Things Were Better In The NFL

[DKphin]

Change is not always good. When I began to really watch the Dolphins back in ’71 there were the haves and the have not’s just like today. The good teams had a chance with sound personnel moves to remain good. Of course injuries were more frequent, but more players played hurt.
As older teams retired people, and players regressed naturally, you had a 12 round draft to try and replace them. There was no salary cap, yet most players were loyal to their teams, Except for a short time when WFL came along in ’74. That was certainly understandable as the contracts offered were for crazy money in that day. Still, for the most part star players did not move teams until they were up in age and regressing.
Teams that competed year after year were the Dolphins, Raiders, Steelers, Colts, Chiefs, Redskins, Cowboys, Rams, and Vikings. I am sure I am forgetting a few. There would be some ups and downs, but these teams were mostly up and you could bank on it. Most were veteran teams, and the quality of the game was in my opinion far better then the quality we see today. The games today are poorly officiated even with reply. The rules are not clear. What exactly IS a catch? The answer does not always coincide with what your eyes tell you. The same with pass interference as this is the most uneven call in the game from crew to crew, game to game, and play to play. The play that happened with Suh was an embarrassment to the league. Someone please tell me how the whistle didn’t blow?
It might sound like sour grapes, but consistency is not too much to ask regardless of the infraction involved. We breathe on a QB and we seem to get flagged. To quote the great Don Shula, “It’s horse****.”
To compete today in the era of parity you have to be a magician. Every card has to be an Ace. Teams like the Patriots skirt the rules, or at the very least push the envelope and get away with it. It’s sickening. Integrity, and doing it the right way should matter more then it does to some. They’re a great organization. They shouldn’t need to dirty the game with their antics.
What bothers me most about today’s game is free agency. It has literally ruined the game for me. Think about how you’d feel if Jason Taylor left in year 4 because Miami couldn’t afford to re-sign him. Think how the Lion fans feel about losing Suh. The other thing it does, and I never hear anyone mention it is it gives the leverage to the players rather then the coach.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://finnation.com/things-were-better-in-the-nfl/

 

[DolFan in NE]

The quality of the product is atrocious. It's been getting worse and worse over the last 10 years and, every since the new CBA, it has stepped off a cliff. I turned on the game last night for 5 minutes. San Diego had 3 consecutive penalties on offense and ended up at 4th & 22 then proceeded to get a penalty on the next defensive play. I turned the game off after that. It's just an awful, awful product but it's easy to bet on and fantasy football has had more of an impact than people realize. If you don't do any of those things and just look at the schedule and see the garbage that's on it, it would make you want to vomit.

 

[Snickersbps]

Thanks for sharing.

I'm 31 and the oldest game I can remember is Marino's return from injury to lose to Dallas on Thanksgiving. I often wish I could have watched the old NFL, but I worry it would make me appreciate what we have now even less. After the end of last year I considered walking away from the NFL because of the poor officiating and players'/teams' desires to skirt rules. It sickens me to see defenders pulling on jerseys, receivers blatantly pushing off and holding after holding. I'm not just talking about Phin games. I watch a lot of football every week. Either simplify the rules and allow people to play, or call everything. Every play. I don't care. It'll only take a few weeks and the players will clean up their game. I really do worry what the game will be like in 5-10 years. Seems like its only going to get worse.

 

[Roman529]

The Rules were clear back in the day...there was no Calvin Johnson Rule where you not only have to get both feet inbounds, but now you have to make a football move. Why muddy things up? Why do we have to have refs decide what is and isn't a football move? Also, I feel bad for athletes who get hurt, but why create a rule that you cannot tackle a QB in the legs all because Tom Brady got hurt? Then there is the Brady Tuck Rule which changed NFL history forever and made the Cheatriots a Dynasty. Football was better back in the day. It was still football.

 

[roy_miami]

I think it feels worst for Dolphin fans these days just because we're in the same division as the Patriots and there is zero room for error. Obviously I can't speak to the teams in poor divisions because it hasn't happened in so long for us but I would guess fans of all 4 NFC East teams are relatively happy to be still in the hunt rather than all miserable to be fans of bad teams.

I just hope they don't increase the number of playoff teams to make things more interesting for the fans of bad teams. I would rather be miserable and looking to the draft in week 8 than doing the math and hoping to make the playoffs as the 8th seed at 8-8 or even 7-9.

 

[psfign]

Agreed, but it's still better than the NBA product at this stage.

 

[Mr.Frosty]

Stop. The NFL has never been more popular than it is today. The product is better. Long gone are the days of slow methodical offenses that yielded hardly any entertainment value...unless you were old enough to remember the 70s. Free agency is awesome and gives us, the fans, more reason to follow the sport closely.

It's nice to remember where the game came from but change was inevitable for the sport to flourish. Adapt or die.

 

[Sons Of Shula]

The game is very different now and it kinda sucks. Very poor product that caters way too much to the passing game and is geared towards the idiocy of fantasy football. It's past it's saturation point to where now any execution on defense is wrongly viewed as sloppy offense. There's no respect for the defensive side of the ball anymore. There hasn't been a rule change in decades that supports the other half of football.

I've been slowly tuning it all out due to it's poor quality of play, the over emphasis of the QB, the disrespect of defense, and the disregard of the team concept.

 

[SirDrums]

My only issue is the rules. They do seem to water down the game a great deal.

I dont mind free agency as that keeps a few teams from hoarding all the great players. it makes things interesting for sure and allows teams with big holes a chance to fill them without resorting to the draft where all the rookies are big ?'s. It makes coaching more challenging as a coach cant just lean on his loaded roster to win.

 

[fishfanmiami]

To be honest I only watch my teams now a days at least until the playoffs come around. Same goes on the college side. Guess I'm more a Miami fan than a football fan. Like Shula mentioned all the FF stuff is not for me. Leaves me lots of free time for golf on the weekends :)

 

[SSnowman]

The game is very different now and it kinda sucks. Very poor product that caters way too much to the passing game and is geared towards the idiocy of fantasy football. It's past it's saturation point to where now any execution on defense is wrongly viewed as sloppy offense. There's no respect for the defensive side of the ball anymore. There hasn't been a rule change in decades that supports the other half of football.

I've been slowly tuning it all out due to it's poor quality of play, the over emphasis of the QB, the disrespect of defense, and the disregard of the team concept.

Sad but true. It irritates me when I hear people talking about defensive battles (although rare these days) as boring games. It's not just fantasy football, it's just people in general. Everybody wants to see both teams put up 40 points. It's like arena football. 5-10 years we'll be seeing 70 point games.

 

[Mogwai]

The game has definitely deteriorated. This random weekly chaos is a far inferior product to what it was, but it's so extraordinarily profitable that it will just keep heading in this direction. It's a billion dollar industry feeding other multiple other billion dollar industries. The influences that matter will always get drowned out by all that cash. It will genuinely be surprising if the whole thing doesn't become corrupted top to bottom. If it isn't already.

 

[BenchFiedler]

The quality of the product is atrocious. It's been getting worse and worse over the last 10 years and, every since the new CBA, it has stepped off a cliff. I turned on the game last night for 5 minutes. San Diego had 3 consecutive penalties on offense and ended up at 4th & 22 then proceeded to get a penalty on the next defensive play. I turned the game off after that. It's just an awful, awful product but it's easy to bet on and fantasy football has had more of an impact than people realize. If you don't do any of those things and just look at the schedule and see the garbage that's on it, it would make you want to vomit.

Try watching the Canadian Football League for a few seconds..... It's like watching flag football and the TE position does no even exist in the CFL

 

[Roman529]

The game is very different now and it kinda sucks. Very poor product that caters way too much to the passing game and is geared towards the idiocy of fantasy football. It's past it's saturation point to where now any execution on defense is wrongly viewed as sloppy offense. There's no respect for the defensive side of the ball anymore. There hasn't been a rule change in decades that supports the other half of football.

I've been slowly tuning it all out due to it's poor quality of play, the over emphasis of the QB, the disrespect of defense, and the disregard of the team concept.

I remember the 70's really well, when DEFENSE was still very important, and before the rules were changed to increase scoring and make it very tough on defenses. I remember the Phins No Name Defense, The Steel Curtain, The Purple People Eaters, the Orange Crush, the great Raider and Cowboy defenses......today the only defense that really has a nickname is Seattle's Legion of Boom. I think we need to change the rules to give defenses a little more help.

 

[scodoublet]

I'd have to agree that making the Defense less important is making the game worse. Low scoring games aren't necessarily boring.
Defensive battles and grinding out runs all day used to make for some pretty intense and awesome to watch games.