There are two major things about the NFL going on these days that could cause the league to lose popularity.
The first is all the booth reviews. Nowadays you can’t celebrate a touchdown spontaneously. There’s always something not that obvious that could happen. The Redskins losing a touchdown on a long pass this past Sunday is a perfect example.
Watching the NFL is like being in a courtroom. You’re constantly waiting on verdicts. Many of these verdicts will determine if you’ve won or lost your wager. If I wanted that I would watch Court TV.
Another problem is the league skewing the rules too much in favor of offense. Quarterbacks can’t be punished anymore. Receivers can’t be hit high. They are free to go blithely down the middle catching their boring little 6-yard find-a-hole-in the-zone pattern pass. Hard-hitting safeties are being fined left and right.
Jack Tatum couldn’t play in today’s NFL because he would be suspended all the time. Things have become way too slanted for the offense. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady are all Hall of Fame quarterbacks, but their yardage and touchdown records should come with asterisks saying they occurred during the age of modern football where hard-hitting and intimidation was de-emphasized.
The league doesn’t want so many concussions, or God forbid a death. I get that. I also get that this is football! These guys are paid big money to play the game the way it should be played. That means controlled violence. Not reigned-in violence where third parties make subjective judgments.
