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Do NFL games look and feel different to you? (1 Viewer)

Da Guru

Fair & Balanced
This topic was being discussed on a Sports Talk show this morning. The hosts were saying the feel of the games does not seem the same this year.

A few of my friends are football junkies. They watch every game they can every week. Last week one of them was saying that the games seem different.  Yesterday was the first day I had nothing going on so I watched a few games. 

I can`t put my finger on it but the games seem more sterile.  Even Nantz and Romo seemed void of any emotion.   Then I was so excited for the Lion-Pats game last night and it felt the same way.  Maybe the game is changing. Maybe the fans are changing. Not really sure.

 
You mean like every time a defender tackles the QB, am I anticipating a flag for roughing?

Thursday night's game was the best one in a long time. The fans were going nuts for Mayfield. Felt like real football once he got in there.

 
Feels like "arcade mode" in video games, tons of points and catches for everyone!!!!

 
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The game has been changing for well over a decade and we are reaching the inflection point.

Rules changes have drastically affected the game. Records are being smashed offensively due to basically no defense because you can't tackle or hit anyone with force anymore.

Fantasy Football has eroded the NFL fan's to a bunch of neurotic phone addicted people checking their players and screaming at actual NFL games or hanging out with friends watching a game to hear "That was my guy who scored awesome" when they are rooting for the team scored against. Total dooshery. 

It's bad. It's over saturated, over commercialzed, sterile corporate, contrived BS.

You want to watch real football? Watch some non top 25 NCAA football and see kids running through walls for their school, pride and the love of the game. Not for potential endorsement dollars and draft position. Kids who will never be pros, but are true student athletes simply playing for the love of the game. Even some top 25 NCAA games.....great football being played with amazing pageantry. 

There are still some great NFL games each weekend....but it is far and few than it used to be. There are still a lot of great pros in the league too....but they are becoming less and less as well.

The product is sterile. It really is. 

I have to say though......I went to my first Dolphins game is a long time yesterday, and my son and I had a great time. All of us were cheering and having a great time as it was a very exciting second half. So much so I want to go to another game. And for a long time I hated the atmosphere at the stadium......it became so corporate. But they really muted a lot of that....and yesterday it felt like a real football game again. So I have to give kudos to Stephen Ross for hearing the complaints. Because when he first took over....oh my it was bad. Really bad.

 
What it all boils down to is that players, parents of potential young football players, some fans are all worried about the long term impacts of head injuries. Everything else is just a symptom of that. Not as many people in the stands, stricter penalties, etc. Fans always like to blame the "BS rules", but how is the NFL going to survive unless it becomes safer?

 
The edge is gone. If i didnt play fantasy, i dont think id watch at all.
And here I am the opposite.

I have two leagues left. I really want to end it after this season. I love simply watching the games (and I bet on football which is far more fun than fantasy) and having some action on them. Not worrying about what player did what. Simply rooting for my team and teams I bet on.

So much better.

 
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What it all boils down to is that players, parents of potential young football players, some fans are all worried about the long term impacts of head injuries. Everything else is just a symptom of that. Not as many people in the stands, stricter penalties, etc. Fans always like to blame the "BS rules", but how is the NFL going to survive unless it becomes safer?
Very valid point. I don't think football survives long term. CTE is a very real thing and will not go away.

 
The game has been changing for well over a decade and we are reaching the inflection point.

Rules changes have drastically affected the game. Records are being smashed offensively due to basically no defense because you can't tackle or hit anyone with force anymore.

Fantasy Football has eroded the NFL fan's to a bunch of neurotic phone addicted people checking their players and screaming at actual NFL games or hanging out with friends watching a game to hear "That was my guy who scored awesome" when they are rooting for the team scored against. Total dooshery. 

It's bad. It's over saturated, over commercialzed, sterile corporate, contrived BS.

You want to watch real football? Watch some non top 25 NCAA football and see kids running through walls for their school, pride and the love of the game. Not for potential endorsement dollars and draft position. Kids who will never be pros, but are true student athletes simply playing for the love of the game. Even some top 25 NCAA games.....great football being played with amazing pageantry. 

There are still some great NFL games each weekend....but it is far and few than it used to be. There are still a lot of great pros in the league too....but they are becoming less and less as well.

The product is sterile. It really is. 

I have to say though......I went to my first Dolphins game is a long time yesterday, and my son and I had a great time. All of us were cheering and having a great time as it was a very exciting second half. So much so I want to go to another game. And for a long time I hated the atmosphere at the stadium......it became so corporate. But they really muted a lot of that....and yesterday it felt like a real football game again. So I have to give kudos to Stephen Ross for hearing the complaints. Because when he first took over....oh my it was bad. Really bad.
This is somewhat true.   I have friends whose sons play HS football and I started attended the games a few years ago.  When you realize you won`t see perfection but kids playing the game to win for their HS and fans I enjoyed those games much more than the NFL games on TV.

The games are just tough to watch. The  constant rules changes..the commercials, the replay delays, all the flags, the refs always meeting as they are not sure, have killed the flow of the game itself.

 
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Sterile is probably a pretty good word for it.  Yesterday during the Bills game, they showed a bunch of shots of the Vikings stadium.  My god that thing is beautiful, just incredible.  But it just didn't feel like football, at least when watching it on TV.  Part of it is probably that the crowd was out of it for most of the game, but it just seemed so immaculate yet bland.  

As I've gotten older, I've found that since I gave up fantasy football a few years ago I am more interested in watching football on Sunday, but I'm less interested in any team other than the Bills.  I'll turn on games for background noise but I'll probably actually sit down and watch maybe 1-2 non-playoff games that don't involve the Bills all season.  It's a double-edged sword - being out-of-the-loop on the midweek NFL news keeps the game on Sunday more fresh, but also means that I know much less about other games.  Hell, I didn't even know Lesean McCoy was inactive yesterday until I turned the game on, and he's on the Bills.

On Saturday night, I was frantically flipping back and forth between Stanford/Oregon and Wisconsin/Iowa, glued to the games.  Really exciting stuff.  Last night I turned on SNF to see the score, saw that the Lions were up and on the verge of scoring again, shrugged my shoulders and turned off the TV.  Honestly, if the Bills were to move, I'd probably watch very little of the NFL until the playoffs.  But I'm glued to the couch every Saturday for CFB.  Just such a better product.

 
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Last night I watched the 4th quarter of the Lions win over the Pats, and it's the first live Sunday football I have watched all year. I am busy volunteering on Sundays and don't miss the NFL.

I sometimes watch Thursday Night Football (skipped last week, missed the fun comeback.) I sometimes watch the second half of the MNF game. 

I watch most of my football on condensed streams, and skip quite a few games after glancing at the box score if there's nobody I am interested in. For scouting WW pickups I just look at all their targets/touches on NFL app.

I can't remember the last time I sat down and watched a start to finish sports event, but it's been awhile. A few years. I just cannot fathom going back to the sedentary life of letting the tube entertain me.

 

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