I enjoy watching the plight of the Denver Broncos on TV. It can happen to another person. Four times this season the Broncos have been on an island game. They've been terrible in every game. They had at least two games where they put their own fans through agony. There is a capsule you need to use.
When Russell Wilson isn't wildly missing his targets he's usually under a pile of angry men wearing different colored jerseys. There is joy to be found in a different team torturing the people on the big stage as someone whose fans get pilloried every time they watch NBC or Disney.
It isn't just the Broncos Bad football is out there. You don't need to hear anything from me. There are only a few good teams. The Packers, for example, have backed up. The gap has not been filled by a lot of teams. The Eagles were the only team that didn't take a leap forward.
We do this dance every season, where it feels like the product gets worse, and we wonder how many people can be interested in this shit. None of the games feel particularly good. Both teams are not good enough to run away from the other. It's called parity by the National Football League. Some of us refer to it as trash.
Only four teams are more than two games over.500. If you want to piss off someone in a t-shirt, you could argue that the Giants are all that good and the Eagles are not. The Vikings have won four of their last five games by a combined 22 points, including victories over the Lions and Bears, and the Dolphins with someone dizzy or confused at quarterback.
The scoring is down by two points. The passing yards are moving at a slower pace. It is past the numbers. It feels like you are watching a bigger pile of reckless behavior.
I am not a sporting anthropologist or anything like that, and this kind of theory requires someone very smart to look into. It is something I think about when I watch a three-and-out punt.
Participation in football has been declining for a long time. There is a study for you. Something from Forbes.
High school seniors who were drafted in 2016 are now in their second or third year in the NFL, which is when the decline in participation began. The players came up against a less talented pool. In the last few years, that has probably continued. There have been students who have earned scholarships who have gone on to be drafted. They stood out against other competitors. Have college football players been as good as they have been?
It would be difficult to prove this. The top-tier college programs are probably getting the same level of talent because the powerhouses are still full. The later draftees? They fill in the middle and back of the rosters. There are players who played in leagues and teams that just weren't as heavily populated as they used to be, and became stars that got noticed in a way they wouldn't have had they been younger.
If youth football participation continues to decline, it's likely something to circle back to in a year or two. Rules in high school are likely to be changed at some point to make sure children don't get injured. The guys who get to the NFL won't be as polished because they've only been playing football for a short while.
It doesn't matter to the football team. The league gets their TV deals and the networks get their ad rates. You wonder how bad the football would be for the ratings. It would have to be bad to kneel.
There are a couple of quick hits here. With the Wings down a goal and the extra skater out, you get a big signal from Dylan that he knows what that means.
It is a cool highlight that Viktor Arvidsson of the Kings could have shown more seriousness than a tortoise. The Wings earned a point on their own because they tied the game seconds later. Every youth hockey coach will have this play on the iPad.
FC Dallas and Minnesota United went to penalties in the first round of the playoffs. He figured anything worth doing is worth doing with a bit of flair.
I don't know if he intended to hit a Panenka to win it, but to hit it to the side that Dayne was diving. I hope that is the case, because it is a level of straight brutality we rarely see. St. Clair knows he can't reach the ball, but Minnesota's season tauntingly float over him at just a distance makes it even more heartbreaking. It's so close and yet so far. As the ball hit the bird, it flipped him into the net.
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