You Say Parity, I Say Mediocrity

With the semester wrapping up, I thought I'd write about something else which is soon wrapping up its season, the NFL. I heard Bernie Mullin speak about his love of basketball and how he believed that David Stern was the best commissioner EVER in any league. I squirmed in my seat a little at the thought of this, because if it were put to a vote in the U.S., I think Pete Rozelle would win in a landslide. He merged two football leagues into one, and had the vision to create one of the best sports "holidays" of the year, the Super Bowl. He had one big criticism during his career, playing games the weekend after the JFK assassination in 1963. If he were alive today, he would probably be asked about rumors of steroids and amphetamines in locker rooms in the 1970s and early 80s. That said, I'm not sure Rozelle would be happy with some of the aspects of today's NFL. He would like that television revenue sharing keeps small markets like Green Bay competitive with larger markets like New York. I don't know if he would like treatment of retired players who built the league or mediocre product on display on Sundays. Good teams used to routinely beat the bad teams and the cream would rise to the top early in the course of a season. The problem is that the cream doesn't necessarily rise now and a team can get hot in December and win the Super Bowl. Awful teams routinely beat good ones and quarterbacks are regularly asked not to lose a game rather than win it. The lowly Oakland Raiders have three wins against playoff teams (Philadelphia, Denver, and Cincinnati) and the then undefeated Saints were a botched field goal away from losing to a three win Washington team. The NFL has avoided the over expansion that baseball, basketball, and hockey have had in the last 20 years. Too many teams and a watered down talent pool. It has also surpassed baseball as our pastime in my 39 years on Earth. Unfortunately, the on field product and game have declined and I think Pete Rozelle would agree with me.