Why baseball is improving and the NFL is getting worse
 

Last night and this week said so much about why MLB leadership is kicking NFL leadership's ass.

To the NFL, the Royals would be a super bowl nightmare. Midwest city, not a national presence.

The MLB commissioner had a chance to boost ratings by eliminating defensive shifts. Getting rid of defense creates more offense which gets casual fans excited. He declined. The NFL, on the other hand, has chosen the past few years to emphasize defensive holding to open up an already advantaged passing game.

This defensive approach, by the way, favors small market. While the Yankees were loading up on power and pitching, the Royals countered with defense and bullpen. The Royals, in fact, beat a Blue Jays team that took that exact approach mid-season.

Even in the larger markets, this year FOUR out of eight playoff teams were teams that had a significant playoff drought -- Cubs, Toronto, Houston, Mets.

We saw a banned gambler and a justly punished PED in the studio. The NFL, on the other hand, is considering penalizing Johnny Manziel for an incident in which no charges were pressed and is dealing with a gambling site with integrity issues.


I love the NFL a hell of a lot more than I love MLB. It's just a shame to see the two very different directions the two leagues are moving in.

yup you nailed it

if the Chiefs were allowed to get away with defensive holding they would be in the Super Bowl! DAM YOU ROGER GOODELL FOR NOT LETTING A MIDWEST TEAM HOLD ON DEFENSE

or maybe, just maybe, the Royals have a lot of talent for their respective sport and the Chiefs have none, that might be logical.

There is far more parity in MLB now than in the NFL.

Too bad no one saw the LCS due it being on backwater cable channels that have very little subscribers.

It's almost like MLB is using the rules to control parity.


The NFL may have a cap (lol), but their rules pretty much only allow the "have's" to win consistently.

Baseball is much more of a team game. You can have the best pitcher in baseball but he can only pitch every five games. In baseball if you have a good front office you can build a dynamite team through the draft and there isn't a concrete you must have this to win way to build.

The NFL has become QB and pass centric to the determent of defenses and RBs. The only real big defensive stars are Watt, Sherman, and Revis. Compare that to earlier periods.

MLB has zero financial interest having us do well.

The NFL cares only about money, even at the expense of the product. MLB, at least not now, hasn't lose sight of the product.

I've had more fun watching the Royals the last couple years than I've had watching the Chiefs for over a decade. And I'm not even a baseball fan.

There always has been. We just didn't notice it because we sucked and blamed it on imbalance...while the Twins and Indians dominated our division.

Felt like every person I know had the games playing on their TV. I don't think any of us had to subscribe to anything special.

Of course it doesn't help that the Chiefs are a dumpster fire and the Royals are the complete opposite.

Kansas City has flipped the royals switch

The Chiefs are the financial victims of the royals success

I went to Target and Home Depot this morning because I'm married and was surprised by the number of randos that commented to me how exciting that 9th inning was last night. I wouldn't figure anyone outside of KC, Toronto, and New York would be watching on a Friday night, especially after a rain delay.

The Chiefs are victims of their own stupidity.

.

ROFL

LMAO

So true

There is no single position in baseball as vital as a QB1. Not even a front line starting pitcher is that important to the success of the team. Add to that the fact that out of 32 NFL teams only 12-14 teams actually have a good to great quarterback, and you have lack of parity that cannot be easily overcome.

The when big market teams poach the players you developed and pay them more than your entire roster, it's not balanced.

Plus the fact that it was on a random cable sports station that I didn't know I even had until the playoffs started.

People can cry about this all they want, yet baseball has more parity than any other sport.

Bingo

This isn't just about the chiefs. The nfl has given an extraordinary advantage to any team with a franchise QB. It was already big before all the pass friendly rule changes.

Again, the mlb had a chance to make a similar decision by cracking down on defensive shifts. It would have improved ratings. But they didn't.

Sure is.

And that's a sport sans salary cap.

If you have a QB, you win in the NFL. Sure, you get a team like the Bengals, and Broncos, but Packers, Patriots are hands down going to the SB. It would take a miracle for both not to.

The "new" market inefficiency is young players. In the post steroids era, older players aren't as valuable. KC may run into an issue here as we've traded away some youth at the deadline and have, somehow, been shut out of the competitive balance drafts.

Perhaps, but the Dodgers are going to be in the playoffs every year because they can buy at least two front line starting pitchers for any particular year.

The advantage teams used to have with elite hitters is gone. So yeah, you have teams that can buy their way into the playoffs but they look like the redskins. A dysfunctional mess and a ****ed up team culture. The Yankees made the playoffs, interestingly, by following more of the Royals model. Investing in scrappy players who play excellent defense.

Sure, but eventually the dead wood drags you down. In Baseball drafting and scouting FOs are now king.

That and the collapse of the Orioles this year.

I don't buy as much that steroids was as big of a factor. Billy beane was once again a bit of an innovator and realized you can gain advantage by stacking with defense. And now you have managers who are really crafty with their shifts. It's made it really hard now for power hitters to hit for average now that the infield is forcing them to hit more stuff opposite field.

The mlb can take that away tomorrow and you'd see a power surge. But for a baseball purist, it's not nearly as exciting as what we are watching now.

They drafted and developed Kershaw, then paid him. That is FAR different than saying they "bought" him.

Agreed. But, they bought Greinke. They will buy someone this year and whenever they need someone. The Dodgers can outbid just about everyone for any pitcher they want.

It's true, but not many teams can do that. Yankees, Dodgers, Mets (but they won't), Phillies, Red Sox, and maybe the Angels. Plus, there is no guarantee it works. I understand it did for the Dodgers this year, but Washington fell on its face this year after breaking the bank for Scherzer. The Tigers just had to blow up their team after trying that strategy the last two years.

I think my original point still stands. Teams can, and do, pay big money for free agents. The two teams in the W.S. didn't.

Funny thing about baseball being so unequal.

If you make something like 25 changes in the win/loss outcomes of the last 30 years of MLB playoffs (mostly the world series, but maybe two or three DS/CS slates were reversed), every team in the major leagues would have won a WS.


Can you say that about the NFL over the last 32 years?

Saying the Dodgers "bought" Greinke is also incorrect. They traded for him.

A good team that gets hot in the playoffs can win the WS.

Usually the best teams are playing in the Super Bowl.

While there's probably some truth to this, the reality is that the whole "Royals are good" and "Chiefs suck" thing is probably swaying opinions more than a tiny bit. If the Chiefs won the Super Bowl this year, this thread wouldn't exist.

don't ****ing get me started!!!!!:cuss:

Is MLB really getting better or is it just Kansas City being better?

I would think that the many city think that the MLB is sucking shit right now.

Yankees,Boston,Philly,Detriot ...

As opposed to Chicago, Toronto, Houston, and Pittsburgh?

Yeah but notice how half the playoff slate in the NFL are the same 2-3 teams per conference every year..

I'm not a Royals fan. Don't get me wrong I'm rooting for them.

As I said in the op, the nfl is catering to fantasy football jerkoffs and favoring big markets. The mlb is not. The use of extreme defensive shifts has changed baseball for the better. It gives small market teams a chance and teams are playing solid team baseball. The mlb can change that at any time to satisfy casual fans who get boners over home runs. But they haven't yet.

Disagree. Every true nfl fan knows the product is getting a hell of a lot worse. I want to see balanced football. Not five offenses that can put up 45 points against a defense that's completely mismatched. I cringe every single time they make senseless rule changes designed to help quarterbacks who don't need any more help. And we all know these are happening because of fantasy football geeks and lame casual fans.

Believe it or not I grew up rooting for the Yankees. I didn't enjoy it when they started buying championships. This baseball is a hell of a lot more exciting.

Wish I could find the link that showed that football is losing popularity amoun people 30 and under.

Baseball has really turned a corner. Even as a Yankee fan I love it. In the NFL you can go from a 1 win team to a playoff team, but SB teams are few and far between. MLB is actually the league where you can go from a weak team to a champion. Amazing how things change, although even in the early 2000's the MLB still had a ton of different winners.

I don't agree with this.

The Patriots, in the AFC, are clearly the favorite because of coaching, talent, and history.

But Andy Dalton is playing at an elite level right now, and making plays in clutch moments.
His playoff history has been piss poor, but he's just into his prime, and his history won't dictate what he does moving forward.
This Bengal team can win in the playoffs if Dalton continues to play at this level.

In the NFC, the Pack are playing better defense than they have in some time, but the Cardinals and the Seahawks are still a threat, and they play great defense, though the Seahawks have faltered late in games this season.
They have good enough QBs in Palmer and Wilson, and the fact is, despite the stupid shit that zilla posts, defense still wins.

This is probably true. I dont remember many "MLB is great" threads around here before the Royals got good...

Only true because we have probably the weakest QB talent in years.

This year has to be one of the worst parity years in a long time. A few very good teams. Lots of really mediocre teams. Even more teams that are completely terrible.

None of it changes the intent of the league. There is no good reason for the nfl to make defensive holding a point of emphasis if they weren't trying to artificially create offense.

If the mlb wanted to, they could easily make KC more irrelevant. KC is only in the mix because the mlb is doing things to put small market teams on a more even playing field

the death of the nfl is coming

Playoff baseball has always been awesome. It needs to be primetime always though. That daytime shit doesn't work for me.

College and NFL football get more boring to me each year. It's a combination of the Chiefs sucking, bad QB play around the league, and though I've always enjoyed fantasy I think it's out of control. Another issue is the best athletes are going to keep picking other sports. It's just the smart thing to do.

I enjoy baseball and basketball overall over football these days. When there's a really great game I'm all in, but they seem harder to find each year. I also understand that watching the Royals and Thunder vs the Chiefs could be clouding my vision massively lol

I've always thought baseball had way more parity, people just didn't notice it because the Royals stunk. But if you go look at the playoff results, it's probably not even close.

Look at it this way, so far this century there have been 15 AFC championship games played to go to the Super Bowl. Out of those 30 spots, the Patriots, Colts, Broncos, Steelers and Ravens have taken 24 of those 30 spots. Those five teams have also represented the AFC in 18 of the last 20 Super Bowls.

So far this century there's now been 15 AL Championship Series. Every single American League team has been to a Championship Series, including Houston when they were in the NL.

So while every team hasn't won, every AL baseball fanbase has at least watched their team be one step away from the title. In the AFC, you haven't had much luck unless you're a fan of 5 of the 16 teams. And football allows more playoff teams than baseball.

I love the Royals, and I love baseball, but nobody and I mean nobody watches MLB postseason baseball unless their own team is in it. People are just hating on the NFL because it has become as popular as it is. It's at the peak of his popularity, and in our society, popular things will be torn down, critiqued, and criticized more than anything else. The NFL ratings and interest in the NFL compared to the MLB is a joke and isn't even close. This is coming from a guy that likes MLB more than NFL, but that is the reality.

It's funny lol, out of all the NFL forums I visit I only see this sentiment here.

Not me, its not the game i used to watch. They are tweaking things so it's all offense. Its not people bashing the NFL because they are so popular, they are bashing the NFL because of stupid ass rules. Roger Godell doing whatever the **** he wants. Taking away home games from teams.

The game has changed. They claim that they are looking out for the players health now days, but thats all bullshit they have them play thursday night games on 3 days rest putting players at even more risk.

I like and watch the nfl much more than I do the mlb.

But your second to last comment says it all. The nfl cares about ratings even if that means destroying the integrity of the game. The mlb tomorrow can drive ratings and interest by pumping offense and restoring power to mega markets like new York. They chose not to. That's the difference between the two leagues.

If the Royals sucked, there wouldn't be a reason to compare the two leagues, but I don't agree with "if the Chiefs won the Super Bowl this year," because there's been plenty of discussion on the decline of the NFL for several seasons. Maybe that wouldn't be the case if the Chiefs didn't spend this decade and the previous 4 ignoring the most important position in sports... but, my overall interest just isn't there until mid-late January.

I'll watch almost any NHL game, any MLB postseason game and some interesting regular season matchups (and have watched almost all Royals games in the past season and a half), but even the wild card games in the NFL are mostly crap.

The popularity has ruined the game, but not in the way you think... I don't hate Bud Light because a lot of people drink it, I hate Bud Light because it's shitty, watered down beer. And my interest in the NFL has declined not because a lot of people watch it, but because it's a shitty, watered down product, and the NFL is all about making money, even if they sacrifice the product.

Just like with the NHL, I don't necessarily care if a lot of people watch it or care about the league, yet I'd rather it stay a niche sport that does well at the gate, because there's a higher chance or ruining the sport if it becomes nearly as popular as the NFL.

Intensity elevates during the playoffs for baseball and basketball.

Football just kind of stays the same. Not horrible, but not great.

Yeah, that's a big failure for the NFL... on one hand, they've watered it down to the point where most teams have a chance on any given week and any mediocre team can make the playoffs, which is why so many people still care about the Chiefs. Yet, they've made it a quarterback league because that's what the masses find entertaining, but don't have nearly enough good quarterbacks to make things interesting in the playoffs.

Except it's not really a failure, because there's enough parity in the regular season to keep fans of most teams interested... 20 teams right now have at least 3 wins, and the four 2 loss teams in the NFC aren't out of it.... and fans eat it up, even if the reality is what you stated, where only a handful of teams really have a chance in the postseason.

This is so true. Bernie Carbo hitting a 3 run HR in game 6 of the 75 WS to dead center field. Bucky Dent lofting a soft fly ball over the monster to win game 163 in 1978 to win the Al East. Peter Ladd striking out Reggie Jackson to save game 5 of the 1982 ALCS. Dave Henderson hitting a 2 out, 2 strike 2run HR off Donnie Moore (who would kill himself later in life, never having recovered from it) to tie game 5 and change the series. Henderson had actually made a great catch on a deep fly ball by Bobby Grich of the Angels in the previous inning, crashed into the wall, and the ball jarred loose and went over the fence for a 2run HR.


What's tough is waiting 30 years for it to be your team.

Laughable...the MLB blows in the same way the NFL blows...if you don't have the great pitchers or QBs you almost have no shot.

Spot on. As much as people love the Royals and their amazing comebacks, rallys in baseball are more about the other team's pitcher(s) imploding than what your offense is really doing.

I'm guessing you frequent mostly team owned or sanctioned forums then, because if you cannot see that this league is headed for a serious crash, you arent paying attention.

For decades there have always been forces that hated the sport for its barbaric nature, and while MMA and Boxing are far worse, the simple fact of the popularity of the sport is what drives many who hate its very essence. In many ways those who hate the sport have this schadenfreude about them that likes imposing their will on anything that brings someone else entertainment or enjoyment. But I digress...

Let's look at the leagues problems....

Head Trauma/CTE/kids dying playing HS football. This has gone from a side issue to a persistent boil as a problem. The settlement was rescinded and returned to the courts for further argument. I think this could be the single biggest issue to bring down the league. It's not going to kill the league itself, but it will create a situation where the game becomes a joke or a shadow of its former self. I have notice a number of stories, especially on the UK Daily Mail, that is keeping count of the number of HS students that have died due to contact on the field. You probably arent aware of this the number is up to 7 this year. It may have happened in the past, but now it's getting media attention and that will sway public opinion.

The league is not about the game but about the brand or 'The Shield'. The game has become an absolute joke. The officiating has become so inconsistent, it has begun to call into question the veracity of the game itself. Screwy definitions about what constitutes a 'Catch' has gone beyond absurd and can lead to inconsistent rulings.

The Shield's focus, instead of ON the field, has gone to off the field. Its owners have become involved in daily fantasy sports sites, The Shield aggressively goes after its own customers who post gifs or videos of a play or two. Of course we all are aware of the usage of the term 'Super Bowl' and the extent to which The Shield will come after even churches who use the word but dont pay The Shield for the 'right' to do so.

Lastly is the Commissioner and his aggressive desire to push all the right politically correct buttons. We got Pinktober and 'No More' and the Commissioner's exempt list in which the league can punish a player for off field conduct even when no legal court finds him guilty. Not only is it inconsistent as rulings about what is a catch or not, but several recent incidents have gone wholly ignored.

All of this leads to a bad product on the field to the point that people become apathetic about it. It's not going to happen overnight, but I do think the peak has come and gone and the decline has begun.

College football needs to take a lot of blame.


Nearly every team runs the spread. The spread severely stunts a QB's growth when it comes to the NFL.


Fewer QB's=More teams that suck.

Then why are the teams with the highest payrolls in the mlb struggling? It took the Dodgers an insane amount of payroll just to buy a spot in a playoffs they were clearly outmatched in despite having two of the best starters in the league.

It used to be that the richest teams bought the biggest bats. You can't do that anymore. Because pitching has become a priority, you can't afford small mistakes. Which is why Texas, a stacked team, lost because of errors. Which is why the Yankees reinvested their payroll not on sluggers and pitchers, but defense and bullpen. The MLB can change this overnight by enforcing strict rules against defensive shifts. They've chosen not to. That speaks volumes about how they're doing this differently than the nfl.

The NFL has sucked this season. The disparity in QB play compared to last season is enormous.

Peyton, Luck and Bree's aren't the same.

It's basically Rodgers and Brady this year

All created by the rule changes that make it impossible to play man to man effectively. You want to fix the NFL get back to physical CB play with relaxed PI/def holding rules.

Baseball has managed to survive into modern times without becoming modernized. Baseball has maintained its soul in the new century. The game is played much as it's always been. It hasn't been watered down or commercialized or had its rules changed to make it a pillow fight like football has.

You know one thing that's great about baseball? Ask the average fan who the commissioner is. They won't know.

They don't know because baseball fans haven't been getting a Rogering from their commissioner like football fans have.

There are 16 QBs that have a QB rating between 90 and 115.

Doesn't matter. It sucks, especially if you are in the AFC. It's gonna be Manning vs Brady for the umpteenth time.

It will be interesting to see the nfl in three years when brady and Manning are out of the picture and Rodgers starts to get up in age.

The nfl has a pretty major talent drought coming soon. On the one hand, it will create parity. But it's been funny to watch the nfl jam jj watt down our throats. In three years, will there be anyone under 30 who will be viewed as once in a generation talent? It almost reminds me of the huge drop-off we saw after Jordan retired the first time.

Alex Smith is at #16, which should show you how terrible the competition is these days, and how that doesn't actually speak to the depth of quarterbacks... you can win a playoff game with Tim Tebow. Matt Cassel had a QBR of 93 one season.

Shitty teams play shitty teams every week, then for a few weekends in late January, the real contenders with real quarterbacks and real defenses play.

History seems to indicate there's a lot more variety in mlb playoffs than nfl. It's a hell of a lot easier to find pitching than qbs.

The difference is that in baseball it is plural. You have to have multiple good pitchers to compete so buying up 1 or 2 players at ridiculous salaries doesn't really win much. In football if you have just one great player and its your QB, you have nearly everyone else beat with just one player.

These spread offense's make everyone look bad.

The OL don't use their hands as much or really pass block because the ball comes out so fast most of the time. Therefore they don't learn fundamentals. Then the NFL new CBA doesn't allow practice time to learn.
Notice that most OL don't look good in the league nowadays.

A lot of the WR's don't run a lot of the routing tree because the ball comes out so fast. Same thing. They don't learn to fully develop or sell a route.

Then, as we all know, the QB doesn't learn to read defenses because he's told where to throw. It's scripted and they have no clue what they are doing against significantly better competition.

It's ruining the game.

What's been great is the rise of pitching has created such low margin of error since games are more low scoring. You have to play defense and have a deep bullpen to succeed. We are watching some of the best team baseball in years.

Oh no, don't get me wrong I see the issues (you addressed them very well in your post). I just don't see the "decline". TV ratings are up, stadiums are filled, and young kids appear to be very interested in the game. Can MLB make the claim? Do me a favor, (guess we can start tommorrow) compare the World Series TV ratings of Game 1, 2, 3, 4, and whatever other game that comes after that to any NFL regular season primetime game. I promise you the NFL will trumph the ratings of any World Series game this year.

Your points are all fixable issues (head trauma, officiating, the "commissioner issue"). Now granted, it won't come overnight, and some issues will (mainly the head trauma dilima) take a lot of PR to bring back the fans that were lost back into the fold. The league is a GOOD commissioner away of bringing this game back on track IMO.

What the NFL has over all of the other leagues IN THIS COUNTRY (not around the world of course) is the popularity it has within many of the different cultures across the county. Old white guys love it, young black kids love it, middle aged hispnic guys love it, the only league that MIGHT be able to make this claim is the NBA (with the kids anyway). Who will surpass the NFL in this county? the NBA? MLB? The NHL? European soccer?

Everybody knows the Super Bowl is a lot more popular than the MLB playoffs. The issue I have is your focus on "ratings." That is exactly the problem. Sure, the NFL has increased its popularity to a shitty fanbase that roots for their team for 3 hours but can't name more than 2 players on the team. Or fantasy football players. But at what expense?

I somewhat agree. But we're getting close to a tipping point where some of Goodell's damage could become irreparable. He keeps adding overseas games and is pushing for an overseas franchise. He wants even more playoff games. He's institutionalized that shitty, shitty decision to have Thursday night football. A new commissioner will have to convince owners to renege on these things which are destroying the game, but making them a lot of money. And the CTE issue is a dam waiting to burst. Just a matter of when.

Fair point. But I don't think anyone is predicting the NFL gets surpassed. I think the NFL will make a shit ton of money commercializing the game to a mass audience. The MLB on the other hand, so far is protecting the integrity of the game and making the game fun for authentic fans