This article rings true for me-This new age of parity is a little boring

[The Crusher]

In basketball, you can walk right in as a player and have an effect. The team benefits from that.

 

In baseball, you have a minor league system that develops the player, and they come up to the majors when they are supposedly ready. And your Free Agency clock does not start ticking until the club deems you ready, so they control you more readily.

 

In the NFL, it takes a majority of the players a couple of years to get their bearings and become good fits for a club, and then become an RFA after 3 years, and UFA after 4 years. In some cases, you are developing players for other teams.

 

 

A farrm system of developtmental league in football would be interesting.  A larger practice squad that actually scrimmages and teams are allowed to keep a few of them exclusive for their team. If it made some money you could pay the guys a little better and it would make it possible to hang around and get better. 

 

This way when teams needed replacements and fill needs you have a guy that has been in the system for awhile and I think would evelvate play.  Like last night it was very obvious losing the left side of their line crippled Miami.  Teams could have cool names like smaller versions of the big teams.  Like The New Your Cesna's, The Miami Trout, The New York Midgets, The Seatle Pigeons or The Jacksonville Kittens.   

[T0mShane]

In basketball, you can walk right in as a player and have an effect. The team benefits from that.

In baseball, you have a minor league system that develops the player, and they come up to the majors when they are supposedly ready. And your Free Agency clock does not start ticking until the club deems you ready, so they control you more readily.

In the NFL, it takes a majority of the players a couple of years to get their bearings and become good fits for a club, and then become an RFA after 3 years, and UFA after 4 years. In some cases, you are developing players for other teams.

What's funny is that, for all the talk about player (specifically quarterback) safety, this system has made it absolutely impossible to keep five good offensive linemen together for longer than three consecutive years. The Falcons and Giants season have been completely undone by turnover on the OL.

[The Crusher]

What's funny is that, for all the talk about player (specifically quarterback) safety, this system has made it absolutely impossible to keep five good offensive linemen together for longer than three consecutive years. The Falcons and Giants season have been completely undone by turnover on the OL.

 Maybe a different cap for skill players and lineman?  Because I do agree with you and maybe that would help.

[slats]

Same # of good players. They're just not all concentrated on a few teams. They then look even better than they are due to many games over their careers against perennial doormats who never have anyone good.

This is the crux of the issue, IMHO, and I think the biggest factor in that regard is league expansion. Thirty-two teams may make for a nice even distribution of teams over eight divisions, and make for an easy regular and post-season schedule, but the league is watered down.

Twenty-eight teams, and only one wildcard team per conference was better. The teams were better -the talent was more concentrated- and the competition was more fierce.

The flip side of that today is that a lot more fans are involved with more teams, and the extra playoff teams keeps them engaged longer. The league would fold up without the salary cap, so it's not going anywhere, either. The league exists for the owners to make money, so altering the rules to make fans less interested sooner every year isn't going to happen. Two or four owners aren't going to agree to fold up their franchises so that the other 28 or 30 teams can be stronger, either. Further expansion, though, would be a disaster.

I think it's more pronounced this particular year because the great QBs aren't really there - outside of Denver and maybe New Orleans. Brady is ordinary with a crappy cast around him, Rogers is hurt. Big Ben? Flacco? Romo? Eli? Who cares? Rivers is having a big anonymous year behind KC and Denver. Kaepernick and Wilson are game managers. Without the star QBs doing star QB stuff, you feel the parity more. That'll pass, again, as new QBs emerge.

[Sperm Edwards]

This is the crux of the issue, IMHO, and I think the biggest factor in that regard is league expansion. Thirty-two teams may make for a nice even distribution of teams over eight divisions, and make for an easy regular and post-season schedule, but the league is watered down.

Twenty-eight teams, and only one wildcard team per conference was better. The teams were better -the talent was more concentrated- and the competition was more fierce.

The flip side of that today is that a lot more fans are involved with more teams, and the extra playoff teams keeps them engaged longer. The league would fold up without the salary cap, so it's not going anywhere, either. The league exists for the owners to make money, so altering the rules to make fans less interested sooner every year isn't going to happen. Two or four owners aren't going to agree to fold up their franchises so that the other 28 or 30 teams can be stronger, either. Further expansion, though, would be a disaster.

I think it's more pronounced this particular year because the great QBs aren't really there - outside of Denver and maybe New Orleans. Brady is ordinary with a crappy cast around him, Rogers is hurt. Big Ben? Flacco? Romo? Eli? Who cares? Rivers is having a big anonymous year behind KC and Denver. Kaepernick and Wilson are game managers. Without the star QBs doing star QB stuff, you feel the parity more. That'll pass, again, as new QBs emerge.

 

Well yeah that's the other thing.

 

If not for the extra 2 wild card teams every season there are probably no (or only 1 or 2 max) wild card teams with superbowl rings.  It's hard for a 9 or 10 win team to win the SB when they don't qualify for the playoffs.  

 

Years like 1975, where there were two teams that were 10-4 and they both missed the playoffs because there was only 1 WC team (not to mention a pair of 8-6 teams which is about the same in a 14-game season as 9-7 is today).  Would the game have been "watered-down" if one of those teams won the SB instead of not qualifying?  And on the flip-side were all those teams that good or were they just fortunate enough that 4 of 13 teams in the conference were 2-3 win teams?  In the NFC there were 5 teams with 4 or fewer wins.

 

For a lot of those doormats it took a bit of luck to climb out.  There was no free agency so you have to keep hitting on your draft picks.  While doing so, you also have to hope that those picks that panned out could stay healthy (with no ACL repairs & such) long enough for the new rookies to pan out.  Times were also different in that they'd give a QB a lot more time to solidify himself as a starter before giving up.

 

There are lots of reasons.  Another reason can just be the talent level is HIGHER than before and it's more difficult for merely-good players to look great when borderline practice-squad types can run 4.6 40s at 280 lbs.

 

There are so many factors that there is no control group for definitively pinning it on any one thing.  But 3 WC teams probably has the biggest effect on teams with 6-7 regular season losses advancing to win superbowls with such regularity.

[Scott Dierking]

  But 3 WC teams probably has the biggest effect on teams with 6-7 regular season losses advancing to win superbowls with such regularity.

Did they just add another Wild Card?

[Integrity28]

Without parity, the Jets would probably got like 40 years without winning a SB. 

 

 

Oh wait.

[Scott Dierking]

Without parity, the Jets would probably got like 40 years without winning a SB. 

 

 

Oh wait.

Without parity, the Jets would not firmly be planted in the position of wild card at 5-4.