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.
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.
Other than the Packers-Cowboys and Chiefs-Steelers divisional games, the 2016 NFL postseason was a wasteland devoid of the competitive and dramatic games you come to expect when, you know, the better teams (in theory) are finally playing each other. Seriously, the postseason was so bad that the average margin of victory was 15.7 points with nothing but blowouts. By comparison, the average margin of victory in the 2015 postseason was 11.5 points that featured only two routs while the rest were largely one score games. Baseball had a better postseason than the NFL. Come @ me. — A.C.
The refs called way too many penalties.
Penalties seemed to run rampant this year, but we're most outraged by the flags thrown after entertaining end zone dances (we see you, Antonio Brown). Roger Goodell and his minions want the NFL to be a family league. Nevermind lying for years about concussions, or taking money from the troops to promote said troops, or the handling of the Ray Rice and Josh Brown situations, or the rap sheets some of these guys have. Dancing after a touchdown is the real problem. — A.D.
The Browns were bad. But why couldn't they be historically bad?
Ugh, where do I start with the Cleveland Browns. As a Cleveland native, this team has become the bane of my existence while the Cavs and Indians compete for championships. This team is so bad that they can't even lose correctly. What's the point of going 1-15? If you're going to suck, then go all out and suck like few have sucked before. I wanted 0-16. That legacy would live forever. Now they're just another team that was really, really bad and will likely continue to suck for years to come. In a season relatively void of historical performances and record breaking feats, couldn't the Browns at least given us the joy of being epically bad? — Z.F.
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.
The primetime games were complete trash.
The NFL has become too greedy trying to milk every last penny out of its inventory. By expanding the Thursday Night Football package, the NFL simply doesn’t have enough good teams to create appealing matchups on a weekly basis, plus the quality of play is noticeably different (i.e. much worse) considering players have barely recovered from Sunday's bloodbath and have to suit up four days later. We guess that's why the league and Nike expanded the color-rush jerseys to outfit every team playing on Thursday night to cover up the complete crap they put on display. And there were some colorways we absolutely could have done without (hello, Jaguars). While the trash was expected on Thursday, what was Monday Night Football's excuse? ESPN is paying almost $2 billion a year to broadcast MNF and they consistently showed us garbage game after garbage game. Throw them a bone, NFL schedule makers. — C.S.
Because the Patriots are in the Super Bowl. Again.
The only people not sick of the Patriots are Patriots fans because if a seventh Super Bowl appearance in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era hasn’t officially turned you into a full-fledged New England hater then you must be a narc. Because how can you objectively root for the two cheaters to win a record fifth Super Bowl together? How can you throw your support behind the Evil Empire of the NFL again? Aren’t you sick of seeing the same two psychos hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy? Now, I write this as a completely biased Jets fan who has plenty of strong Belichick takes but if you’re not a Patriots fan and have yet to place a hefty wager on New England over Atlanta in two weeks, there is no good reason why you would root for the Pats in Super Bowl LI. Or at least I don’t want to hear them. — A.C.