Parity in the NFL?
What happened to there being parity in the NFL?
There seem to be three tiers of teams in the NFL this year: the good ones, the bad ones and the ones that lose to the good ones and beat the bad ones.
Through five weeks there are 5 undefeated teams and 5 more that only have one loss*. There are also 4 winless teams and 4 more with only one win*.
Pairing a "good" team with a "bad" team can make for bad football. Several games from this Sunday fell into this category: the NY Giants versus Oakland Raiders (44-7), the Minnesota Vikings versus the St. Louis Rams (38-10), the Philadelphia Eagles versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (33-14) and the Indianapolis Colts versus the Tennessee Titans (31-9). Also, pairing up two of the "bad" teams can make for bad football; see the Cleveland Browns versus the Buffalo Bills (6-3).
Now, don't get me wrong, there have been some good games this year. Just this week two games went into overtime. My observation, though, is that there seem to be a lot more of the "bad" games than in the past few years?
What's your take on the NFL season, thus far?
* The NY Jets, a one loss team, play the Miami Dolphins, a one win team, on Monday night.
posted by Shannon Smith @ 10/11/2009
2 Comments
Links to this post
2 Comments:
I agree that the NFL is looking more lopsided this year than ever, but at least there's SOME parity left in where the winning franchises come from. The other major sports are dominated by NYC and LA, and small markets don't stand a chance at competing. Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays might as well list their star players as future Yankees, because there's no way the Rays can ever afford proven talent. The NFL on the other hand doesn't even have a team in LA...I love that. The Giants have been pretty good, but the teams with the most Super Bowl appearances are Dallas, Pittsburgh, New England, Denver, and San Fransisco. Historically good franchises like Washington and Miami are terrible now, and teams that use to be joke like Indianapolis and Arizona are actually really good. And there's parity in the fact that Tennessee can have the best record in the league last year and then go 0-5 out of the gate this year. So, even if the league isn't as level this year as it's been in the past, it's still nice to watch a sport that doesn't allow general managers piece together dream teams. I just wish that Detroit would figure out a way to do something in this league. In a league full of parity, we still saw a 16-0 team in '07 and a 0-16 team in '08.
Lots of good points. Though, I think the Lions are allergic to winning.
What's interesting about the Yankees of this era are that they have compiled a lot of big name, big price tag players, but the only players that are going to end up with their numbers in Monument Park came from the Yankees farm system, i.e. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.
As for the NFL, I think your points are why it has overtaken baseball as America's game. It's not out of the question for any team to have a great year and win it all. So, people all over the country pay attention, not just folks in the biggest markets.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home