well-said, TwoHeadedMonster. Last night's game was nothing more than fantasy football/video game football played out on an actual field, which is the direction the NFL has been headed in for years now, and it has VERY LITTLE to do with "player safety." The owners only care about ONE thing and that is $$$$$$, and they all realize that there is A LOT more $$$$ to be made if you satisfy all of the casual fans, all of the fantasy football fans, and all of the gamblers by having teams putting up A TON OF POINTS every single game. Just about every single significant rules change over the course of the past 40 years has favoured offensive football, and that trend is only going to continue. Pretty soon NFL games will be feature more points than college basketball games, and that is just pathetic. Hell, in today's NFL a QB passing for 3,000 yards in a season means absolutely nothing now.....which is sad, because I remember when that used to mean something.
ColoradoContrails, you are missing the point, with all due respect. The integrity of any sport hangs in the balance, when that sport "loses its balance", if you will. When the owners seemingly tilt the inherent advantage in one direction or another, the sport loses its core integrity. The foundational aspect of ANY sport is competitive balance....between teams, between philosophies, between offense and defense, etc. Once the owners in any sport decide to "rig" the system to basically legislating dominant defense out of the sport, in favour of "empowering" even the most mediocre QBs, coaches and offenses to score a ton of points, the integrity of the sport itself is damaged. It is as if baseball went back to the mid 90's, encouraged all of its players to start juicing up again for DINGERS (since "fans" LOVE the home run!) while mandating that all new stadiums become nothing but glorified bandboxes, and lowering the pitcher's mound to boot. Sure, you would have "SUPER EXCITING" games chock full of home runs, ending in scores like 17-15....but would you actually not agree that the integrity of the sport of baseball would then be irreperably harmed?!!!
You have this so wrong on so many levels. The NFL is rigged by the salary cap, rookie wage scale and the way the draft is constructed. You can argue that's good or bad but it's rigged to favor bad teams over good teams on lots of levels. It's done for competitive reasons. Now you can argue that's good or bad but it's not rigging the game on the field. The NFL has had rule changes forever. Helmets weren't required at one time. Hash marks used to be much wider, offensive lineman couldn't extend their arms at all and defensive lineman were allowed to go to the head. Deacon Jones first move on a pass rush was a forearm to the earhole of the Tackle. His intent was to stun them on the spot. http://www.realclearlife.com/sports/nfl-rule-changes-created-golden-era-quarterback-stats/ 1993: It is not intentional grounding when a passer, while out of the pocket and facing an imminent loss of yardage, throws a pass that lands beyond the line of scrimmage, even if no offensive player has a realistic chance to catch the ball (including if the ball lands out of bounds over the sideline or end line). 1995: When tackling a passer during or just after throwing a pass, a defensive player is prohibited from unnecessarily and violently throwing him down and landing on top of him with all or most of the defender’s weight. 2002: It is illegal to hit a quarterback helmet-to-helmet any time after a change of possession. 2006: Low hits on the quarterback are prohibited when a rushing defender has an opportunity to avoid such contact. 2007: A block below the waist against an eligible receiver while the quarterback is in the pocket is a 15-yard penalty instead of a 5-yard penalty (an illegal cut block). 2009: It is an illegal hit on a defenseless receiver if the initial force of the contact by the defender’s helmet, forearm, or shoulder is to the head or neck area of the receiver. Penalty: 15 yards. 2009: Clarified rule regarding low hits on passers: A defender cannot initiate a roll or lunge and forcibly hit the passer in the knee area or below, even if he is being contacted by another player. There is something called science and medicine. Players are also assets that get paid a lot of money and have a short shelf life. There is liability to consider. And yes there is even competition and how do you help make the game more exciting for more fans. You can argue that the changes are good or bad but the rule changes aren't rigging the game. Granted when fans don't understand what a catch is or the difference between defensive holding and pass interference and refs are routinely calling them differently from game to game it may appear rigged. Again that's been going on in all sports for decades. NBA games, NHL games, strike zones are all called differently. What makes it fair or unfair is are they consistent in the game so that the players can adjust and play on an even field. I'm in my mid 60's. Everything has changed around me. I can bitch about or take what I like and ignore what I don't. The 85 Bears could never happen again until it did there was a team called the Ravens who won the SB in 2000. In 2007 the Pats scored over 6500 points in a perfect season. They were beaten in the SB by a Giant team that beat up their QB with a 4 man rush. The Seattle Seahawks overwhelmed the Denver Bronco's with D in 2013 and the Denver Broncos beat up Carolina in 2015. Last nights game had some great game changing defensive plays in spite of the fact that two prolific QB's with loads of speed and talent on O put on a show. No different than when Dan Marino and the Dolphins put 38 on the 85 Bears on Monday night football.
oh Biggs the sad, a pathetic IRONY of you stating that MY post was "wrong on so many levels" when your post was absolutely riddled with utter ignorance and lame, straw man arguments. I have neither the patience nor the time to correct every single factual inaccuracy contained in your mind-numbing response, but I shall deal with a few highlights. 1-the NFL is not "rigged" by the salary cap, etc. Apparently you completely fail to grasp the meaning if that word, so I will attempt to help you do just that. Policies such as revenue sharing and a hard salary cap are implemented to ensure that talent and ingenuity dictate which teams have success and which teams do not, as opposed to wealth determining which teams are able to compete. That is to say, that said policies ensure the "competitive balance" which I had repeatedly stated lies at the core of any sport's integrity. 2-that was a very nice straw man argument which you established with your "blah blah blah the nfl has had rules changes for as long as their has been a sport blah blah blah" "argument" but as is the case with all lame, lazy straw man arguments, it is inherently worthless and not even worth the time I am taking right now to de-bunk it. Suffice it to say, that NO ONE with a modicum of sense can possibly deny the fact that the owners have systematically altered the fabric of the game by consistently altering the rules with the intent of encouraging scoring/giving offenses an undeniable schematic advantage over defenses. That, my friend is RIGGING THE SPORT to FAVOUR one side over another. That is INDISPUTABLE, and as I so eloquently stated in my previous post, this strikes at the very core of the sport, because as opposed to the ORGANIC RULES changes which occur naturally due to such things as the onward march of technology, these rules changes have been orchestrated from up on high for one purpose and one purpose only, which is to put more $$$$$ into the pockets of the owners, and that is, much like your response to my initial post, DEAD WRONG ON SOOOOO MANY LEVELS. Finally, you are wrong in stating that the 2000 Ravens were any where NEAR as dominant as the '85 Bears were AT THEIR PEAK during that season (yeah yeah, they gave up less points..well guess what..the 86 Bears gave up less points than the 85 Bears did, and they weren't nearly the defense that the 85 Bears were, so u can stuff that statistical argument), you were wrong in stating that Marino's performance in 85 was "no different" than the assinine display of offensive football we saw last night (ummm hate to break it to you, but it was VASTLY DIFFERENT for a variety of reasons which I do not feel like going into right now....such as he was playing back in a time BEFORE defensive football was basically legislated out of the sport, back when you could still actually HIT both the QB and his WRs, and HE was actually playing against the most dominant defense of ALL-TIME when he put on that performance as opposed to last night's shlockfest featuring two pathetic non-existent defenses) AND you are dead wrong when you foolishly cite the 3-4 "defensive plays" that were made in last night's game that featured over 100 total plays and over 100 total points scored, but hey, if you want to foolishly and wrongly state that Aaron Donald's strip sack proved that last night's game was not a completely absurd video game scorefest OR if you want to foolishly and wrongly state that Patrick Mahomes or Jarod Goff are anywhere near the QB Dan Marino (or Joe Montana or Steve Young etc.) were they go right ahead, lol. You have every right to be as wrong as you wish. IN summation, I shall see your "You have this so wrong on so many levels." and raise you two "You have this so wrong on so many levels" since your response was one of the most ignorant, foolish and just plain WRONG posts I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and I shall state that you can take your sarcastic "durrr there is such a t hing as science and medicine" smarmy remark and shove it in the same exact place I invited you to shove your straw man arguments. If you honestly believe that all OR EVEN the bulk of these rules changes have occurred due to "science and medicine" then you are even dumber than your post suggested, and that is both absurdly remarkable and just plain sad. :*( <----there ya go, pally boy..that tear is for you. (see, I can be sarcastic and smarmy too!) lol Rack me, Jim, I'm out.
I enjoyed the hell out of last night's game. Granted, it would lose it's appeal if it happened more frequently. It was the equivalent of visual junk-food...
This was turning into a pretty good discussion, Buddy until you forfeited it. If I were running this circus you would also have forfeited your right to participate for a while. People's opinions vary and that's a good thing, it doesn't make one or the other wrong.
Good posts! Excellent point that the object of any ball game is to score points/runs. At times it seems as if some people (especially Bowles and the Johnsons) fail to realize that fact. One of the reasons I've heard that so many Americans hate soccer is that it's too low scoring. What attracted a number of us to the Jets was the old AFL and the high-scoring aerial circuses.
Sports integrity comes form playing by the rules of the game. Striving for excellence and sportsmanship. "Competitive balance" was designed to control the players, reduce competition for wages and monetize franchise value. It has nothing to do with putting a better quality product on the field, promoting excellence or sportsmanship. NFL Owners are partners in a shared revenue system. There is almost no incentive for teams to try and be really good other than owner ego. "Competitive Balance" is designed to create parity and hold down operating expenses. Parity has nothing to do with excellence. It's about making good teams not as good and bad teams not as bad. The way to get a better product on the field is to reduce the number of teams and create an incentive for teams to keep their core players together. The NFL salary cap and rookie wage scale is a huge incentive for teams to unload core players and start unproven rookies who's wages are capped below market. Parity helped the league expand. It has nothing to do with the integrity of NFL football. The current NFL deal with the players came through an owner lockout. It has zero to do with the integrity of the game. Buddy Ryan is Dan Marino's bitch.
He has a POV. It's completely colored by his youth as all of ours is to a degree. He's football fantasy moment came in 1985 with the Bears. Mine came in 1968 with the Jets. The game has been constantly changing every single decade going back to the day 1. It's a process and some fans will be longing for the past and some will see the current era as the best. Much of it based on when their team had its zenith moment. Pats fans in a few years will be longing looking back when they suck for 3 to 5 decades in the future. I watch a lot of games and most of them I don't think are that good. Last nights game was terrific. It wasn't just because of the scoring. You had incredible athletic talent performing at a pretty high level for a regular season game. Big plays in ever drive many by the defenses. Very few low effort moments. It had a playoff atmosphere and the players were all in. That's pretty much all you can ask for as a fan. Had that been a defensive game that came down to the end like that I think I would have loved that also. The Jets aren't putting a good product on the field. If we were and we were doing it with D I think fans would embrace that. The fact is in this era our D isn't elite enough to compete with an inept O. It's not all that fun to watch when what you're watching is a competitive mismatch often against other teams that aren't very compelling.
Interesting. Did you hate the GB Packers teams of Vince Lombardi? They had perfect or near-perfect execution. I loved the aerial circuses of the AFL, but they had balance, because the DBs could mug receivers. I don't like all the rules changes, but I prefer aerial circuses to 3 yards and a cloud of dust. I hate 6-3 games, those are baseball scores, but I'm not sure I want to see a bunch of games with over 100 points scored either. I like the possibility of the Jets being able to shut out the other team from scoring, but don't like it when the Jets get shut out. I love offense, but I also want to see good defense. I think all rules should be enforced. If OLs truly hold on every play, then it should get called every play until they stop holding. There shouldn't be all the phantom calls, either.
I LOVED the Packers! In fact, I rooted for them along with the Jets (no conflict of interest because they were in different leagues)...I also still sort of rooted for the Eagles, but they were struggling and the Packers with Starr and Hornung, et. al. were like a well-oiled machine. But the key difference between that "perfection" and what I'm complaining about was this: the Packers achieved their's through repetition in their practices and Lombardi's insistence upon it, so that when the game day came they all were well drilled in what to do, whereas today, coaches try to achieve it by sending plays in through radio receivers. Starr called most of his own plays - as did almost all the QBs back then - the QB was in charge of the game, not the coaches. In fact, when it became known that Tom Landry was calling most of the plays for Staubach it diminished Staubach's reputation in many people's eyes, but that was the "wave of the future" that eventually led to radios in helmets. I would say that the most successful teams, the ones that consistently win, are those that follow the Lombardi Method of designing a system and then getting players that best fit it, or if necessary, making adjustments to the system to fit the players, but in the end, drilling the players to execute it as perfectly as possible. This is NOT what Todd Bowles does, and it's very clear that he doesn't. And that is why the Jets need to get rid of him.
They had more sack in that game then the Jets have in the last 4 weeks. So defense was played, interceptions made. Things the Jets do none of.
In a January 1983 playoff game, the Jets beat the Raiders 17-14. Although both teams scored only 31 points in total, this was one of the most memorable and well played Jet games in the past 40 years due to its intensity. The NFL has changed its rules to make playing defense virtually impossible (unless you're playing against the Jets offense, of course). This is synonymous with MLB looking the other way during the steroid era. Major League Baseball had just come off a damaging strike in 1994 and they were desperate to get people back into the stadiums. Well, steroids and a juiced up baseball seems to have done the trick. Suddenly, 120 pound weaklings were hitting 35 HRs in a season. These were guys who had never hit more than five roundtrippers in a season prior to that. Arguably, a 51-48 game has little to do with a well played football game. These sort of games obviously cater to casual fans who just want to see a touchdown every three minutes or so, and may not understand the more interesting intricacies of the game. Basically, the NFL is catering to the lowest common denominator of football fan by making it a two hand touch arcade style game. The product on the field has basically gone to shit the past couple of decades, so the league needs to draw in a more ignorant and less knowledgeable fan base to keep their profits healthy. At this rate, 6000 passing yards and an 80% completion rate will be the norm for all QBs in one season.
. From the Ironman days of Chuck Bednarik "going both ways" and kickers playing in the trenches to a sport that became more and more specialized over time it's all the more important imho that the NFL not break up the complementary ying/yang dynamic of offense/defense by treating defense as a mere prop to stage glorified Big-12 offensive exos with basketball scores - with the offensive skill positions as the main characters and the defense as the background chorus. No balance adds up to no good. . .
If we get such scores every week I may as well start watching basketball (which I am definitely not a fan of). Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
Oh the irony. 1-the NFL is not "rigged" by the salary cap, etc. Apparently you completely fail to grasp the meaning if that word, so I will attempt to help you do just that. Policies such as revenue sharing and a hard salary cap are implemented to ensure that talent and ingenuity dictate which teams have success and which teams do not, as opposed to wealth determining which teams are able to compete. That is to say, that said policies ensure the "competitive balance" which I had repeatedly stated lies at the core of any sport's integrity. 2-that was a very nice straw man argument which you established with your "blah blah blah the nfl has had rules changes for as long as their has been a sport blah blah blah" "argument" but as is the case with all lame, lazy straw man arguments, it is inherently worthless and not even worth the time I am taking right now to de-bunk it. Suffice it to say, that NO ONE with a modicum of sense can possibly deny the fact that the owners have systematically altered the fabric of the game by consistently altering the rules with the intent of encouraging scoring/giving offenses an undeniable schematic advantage over defenses. That, my friend is RIGGING THE SPORT to FAVOUR one side over another. That is INDISPUTABLE, and as I so eloquently stated in my previous post, this strikes at the very core of the sport, because as opposed to the ORGANIC RULES changes which occur naturally due to such things as the onward march of technology, these rules changes have been orchestrated from up on high for one purpose and one purpose only, which is to put more $$$$$ into the pockets of the owners, and that is, much like your response to my initial post, DEAD WRONG ON SOOOOO MANY LEVELS. Finally, you are wrong in stating that the 2000 Ravens were any where NEAR as dominant as the '85 Bears were AT THEIR PEAK during that season (yeah yeah, they gave up less points..well guess what..the 86 Bears gave up less points than the 85 Bears did, and they weren't nearly the defense that the 85 Bears were, so u can stuff that statistical argument), you were wrong in stating that Marino's performance in 85 was "no different" than the assinine display of offensive football we saw last night (ummm hate to break it to you, but it was VASTLY DIFFERENT for a variety of reasons which I do not feel like going into right now....such as he was playing back in a time BEFORE defensive football was basically legislated out of the sport, back when you could still actually HIT both the QB and his WRs, and HE was actually playing against the most dominant defense of ALL-TIME when he put on that performance as opposed to last night's shlockfest featuring two pathetic non-existent defenses) AND you are dead wrong when you foolishly cite the 3-4 "defensive plays" that were made in last night's game that featured over 100 total plays and over 100 total points scored, but hey, if you want to foolishly and wrongly state that Aaron Donald's strip sack proved that last night's game was not a completely absurd video game scorefest OR if you want to foolishly and wrongly state that Patrick Mahomes or Jarod Goff are anywhere near the QB Dan Marino (or Joe Montana or Steve Young etc.) were they go right ahead, lol. You have every right to be as wrong as you wish. IN summation, I shall see your "You have this so wrong on so many levels." and raise you two "You have this so wrong on so many levels" since your response was one of the most ignorant, foolish and just plain WRONG posts I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and I shall state that you can take your sarcastic "durrr there is such a t hing as science and medicine" smarmy remark and shove it in the same exact place I invited you to shove your straw man arguments. If you honestly believe that all OR EVEN the bulk of these rules changes have occurred due to "science and medicine" then you are even dumber than your post suggested, and that is both absurdly remarkable and just plain sad. :*( <----there ya go, pally boy..that tear is for you. (see, I can be sarcastic and smarmy too!) lol .
