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The exact same could've been said of last year.
This is the direction the league is going in. Honestly, I like it. To me lower scoring doesn't mean less exciting. Good defense doesn't mean bad football. But I worry that because of this Goodell & co. are gonna change even more rules to benefit offenses.
All they have to do is enforce contact in the secondary like they were a few years back.
Love it.
As a Steelers fan, for years and years I’m used to seeing 16-13 or 20-17 score games when the Steelers and Ravens go at it. Nothing more exciting than tough hard-nosed defenses controlling the game. Each point is so critical with a costly turnover many times deciding the outcome.
All AFCN fans buttholes clenched until the clock is 0
I, for one, welcome our defensive player overlords.
Offenses being less successful than defenses seems like a massive benefit to viewing quality imo. The "tough watches" for me are those 50-49 games where nobody remembers how to play defense
Of course a Steelers fan would say this haha
Offenses are mostly designed around throws that travel about three yards from the LOS. That's gonna knock the hell out of a lot of those averages for passing.
But I'm in that minority that can still be entertained by a game that doesn't end with a 52-49 score.
Damn punters being so good
The real turnoff for me has been the amount of flags, or least I'm perceiving there are too many since I don't know the actual statistics.
And now that Arizona is having our very very nice fall weather, I'm going to spend my free time this weekend outdoors watching yellow leaves, not yellow flags.
Lack of Oline coming in. Also teams dealing with injured online as well. While the D-line keep getting better and stronger.
I been trying to tell people this for the last 2 years and no one gets it, yall just have to suffer through it. The game has gotten worse because of how much they're trying to inflate offenses. Today's offenses are all about the big play. But obviously defenses know that and they don't want to give up big plays, so they adjusted, which means ironically no more big plays. Everybody stopped blitzing, they just sit in coverage, give up short passes for free, and hope for an incomplete somewhere down the line to force a punt. It works, but it makes football so damn boring. All they're really doing is taking away all the big hits, sacks, turnovers, and touchdowns, so now we can enjoy all the incompletes and punts and fgs like we're in the 70s.
Offense and defense are both worse. Everything has a counterbalance. When you change the offense, defenses change to match. Big plays open up when defenses care more about defending the short passes. But now defenses are perfectly content to just sit back and wait, shut down all the big plays that offenses are designed around, and just let offenses kill their own drives with dumpoffs.
It’s just death by a thousand cuts, but I agree with what you said
Good
So you're saying that we're seeing a more balanced game?
I think the lack of practice is a big reason. You basically can't really practice much anymore so the games are the only time you get reps. So timing and other things are just off early in the year. Granted that usually fixes itself earlier than week 8 but I still think it has an effect.
QB Talent is currently down with all the old stars retiring.
Defenses have mostly all gone to cover 2 and keeping everything short and in front of them, leading to a lot more short plays and long boring drives that end in field goals when someone drops a 3 yard pass.
flags for defensive penalties are way down, meaning offensive drives aren't getting extended on freebies as often.
I’m a big fan of defense so I have still enjoyed a lot of these games but I can understand a lot of the average fans are of the opinion that less points=more boring. My concern is what the league might do in an attempt to “overcorrect” what really isn’t a big deal.