 4 hour broadcast

-I am tired of the officials, It is annoying to have 15-20 flags a game. It sucks waiting fifteen seconds after every big play for the flag that might call it back. I am sick of the commercial break and five minute analysis after a close call followed by the "expert" ref from New York explaining what obscure rule caused the ref to make a subjective call

-I am tired of the disproportionate amount of gambling ads that do just enough to make you wonder if there is something to the conspiracy theory of the NFL being rigged.

-I am tired of the announcers brown nosing the media darling teams and focusing on which celebrities are in the skybox

-I am tired of seeing unnecessary roughness penalties for what used to be routine smash mouth football

-I am tired of the NFL seeming to have the goal of putting as many games on as many streaming networks and in as many countries as possible in a season. I want games on Sunday and Monday. I do not need to see a Titans vs Bengals game live from Portugal Wednesday at 3:30 PM exclusively on the Magnolia network.

 

Goodell has made this league more about profit and entertainment than sport.

 

 

Edited October 19 by dgrochester55

[BillsPride12]

1 hour ago, dgrochester55 said:

I think that the NFL is worse for traditional fans, but more appealing to the casual and non football fans.  To me, it is harder to watch each year. When I was younger, I wouldn't miss NFL football for the world, every Sunday from beginning to end, even it if was a boring game. Now unless it is the Bills or Red Zone I can't sit through an entire game.

 

-I am tired of the 2 hours of commercials in a 4 hour broadcast

-I am tired of the officials, It is annoying to have 15-20 flags a game. It sucks waiting fifteen seconds after every big play for the flag that might call it back. I am sick of the commercial break and five minute analysis after a close call followed by the "expert" ref from New York explaining what obscure rule caused the ref to make a subjective call

-I am tired of the disproportionate amount of gambling ads that do just enough to make you wonder if there is something to the conspiracy theory of the NFL being rigged.

-I am tired of the announcers brown nosing the media darling teams and focusing on which celebrities are in the skybox

-I am tired of see unnecessary roughness penalties for what used to be routine smash mouth football

-I am tired of the NFL seeming to have the goal of putting as many games on as many streaming networks and in as many countries as possible in a season. I want games on Sunday and Monday. I do not need to see a Titans vs Bengals game live from Portugal Wednesday at 3:30 PM exclusively on the Magnolia network.

 

Goodell has made this league more about profit and entertainment than sport.

 

 

This is 100% spot on!

 

I have made the comment on here before but I feel like the NFL is trending towards what the NBA is currently where sure revenue and ratings are higher than ever but the true fans and purists of the sport will tell you the modern NBA sucks and don't watch it anymore.

[BobbyC81]

A lot of the football in the first 2 or 3 weeks (maybe more) is pretty bad, mainly because starters don’t play in preseason.

 

There also seems to be a lack of star power and/or they’re not marketing the stars well.  Some of this for me could be that I watch games delayed so I can fast-forward thru commercials so, if there are NFL stars in commercials other than Mahomes, I’m not seeing them.  
 

Not too long ago, I used to look forward to watching games with players like Favre, Brees, Peyton Manning, Barry Sanders, etc.  Now that they’ve all retired, I’m not that intrigued to watch any star players outside of Bills games.

 

I think there may be also the issue of overexposure.   When I was growing up, there would be a doubleheader on one of the networks and the NFC game usually involved the Tom Landry Dallas Cowboys, who I became a fan of.  Then when Monday Night Football started, everybody seemed to be excited to watch the national prime time game.  Now, with the addition of Sunday night games and most recently these Thursday games, there’s maybe too many games to watch.  However, like you said, the games aren’t always that good.  A potential good matchup ends up being a boring game.

[BurpleBull]

I can say that Thursday has come and gone twice this season without me realizing a game was on until the next day when guys were chattering about a bad loss having taken place.

 

Thursday is just a weird day to be playing NFL football in general, it gets more strange when forcing people to login to a company's website that you associate with ordering music from in order to catch it.

 

Nope, I can wait three more days.

[Jimmy Harris 69]

The NFL is over saturated, over-hyped and over monetized. I find myself caring more about fantasy football some Sundays than about actual teams and games. Fantasy is interesting and I get to play gm/coach for a team. The nfl has become very frustrating to watch. They are always working new angles to get more money from fans. The games have too many rules that are selectively enforced by buffoons in striped pajamas. As I watch the jets -bills , I yelled at the tv—-let them play !  The nfl corporation like a giant government, has its fingers wrapped around the game. As they tinker,  fiddle  annd over legislate the games, they are choking the joy out of them. 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

13 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.

 

also, I wish I could just hear the sounds and mute the analysts. I can’t stand any of them. 

This should seriously be an option. I would pay for it. 

[Richard Noggin]

Tom Brady as Fox's lead Color Commentator is all you need to know about the degradation of NFL broadcasts. Plastic and phony like A-Rod (baseball) but not nearly as good at acting human. Then you've got Collinsworth who is unbearably shrill and hyperbolic. 

 

Commentators in general need to chill out and say less. Comment on the actual plays and not whatever incessant narratives they identify during the week. Have some actual human chemistry with their broadcast partners. Maybe some wit even. 

 

And of course, the refs need to back the eff off. Unless something is obvious (like every Sauce Gardner hold or Juwaan Taylor false start/illegal formation), stay out of it. 

[bigduke6]

product is bad.   nobody wants to watch 28 terrible QBs, 30 commercials/30 flags per game.

Edited October 19 by bigduke6

[Orlando Buffalo]

My simple problem is that the officials are bad and the NFL is not helping them get better by using technology. Sometimes the games "feel" fixed because the officials don't even understand the rules and it reminds me of WWE. 

[HOUSE]

A lot of us older guys are passing the torch on to the younger fans

It's your turn to be broke by supporting the NFL 

[Neo]

18 hours ago, 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.

 

I think they’re the best 2-4 team in the NFL.

[Beast]

I made mention that the product was down during the games last week. Just some awful football is being played.

 

[Neo]

I could write for hours.

 

The game has always changed, era to era.  The forward pass was once a “fad that defenses would figure out.”

 

The game of our youth, our first exposure, is always the measuring stick.   I miss games where premier running backs had 30 carries a game and teams marched up and down the field four yards at a time.   Rule changes for more “big plays” simply made big plays less big.

 

Replay review.  Ten minutes of nothing that in the aggregate changes nothing.   Over the course of a season, it’s zero sum.  The magnitude of any change for one team is equal to the magnitude of the same change to the other.   But, it’s more accurate!   Accurate?   There are 20 callable offenses every play.   Every one reviewed is associated with 19 un-reviewed.  We went from “over officious jerks” to an “over officious design.”   Replay is opium and dopamine telling us the results are better.

 

Fantasy, betting, picture in picture, Networks, cable, alternative broadcast companies, Apps.

 

So, today’s game ain’t “my game.”   What’s that mean?    I don’t miss a Bills game.   I subscribe, I pay, I travel.

 

I also don’t watch five non-Bills game a year.   I haven’t watched a full Super Bowl in decades.

 

All that said, the leagues is not declining.   Quite the opposite.   NFL revenue is growing at nearly 9% annnually over the last 20 years, up every non-covid year (to the best of my earnest effort to assemble and review data).

 

The league is thriving even though it’s diverging from my ideal.   The two issues are different.

Edited October 19 by Neo