Yes, I completely agree. But then are we to get rid of football as we know it and replace with touch football. It is the fundamental question of is there place for contact sports like football, rugby, etc in our time/society. I see eventuality saying it’ll have to be “either/or”.
Bullshit. Head to head hits are not an integral part of the game. A whole slew of players make huge hits, wrap up and tackle, and separate a receiver from the ball, without leading with their helmet, aiming for their head, or spearing them in the back.
Since 1905 the rules of football have been changed to make the game safer (players were dying) and the game has survived.
Yeah, there is a fine line between good fair hit and intentionally trying to cause injury but then there were also unwritten rule that you don’t get away blatantly hurt someone back then?
What I’m saying is these rules take away aspects of the game such as if a OB throws a bad high pass and leave your receiver in vulnerable position the blame used to fall on the QB. It required more thought put into where you can place the ball and receivers to think twice before jumping up to grab certain pass.
In the spirit of “perception vs. reality” (stats are from pro-football-reference.com)
In 1970, the average NFL team made 1.3 field goals per game, and attempted 2.2 field goals per game (for a success rate of 59%) (note that, in 1970, NFL goal posts were at the goal line, not the end line…they were moved back to the end line in 1974, IIRC).
In 1990, the average NFL team made 1.3 field goals per game, and attempted 1.8 field goals per game (for a success rate of 74%).
In 2010, the average NFL team made 1.5 field goals per game, and attempted 1.8 field goals per game (for a success rate of 82%).
So…
Teams are actually attempting fewer field goals now than they did 40 years ago, and are not attempting any more field goals now than they did 20 years ago.
Teams are making a higher percentage of field goals now, which means that, yes, they are scoring more field goals today, but it’s a very small number. The average NFL team scored 3 more field goals over the course of a entire season in 2010 than they did in 1990 (or 1970).
It’s definitely the commercials, but I think it has less to do with the amount and more to do with the audience. We live in an era of DVR and internet TV. Today’s audience doesn’t want to sit through three hours of commercials like they did in 1985. If I can’t fast-forward through it, I’m simply going to turn it off.
Why do we have to keep dispelling this meme year after year? Baseball games have 15 minutes of action in just under 3 hours of play. Football has 11 minutes of action in just over 3 hours of play.
But yet baseball is a zillion times more boring. Weird.
Probably because there are natural breaks in baseball for stations to fit commercials in. I’m sure that play is delayed between innings long enough to fit commercials in. It can’t possibly take five minutes for teams to switch sides.
It’s actually about two and a half minutes. Which makes sense, because players have to get to their position and make practice throws, and the pitcher has to throw warmup tosses from the mound.
Not the players. The game.
The game is not being changed to accommodate commercials. Pro football is run by sponsors. Now so is college.
It may not impact the flow of the game in the same way, but sponsorship is just as endemic in baseball as it is in football. Pitching changes are sponsored, lineup announcements are sponsored, etc.
The Designated Hitter. The size of the ballparks. Instant Replay. Lowering the mound and shrinking the strike zone to help offense. Who gets to play. How players cheat. All about “the game”, not just the players.
Yes, football has more commercials (which, incidentally has fuck all to do with “the game”), because more people watch it. But this idea that somehow the baseball is “pure” is complete and utter bullshit.
Interesting stats, but I wonder exactly when the hashmark change fits in all of this. No more wide angle field goals, which could make even a 20 yard kick difficult. Why even bother with hashmarks, why not a single longitudinal stripe down the middle of the field and snap the ball at the dead center of every yard line?
As far as I can tell, the last time that the NFL hashmarks were moved was in 1972 (they apparently moved from 60 feet in from the sidelines, to 70 feet, 9 inches in from the sidelines, making the hashmarks at the same width as the goalposts). So, that change would appear to have been made well before most of the “recent changes” which this thread discusses. It might be one factor in the increase in kicking accuracy, but kickers were still pretty inaccurate (by modern standards) in the latter part of the 1970s, after the hashmark change.
I completely agree with the OP. Part of it, for me, is the extraordinary salaries that these guys can get just by virtue of having a good college career (NCAA football can be considered the AAA league of the NFL). I continue to be shocked, each year, at what a first-round draft pick gets in guaranteed money, without ever playing a down in the NFL. Other professional players from other leagues, be it the NBA or NHL or MLB, get paid a lot too, of course, but it seems like a lot of NFL teams are willing to take a very expensive flyer on college players – and it has affected both the NFL and the NCAA to both of their detriment.
At least as significant to me, however, is that no other major league is staffed with nigh-superhuman players. Yes, your average NHL defenseman or MLB shortstop will be in great shape and stand out in a crowd of shirtless Americans – but I can remember when William Perry was an anomaly – a 300-pound lineman! – nowadays, 300 pounds will get you knocked off the line like a high school JV player. I can identify with Sidney Crosby or Troy Tulowitzki – they’re my size. Football players, even in the skill positions, have become behemoths.
A third point (and one that has been mentioned upthread): I’m beyond marketing saturation with the NFL. No other professional sports league gives me the impression that they are in it for the money as much as the NFL. The other leagues aren’t in it for “the love of the game” – that’s perhaps never been true – but the NFL just gives off a reek of wanting to make money, and entertainment is a side effect.
The new CBA now has a limit on the amount a first round pick can sign for. It was, in part, meant to alleviate this very concern.
If anything, given the shortness of NFL careers and the damage to their bodies, I think NFL players should be making more than the other league. And the sheer punishment that they take I think speaks volumes about how they’re not in it just for the money. For the amount of revenue they produce, I don’t have a problem with their salaries.
I can’t help subjective impressions, but I find it … unsupported by any evidence … to conclude that NFL players care less than any other professional athlete.
Time will tell – I’d forgotten about that aspect of the CBA.
I was unclear: when I wrote of “the NFL,” I’m referring to the league itself. I’m quite aware that NFL players go through brutal punishment. In fact, I think the league itself has been happy to be making beaucoup bucks off of those punishing hits in the last few years, and the rule changes in the last year or two have addressed that somewhat, but I still believe the NFL wants its players to beat the crap out of each other.
Another thought that’s been on my mind for a few years but arose too late to edit: I do think the NFL is facing a coming PR nightmare: if players from the 70s and 80s are coming forward with neurological problems, what’s going to happen in a few years when players from the 90s and forward start having problems? The hits have became more frequent and more savage (and I know that players like Jack Tatum and Steve Atwater doled out their fair share of damage), and inflicted by people who were more of an immovable force.
Kenobi I appreciate the work you put into that, but there is something screwy about the figures on pro-football-reference.com’s chart.
Note FGAs and FGM both appear consistent over the 40 years from 1970-2010
FGAs each 5 years:
2.2, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.8, 2.0, 1.8, 1.9, 1.9
FGM each 5 years:
1.3, 1.1. 1.1, 1.3, 1.3, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5
Meanwhile, FG Pct has been consistently rising
59.4, 64.2, 63.6, 72.2, 74.4, 77.4, 79.7, 81.0, 82.3.
Now ask yourself, how can that be? If FGPct is rising, and FGA is consistent, then shouldn’t FGM be going up as well? Of course it should, and yet on the charts it doesn’t. Which means that there is a real serious rounding error problem embedded in the charts, IMHO. YMMV.