NFL Revenue ($18 Billion) Keeps Going Up, But Quality Of Play (3-3 Teams) Keeps Getting Sacked

So, with the NFL rumbling, bumbling, stumbling past the sixth week of the season, somebody has to ask the obvious.

You mean, a record $18 billion for this?

That’s how much Sportico.com determined in July the NFL made last season in total revenue courtesy of an attractive product for everyone — stretching from television executives to big-money sponsors to diehard fans hugging the most popular sports league in the United States.

But back to this mess of a 2022 NFL season, which is threatening to have people by the end of Thanksgiving Weekend spend more time during games operating with their eyes closed than open.

Weird roughing the passer calls.

Awful nationally televised games, especially on Thursday nights, which had legendary TV announcer Al Michaels saying during a snoozer two weeks ago between the Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts, “This is the type of game you’d have as the fifth regional on CBS on Sunday.”

Iconic quarterbacks such as 45-year-old Tom Brady, 38-year-old Aaron Rodgers and 33-year-old Russell Wilson are showing their age out of nowhere.

There was even the New York Jets (as in mostly shaky since Joe Namath ran their offensive huddles) crushing Rodgers and his Green Bay Packers by 17 points at Lambeau Field!

“I think there’s a lot of bad football from what I watch. I watch a lot of bad football. Poor quality of football. That’s what I see.”

Those words were from Brady, by the way. He still knows “good football” despite turning mortal during his third season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after he led the New England Patriots as a nearly flawless wonder for two decades.

Brady owns 15 trips to the Pro Bowl, three NFL Most Valuable Player trophies and seven Super Bowl rings, and get this: He made his “bad football” comment during a news conference this week before the Broncos and the Chargers finished Monday night in Los Angeles embarrassing themselves, along with the sport and the NFL.

Both teams deserved to lose.

The Broncos were penalized 10 times for 151 yards for their most penalty yards since 1976, and that was the second-highest number of penalty yards for a game in franchise history. Broncos rookie cornerback Damarri Mathis didn’t help matters. He was flagged four times for pass interference.

Somehow, the Chargers won 19-16 in overtime despite kicker Dustin Hopkins managing a 39-yard field goal with a damaged hamstring. Before that, the two teams began the extra period by combining for four consecutive three-and-out drives, and the 12 plays totaled nine yards.

Whatever the Broncos and the Chargers did (or didn’t do) continued the league’s spiral on the field toward worse than mediocre.

Consider the following analysis from the Associated Press on October 18: “Six weeks into the NFL season and each conference has only six teams with a winning record. A league that prides itself on parity is loaded with mediocre and poor teams. Five clubs have one win.

No, that wasn’t from October 18, 2022. That was from October 18, 2021, when the NFL was slightly less brutal than now.

Since exactly a year ago, the league has gone from six teams with a winning record in each conference to the AFC with six and the NFC to four, and the league has also gone from five teams with one win or better to three.

Then you have the standings, with the leaders in the NFC West, NFC South and AFC North lacking winning records. You have 3-3 teams at the top of each of those divisions. While the NFC West is led by a three-way tie (the San Francisco 49ers, the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks), the NFC South (the Atlanta Falcons and the Buccaneers) and the AFC North (the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals) have co-leaders.

For years, the late Pete Rozelle dreamed as NFL commissioner of competitiveness replacing dominance in the league he built into a financial powerhouse with much help from the equal sharing of national TV dollars and NFL Properties between all teams.

The NFL has finally caught the bus called parity.

Now what?

Here’s part of the answer: If it involves watching your average NFL game this season, it won’t be pretty.