Lets Destroy The NFL
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to be born?
For the second year of this newsletter I resolved to write more about sports. I put off doing anything about that resolution for three months, but I’ve finally come up with something sports-related to write about. This comes out a day before the election, so I’m sure you, my most treasured reader, expected something politics related. For the sake of my mental health, I’ve decided against it. Instead, I’m going to write about something almost as atrocious as the state of politics in the United States, the NFC East.
For those of my readers who claim membership in the “sarcastically exclaiming, ‘oh, there’s a sporpsball on,’ family,” first, shut up. That stopped being funny in 2012. Second, the NFC East is a division of the National Football League. Also known as the NFL, or the “football league.” I don’t want to add any confusion, so I won’t explain what NFC stands for. Just know that within the NFC there are four divisions. Each division is made up of four teams. The NFC East teams are the Dallas Cowboys, The New York Football Giants – yes that’s real – the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Washington Football Team. I won’t get into why Washington doesn’t currently have a nickname, just know that it’s the result of multiple rich racist men being dumb as hell. Bog standard for rich racist men.
As I mentioned earlier the NFC East is currently the worst division in all of football. There is also the AFC, similar to the NFC, just starting with an A. The AFC also has four divisions of four teams each. And the NFC East is the worst of all of them. As I’m writing this each team has played or is in the midst of playing their seventh or eighth game. The top three teams in the NFC East, are tied with two wins apiece. Tomorrow, at best, two of these teams could have three wins. If you’re still not sure whether that’s good or bad, let me assure you, it’s bad.
Badness alone is not newsworthy. Or I guess newsletter-worthy. If you use Dang Dude as a news source, I have some questions for you, and about your understanding of the word “news.” Four football teams losing a bunch of games isn’t particularly interesting. However, four football teams losing so spectacularly that it calls into the question the entire NFL? Now that’s something to write home about. As Ray Ratto of Defector.com (subscribe to them!) noted in a recent article, the winner of the NFC East could potentially be a 4-11-1 team. To grasp the profundity of this, you need to know how the NFL playoffs work. At least for this year each conference, the NFC and the AFC, send the number one team in each division into the playoffs. The two teams in each conference with the best record of a non-division champ also make it into the playoffs as “Wild Card” teams. There are no rules regarding which division the Wild Card teams are from. If you haven’t figured out why that’s crazy, I’ll spell it out. A four-win team could make it into the playoffs over a team that has a far better record, perhaps even a team that won eleven games, and lost only five.
In football’s modern era no team with a record worse than 7-9 has ever made the playoffs. Across professional sports it’s very odd for teams to make it into the playoffs with a losing record. It happens from time to time, but it’s generally a fluke, and the team is usually pretty close to, if not a winning record, then at least having the same number of wins and losses. While the Eagles or the Cowboys might in the next few weeks start a huge winning streak and end up with a positive record, that is not likely to happen.
None of what I’ve said so far counts as an existential threat to the NFL. Honestly, a 4-11-1 Eagles making the playoffs most likely wouldn’t destroy professional football as we know it. If COVID couldn’t do it, Philadelphia certainly won’t. But it will cause a lot of people to question a lot of things about America’s own multi-billion-dollar sports monopoly.
The NFL likes to present itself as a munificent, all-knowing bastion of highly competitive football. That’s not out of the ordinary for most sports leagues. The NFL however, is uniquely not munificent, not all-knowing, and not a purveyor of highly competitive football. To be clear, when I say the NFL here, I’m referring to the team owners, Roger Goodell – the commissioner of the NFL – and other league officials. I’m not referring to specific teams in this specific article, though I don’t want to take them off the hook by any means. I just don’t want to add another seven thousand words to this piece. People have known about the not munificent and not all-knowing thing for a while. Pretty much everyone except for the most die-hard meathead fan has had to reckon with the fact that the league has put player’s safety far behind the league’s profit margins. It hasn’t really kept people from watching. What people are starting to come to terms with, is that the NFL’s product, the actual football, has not been good.
For the last few years regular season games have switched between penalty heavy slog fests or one-sided blow-outs. Few and far between have there been evenly matched teams going at it to the best of their ability. Injuries have racked decent teams over and over, destroying their chances at wins. Rule changes, especially when it comes to defining what a “catch” is – don’t get me started, there’s a book’s worth of ontological arguments to be discussed about that -have stymied even long-term officials. Constant official reviews of plays destroy the momentum of both teams and the game. All this is supposed to improve the football being played, but in the end only makes it worse.
The NFL itself has been saved by its playoffs in the last few seasons. The playoffs in recent years have generally featured the best, most healthy teams and seen thrilling comebacks, devastating loses, and long-coming championships for beloved coaches. Horrible regular season games can be stomached if the playoffs are good. Or at least that’s been the case for the NFL so far. Until the NFC East came to ruin it.
Let’s say a 4-11-1 Eagles make the playoffs. I’m an Eagles homer, so if you’d like to substitute the Cowboys or Giants here feel free. Note: Eagles beat the Cowboys last night so they are the only team left that can go 4-11-1 and still make the postseason. There goes the idea of a good playoffs. No way is a 4-11-1 team going to provide good football. Best case, they get blown out and it’s an incredibly boring game. Worst case, the Eagles win, somehow beating their opponent, the Bears, Vikings, Saints, whoever. This calls the whole point of the playoffs into question. If a 4-11-1 team can win a playoff game, let alone two, or dare I say three, then what is the point of the regular season? Why play all those extra games? Why should players risk their bodies if the freaking Eagles can get a shot at the Super Bowl? All these questions should, and hopefully will get asked.
Now the chances of the league changing anything if this happens is worse than zero. They, and their media cronies will run hundreds of articles about “the magic of football,” and “the joys of parity.” Peter King will break all of his fingers typing up justifications for why the NFL shouldn’t change a thing. Jay Glazer will do backflips to defend the shield. It will be a whole media circus. Very embarrassing for the NFL.
There is a chance that they change the playoff structure, but the damage will have already been done. I hope for nothing more than the downfall of the NFL and turning professional football into a public utility. Maybe the Philadelphia Eagles, America’s most dirtbag team, will be the inciting incident for that to happen. Maybe not. But a boy can hope.