Just after halftime of the Patriots-Chargers game, as fans watched a rain-soaked Justin Herbert protect the Chargers’ insurmountable two-field goal lead, just before Herbert flung a beautiful pass to first-round pick Quentin Johnston that was bobbled and dropped out of bounds, the NFL posted a poll question inside the live Sunday Ticket chat.
Which team had the better uniforms today?
While this was likely some computer-generated quest for engagement, it also felt prophetic in that moment. It was like someone bringing up the weather on a stuck elevator when there was absolutely nothing else to talk about. It was like a youth sports coach ignoring the complete disarray on the field to ask everyone whether they enjoyed the orange slices at halftime. The Patriots-Chargers game was unwatchable, like so many that have preceded it this year. Asking any of the dissatisfied customers in that chatroom about anything tangible would have led to the very loud and repeated revelation of this truth.
David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports
Viewing professional football on a Sunday used to be the greatest legal high available to everyone on the planet. Now, it has been stepped on and tweaked, greedily squeezed so many times that we’re waiting all day for Tuesday night, just so we don’t have to think about the monotony of dueling punters and disoriented officials anymore.
Coming off a Thursday Night Football game that was more grossly and distractingly over-flagged than a high school mock trial, we landed on the meat of Week 13. Dreary Northeastern landscapes. Unrecognizable quarterbacks who sounded more like insurance agents. One stretch of Jets-Falcons in which six penalties were called in eight plays. Another catch during Steelers-Cardinals that may or may not have been a catch but who the hell knows.
This is the NFL right now, like it or not.
In fairness to the league, we are in the midst of a convergence of unfortunate factors. There has been a defensive counterrevolution to the 2018 offensive explosion. This was inevitable and, unfortunately for the NFL, there seem to be no more subtle tweaks the league can make to the rulebook in order to juke scoring for the fantasy football crowd. We have also had a tragic level of attrition at the quarterback position, which seems to happen every couple of years and coincide with similar think pieces about the declining quality of the sport.
But those maladies have run head-on with NFL Incorporated, which, like so many businesses that populate our landscape today, have a comical lack of concern for its workforce or the quality of the overall product. The field turf is unplayable, a mouse trap of thatched potholes just waiting to snag someone’s ACL. The players are exhausted, ferried between games on short rest just to satisfy some starving reality show, black hole television schedule. Last year, I was told about the Eagles’ benevolence in signing both Ndamukong Suh and Linval Joseph to spell their completely worn-out defensive tackles. Instead of common practice—caring for employees who clearly need more than one week off per 18-week season—it was viewed as an example of going above and beyond. Sadly, the working world has bled into the billion-dollar industry that is professional football. Everyone is (still) trying to save a buck.
Oh, and when these players, in moments of respite, check their cell phones, they are rewarded with a chorus of death threats via the anonymous swamp of degenerate gamblers welcomed into the beehive. Check out that back corner of the internet when you get a chance, full of vitriol, officiating conspiracy theories and unfiltered hate. Did you ever think about what a miracle it is that we have enough mentally and physically fit people to show up on a Sunday and fill 32 complete rosters?
During a good year, when Herbert flirts with 40-plus touchdowns, when Joe Burrow is healthy enough to rip off his diamond chain and sling a couple of no-lookers to Ja’Marr Chase in the end zone, when Josh Allen’s Bills are still in the hunt, there is enough entertainment to help overshadow what is becoming a weakened and unstable core. Please, football gods, encase Tyreek Hill, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts and Christian McCaffrey in the Popemobile. Without them, we’d have a slate of games that looks no different from British cheese wheel chasing.
The officials have no system backstopping them from the booth, despite the lightning-fast pace of play. The players have no common sense rest schedule. The offensive coaches, save for the select few blessed with a healthy roster or an owner willing to pay for upgrades, are out of options schematically.
Yes, there are still some good games every week but there are an abundance of bad ones. There is still brilliance. There is still innovation because there always will be. Humans are engineered to adapt and overcome, though the overlords of this professional sport seem willing to test the limits of evolution.
Anyway, did you guys catch those uniforms? Pretty sweet, right?
