Falling out of love with the NFL

In retrospect, the regular season finale of the 2007 season between the New England Patriots and New York Giants was the real ‘Super Bowl 41 1/2’ that season, not the Patriots’ battle against the Indianapolis Colts that was bestowed the label a few weeks before. The Patriots, marching towards the first undefeated regular season in 35 years, came into the now-demolished Giants Stadium to take on a Giants team trying to get a grip on their playoff standing.

I was a beat writer for a weekly newspaper at the time, expecting to lose my normally reserved spot in the press box. Being pushed into the cafeteria wasn’t that much of a surprise: larger outlets than the one I worked for decided to send at least double the reporters and triple the entitlement for quadruple the coverage. The real shock was seeing a ton of non-sports media, random celebrities and probably a few hedge fund guys who would later tank the economy a few months later.

At some point in the game, a realization washed over me… actually, it trucked me like Brandon Jacobs once ran over linebackers. After a lifetime of fandom — a New York City kid who considered the San Francisco 49ers his first love — and the sheer luck of covering the Giants for over six seasons and two Super Bowls, the admiration and passion for the NFL dissipated. That night, with gossip rags running amok and 10,000 more people in the parking lots using the game as their “I was there when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points” moment, I realized that the love was gone. The NFL jumped the shark.

Today, it’s normal to be critical of and sarcastic toward the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. Yet nearly a decade ago, to speak about cracks in the seemingly indestructible armor of America’s most popular entertainment company was to be sacrilegious. Back then, the league could do no wrong, right?

After decades of dynasties, the NFL entered in an era of legitimate parity, ushered in by arguably the greatest Super Bowl of all time – Tennessee vs. St. Louis for Super Bowl XXXIV – which was played by recently relocated teams in smaller markets. After years of watching the game act as a struggle between multifaceted offenses and aggressive defenses, rule changes began to open up the field for quarterbacks and wide receivers in order to increase scoring to obscene levels. The Tom Brady/Peyton Manning duels captivated the country, but so did the great, controversial stars like Terrell Owens and Randy Moss, as well as the ascension of Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Adrian Peterson and many others.

Along the way, however, we started peeling back the layers of the business and culture of the NFL. Roger Goodell rode a strong wave of league prosperity into the commissionership, talking about "protecting the shield" with law and order and adding new revenue streams. Yet, after being praised for making himself judge, jury and executioner when it came to player discipline, his bungling of different infractions made him public enemy No. 1, depending on which team you root for.

We also started to understand how past leadership through the years failed the players. From former commissioners to individual owners and executives, the dismissal of concussions and other brain injuries set in a motion a rising awareness of the traumas that haunt these athletes long after their final games. The initial responses from the league office were tone-deaf and full of denial until science, bad press, the concussion lawsuit and the deaths of several former players forced its hand.

The NFL’s handling of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse accusations was equally appalling. The unrepentant Greg Hardy. The incompetence shown during the Ray Rice ordeal. The fallout of allegations toward Adrian Peterson. Even this past season with former Giants kicker Josh Brown and former 49ers fullback Bruce Miller. In the recent era of NFL gone bad, you began to tally up player arrests alongside your fantasy roster’s point totals.

While all of those concerns gnawed at me, it didn’t help that the NFL has been suffering from a steady decline in quality. It had been happening for years right under our noses, but the last four seasons have highlighted it thanks to underwhelming quarterbacks from the college ranks, the addition of a terrible Thursday Night Football slate, horrific defensive teams and the plethora of so-called genius coaches making the dumbest calls in recent memory. The latter has shown up in three of the last five Super Bowls: the 49ers’ final drive against the Ravens in 2013, the Seahawks making Malcolm Butler a hero in 2015 and the Falcons’ clock management just over a week ago against the Patriots. They are the results of a pass-happy league that forgets how teams have always won football games with balanced offense and timely, if not great, defense.

While there are plenty more things that have bothered me about the NFL, none of this is to say that hope is absent for my relationship with the league or the game of football. As with the NBA in the 1990s and early 2000s, the NHL in between labor stoppages, or Major League Baseball during the steady stream of PED and steroid investigations, my interests endured through controversy and bad play. Despite the business of sports getting in the way sometimes, I still love the games themselves. The strategies, the personalities, the sheer combination of intellect and physical talent to be some of the best performers in the world, all of that will be admired no matter what.

Yet, this is the NFL when it comes to addressing its issues: