We have one more Sunday of football—newsflash: next weekend's farce of an exhibition known as the Pro Bowl doesn't count—before America enters into its annual pigskin hangover. And while Patriots fans and Falcons fans—and maybe a few other choice fan bases—will look back fondly on the 2016 season as one of the best they've ever experienced, for the majority of NFL fans it was the exact opposite.
How, you might ask? Despite the game's immense popularity, its TV ratings took a dive for the first time in recent memory, the controversy over concussions continues to cast a shadow over The Shield, Deflategate just doesn't seem to die, there were horrendous primetime games, brutal injures to star players, and Roger Goodell doing Roger Goodell things on the reg. Those reasons and more easily make the argument that the 2016 season was the worst we can remember. So peep the seven reasons why the 2016 NFL campaign was complete trash and one we'd like to forget.
Every playoff game was trash except for two.
The refs called way too many penalties.
The Browns were bad. But why couldn't they be historically bad?
The No Fun League was at it again.
The NFL reached peak “No Fun League” this season when they cracked down hard on players’ individualism—mainly their custom cleats. Players like Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham Jr. were notorious for sporting custom cleats during warmups and if they dared to wear them in the game it almost always meant they would be writing check out to Roger Goodell the following week. From paying tribute to heroes to addressing political issues to Yeezys, the league does not tolerate players wearing unapproved cleats. According to the official NFL uniform policy, “a player’s appearance on the field conveys a message regarding the image of the league and directly affects the League’s reputation and success.” So I guess the NFL is right that Brown's cleats with his kids’ faces on them and Giants receivers Victor Cruz and Beckham wearing cleats that paid tribute to the victims of 9/11 violated their policy. But it's just so petty and ridiculous to crack down on these guys for wearing colorful cleats. Don't you have better things to monitor, like concussions? Let them live, Roger. — C.S.
Because there were so many terrible injuries.
Football is a violent sport. This fact makes most of the late season games unwatchable. This year’s joke of a postseason was the perfect example. The Raiders went into their Wild Card game against the Texans without star QB Derek Carr and were promptly bounced. The same thing happened with the Dolphins (they were gonna catch that L against the Steelers regardless, but still) without Ryan Tannehill, and Le’Veon Bell went down with a groin injury in the first half of the AFC Championship game, making it an easy day for the Patriots. We can go on and on. How do we fix this? Nothing you can do, really. Luck wasn’t on our side this season. — A.D.