12 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

It's a completely different style.  Players from today are physically more imposing, faster, etc.   However, players back then also played when they had offseason jobs because it didn't pay as well, couldn't afford private chefs to give them the absolute best in terms of nutrition, etc.  And the game itself has moved to a much more pass heavy era.   But, if the DBs of the 1960s and 1970s could play by their rules... today's WRs wouldn't be running nearly as carefree as they do now... they'd have a harder time with their routes.  Nighttrain Lane might very well decapitate some WRs in today's game.   Equally, the QBs of today, by the rules of the 1960s would be much more likely to release the ball very early because the defenses would be hunting them like lions going after a wildebeest.   Again, today's QBs don't have to put up with much contact compared to yesteryear.  And what would Deacon Jones' headslap do to today's LTs that have never experienced such a thing?  

 

Flip the script to the offensive side advantage of the past to today's game... crack back blocks are outlawed, the high-lows that happened frequently are now gone, so DTs can attack the LOS without having to be so wary to protect their knees.    

 

In other words... its not just a fair comparison.  The game has morphed and changed too much to really get a handle on who would do what to whom.  Best not to compare eras.  Just no real way to do it properly.

To be sure, the players are bigger, stronger, and faster. The rules are radically different.

Whether the game is better is a whole "nuther" thing. 

The one thing I would change in the current NFL is to go to college pass interference rules. Until the ball's in the air, anything goes and the max penalty is 15 yards.

4 minutes ago, mattwill said:

You are looking at teams.  The comment that was made that I responded to was about the talent ... specifically proposing to eliminate several teams so the number of teams matches the quality of available talent.  The problem is not the availability of talent. 

The problem is three-fold (1) more talented players are playing against more talented players which has a cancelling effect, and (2) the use of the talent by coaching staffs hasn't improved as much as the talent has improved, and (3) coaching staffs are on much, much shorter leashes now than they were in past decades, as a result there is much less stability/continuity in coaches.  Hurts' history with the coaching turnover he has experienced is a very clear indication of that.

The topic was about bad teams playing boring games. Not just talent in general or talent now vs the past. If you eliminate the bad teams, every other team gets more talented which would lead to better games and matchups.

But the NFL is a business and they want to make money, so I understand why they expanded. But I do push back on the availability of talent. There are way too many bad O-linemen around the league that start because they are the best of the worst, but still bad. And more so recently, there have been too many bad QB's that find themselves starting because of injuries or COVID. Coaching can only do so much, and they can't turn a DiNucci/Fromm/Glennon into a talented NFL player. 

1 minute ago, Iggles_Phan said:

. The population of the entire country has also grown, so is it really a higher percentage of the population playing football today than before?   I don't think so.

You are referencing quantity.  My comments are more focused on quality.  The aspect of quantity that enters into my comments is the depth of the quality.  Compare the 40 times of prior Combines to the current 40 times.  Where the difference is most noticeable is in the median 40 time at each position.  The very fastest players at a lot of the positions aren't much faster, but look at the O-Linemen times and other talent measures.

3 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

 

Your extremely long post backs up my point. TNF is forces bad teams and bad matchups  to be put in the spot light. It has nothing to do with the Short week, or the day of the week, it has to to with putting terrible teams out there

Those bad teams and bad matchups would be happening regardless, just on a different day.

6 minutes ago, justrelax said:

To be sure, the players are bigger, stronger, and faster. The rules are radically different.

Whether the game is better is a whole "nuther" thing. 

The one thing I would change in the current NFL is to go to college pass interference rules. Until the ball's in the air, anything goes and the max penalty is 15 yards.

Would lead to more Pi and less deep bombs. Why want that?

4 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

The topic was about bad teams playing boring games. Not just talent in general or talent now vs the past. If you eliminate the bad teams, every other team gets more talented which would lead to better games and matchups.

But the NFL is a business and they want to make money, so I understand why they expanded. But I do push back on the availability of talent. There are way too many bad O-linemen around the league that start because they are the best of the worst, but still bad. And more so recently, there have been too many bad QB's that find themselves starting because of injuries or COVID. Coaching can only do so much, and they can't turn a DiNucci/Fromm/Glennon into a talented NFL player. 

Pick any year and list all the starting O-Linemen for all the NFL teams (5x32 = 160) in ranked order of their quality  Then compare #160 on each list and tell me which of the two you believe is better.  Same thing at #120 ... #100 ...#80 ... #60 ... #40 ... #20 ... #10.  

1 minute ago, mattwill said:

Pick any year and list all the starting O-Linemen for all the NFL teams (5x32 = 160) in ranked order of their quality  Then compare #160 on each list and tell me which of the two you believe is better.  Same thing at #120 ... #100 ...#80 ... #60 ... #40 ... #20 ... #10.  

And exactly what does this prove? That every year there is bad o-linemen starting and playing?

3 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Would lead to more Pi and less deep bombs. Why want that?

Would cut out a lot of ticky-tack horse manure. I prefer rules that reduce the amount of arbitrary calls. DBs are hamstrung these days. They're barely allowed to be football players at all.

8 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

The topic was about bad teams playing boring games. Not just talent in general or talent now vs the past. If you eliminate the bad teams, every other team gets more talented which would lead to better games and matchups.

But the NFL is a business and they want to make money, so I understand why they expanded. But I do push back on the availability of talent. There are way too many bad O-linemen around the league that start because they are the best of the worst, but still bad. And more so recently, there have been too many bad QB's that find themselves starting because of injuries or COVID. Coaching can only do so much, and they can't turn a DiNucci/Fromm/Glennon into a talented NFL player. 

I don't believe your bolded statement is accurate.  The talent would indeed increase, but the talent increase would be roughly equivalent on both sides of the ball.  You would still have a group of "worst" teams and they would still be matched up against each other with relative frequency.

5 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

And exactly what does this prove? That every year there is bad o-linemen starting and playing?

It proves that the bad o-linemen of the 20's are significantly better athletes and more skilled than the bad o-linemen of the prior decades.  Take Matt Pryor for example.  If a time machine moved him back to the 1990's I suspect/project that with his talent and measurables (suspect as it is in today's era) he would be an average o-lineman in that era, with lots and lots of worse o-linemen than he would be.

The Saints aren't going anywhere this year. Kamara should take the suspension from the league now when it doesn't matter as much. I am biased here? Yes.

6 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

Yep, and they get 3M viewers hidden on a 1pm Sunday matchup, but putting them out on a Thursday night they get 12M. Huge win for the NFL and both teams

All true, but that doesn't change the "badness" of the matchup.  It would be bad 8 Days a Week.

1 minute ago, mattwill said:

I don't believe your bolded statement is accurate.  The talent would indeed increase, but the talent increase would be roughly equivalent on both sides of the ball.  You would still have a group of "worst" teams and they would still be matched up against each other with relative frequency.

If talent increases on both sides of the ball, that leads to a better product. That's the point. The talent pool is always going to stay the same. With more teams the pool spreads thinner, with less teams, the pool doesn't. I don't know how you can argue otherwise. 

 

2 minutes ago, mattwill said:

It proves that the bad o-linemen of the 20's are significantly better athletes and more skilled than the bad o-linemen of the prior decades.  Take Matt Pryor for example.  If a time machine moved him back to the 1990's I suspect/project that with his talent and measurables (suspect as it is in today's era) he would be an average o-lineman in that era, with lots and lots of worse o-linemen than he would be.

Ok but nobody was comparing era's. It was a never a now vs then debate. It's now. Matt Pryor is a bad LT that is or was starting. He's starting because the number of teams is more than the number of talented LT's. 

10 minutes ago, justrelax said:

Would cut out a lot of ticky-tack horse manure. I prefer rules that reduce the amount of arbitrary calls. DBs are hamstrung these days. They're barely allowed to be football players at all.

Unintended consequences i fear

as A defender i become incentivized to PI as soon as i think i am beat

Way too young. Damn

50 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

Geez, that's spot on from the exact conversation we've been having.  Hell, he even makes the exact same points a few of us have discussed over the last few days.

Back when the Blog was on PE.com, at times it appeared members of the media were trolling for stories from there.  But this Kracz guy has done it several times this year where what we were discussing wasn’t being covered by the media at the time.  That said, @FranklinFldEBUpper’s original post and reasoning was better articulated than Kracz’s article.

Just now, LeanMeanGM said:

If talent increases on both sides of the ball, that leads to a better product. That's the point. The talent pool is always going to stay the same. With more teams the pool spreads thinner, with less teams, the pool doesn't. I don't know how you can argue otherwise.

Fewer teams means going back to a prior era.  30 teams takes you back to 1994.  28 teams takes you back to 1975.  Do you really think the worst 4 teams of 1994 are as good as the worst 4 teams of today (regardless of redistribution of the talent of teams 31 and 32 or not)? 

But engaging the other aspect of your point further, is the adding of a player of team #32 or #31 to the other 30 teams going to make a real difference in the quality of those 30 teams? The matchups will fundamentally be the same.

And if we look at last night's debacle, Washington isn't either team #31 or #32 and neither is Indianapolis.  In your redistributed version of the NFL, how would the redistribution have made last night's matchup anything but "bad"? 

 

7 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Ok but nobody was comparing era's. It was a never a now vs then debate. It's now. Matt Pryor is a bad LT that is or was starting. He's starting because the number of teams is more than the number of talented LT's. 

Talent is all about timelines.  Talent is a measurement of individual players.

32 minutes ago, justrelax said:

To be sure, the players are bigger, stronger, and faster. The rules are radically different.

Whether the game is better is a whole "nuther" thing. 

The one thing I would change in the current NFL is to go to college pass interference rules. Until the ball's in the air, anything goes and the max penalty is 15 yards.

I would change the illegal man downfield to match college rules.  One yard isn’t enough. 

Not everything goes.  Defensive holding is the line too far, but press until the ball is in the air should be fine.

All the injured Eagles had Full Participation. Let’s freaking go!!!!!’

 

2 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

I would change the illegal man downfield to match college rules.  One yard isn’t enough. 

Not everything goes.  Defensive holding is the line too far, but press until the ball is in the air should be fine.

I'm OK with that.

Adam Caplan and Geoff Mosher were wrong again? SHOCKER

1 minute ago, mattwill said:

Fewer teams means going back to a prior era.  30 teams takes you back to 1994.  28 teams takes you back to 1975.  Do you really think the worst 4 teams of 1994 are as good as the worst 4 teams of today (regardless of redistribution of the talent of teams 31 and 32 or not)? 

But engaging the other aspect of your point further, is the adding of a player of team #32 or #31 to the other 30 teams going to make a real difference in the quality of those 30 teams? The matchups will fundamentally be the same.

And if we look at last night's debacle, Washington isn't either team #31 or #32 and neither is Indianapolis.  In your redistributed version of the NFL, how would the redistribution have made last night's matchup anything but "bad"? 

 

1. My proposal is the dissolution of two teams, today, and going forward. Not going to the past. 

2. Yes. Absolutely. Even the worst teams has some quality of talent that could either bolster another teams starting lineup or be better depth than what they have to fill in for injuries. 

3. It's not a cure. There would still be bad games. The hope would be less bad games, and just better games in general. 

This is a pointless debate though because it's never going to happen.