NFL Football Ratings Drop: It's Not Colin Kaepernick's Fault

When the TV ratings for NFL football dropped rather suddenly, nearly everyone in the media who covered football pointed to Colin Kaepernick and the many players who refused to stand for the national anthem. I don't doubt that many fans who were turned off by these protests then turned off their TV sets. And let's not overlook Ray Rice and the parade of domestic abuse incidents that preceded the player protests. But these aren't the only reasons or even the most important reasons for the ratings decline. The most important reason strikes at the very heart of what makes sports so entertaining and uplifting. It's that many lifelong fans have begun to openly question the integrity of the game. There are simply too many ridiculous penalties and other baffling calls and non-calls to keep dismissing them as inconsistent officiating.

In this year's playoffs, for just one example, the Chiefs' Derrick Johnson sacked the Titans' Marcus Mariota for a game-changing fumble recovery (see it here)- only the league assured us it was neither a sack nor a fumble and awarded both the ball and forward progress as a runner to Mariota as if we hadn't just watched the play with our own eyes. At least one call like this happens every week. The refs seem to drop a flag almost every other play then conference with each other to decide on which team to call the penalty. Or, if the league likes the outcome of the play, the flag is picked up and there's no foul called on the play.

Pass interference is enforced so differently from game to game that it seems it can be called almost anytime a big chunk play or a first down is needed. On most of these calls, it seems both the receiver and the defensive back could be called for the penalty - or maybe neither of them - since no one seems sure of what is pass interference and what isn't. See this call penalizing the defensive back for elite level coverage.

Just as no one seems to know how to assess pass interference, no one knows when a catch is a catch. The written rule seems to change almost every year. What's a football move? How long do you have to hold the ball after obviously catching it for it to be a catch? What if the point of the ball grazes a blade of grass? Dez Bryant made this spectacular catch to beat the Packers in the playoffs - only the league assured us he really didn't as if we didn't see it with our own eyes. Since replays and challenges were added, the league seems to want as many calls determined in New York as possible to ensure there's always an opportunity to achieve a desired outcome. But penalties can't be challenged. Until coaches can challenge penalties, it will be difficult to believe the league is focused on determining the rightful call.

As a Steelers fan, I can't help but mention one of the more outrageous examples of strange officiating ever seen in any sport. I'm referring to the overtime coin toss when Jerome Bettis said "tails" and the ref insisted he'd said heads, giving the ball to Detroit. Then the Lions won the game. Listen for yourself here.

Then there's the famous play that started the Tom Brady era. In the 2001 playoffs, when the Raiders' Charles Woodson forced a fumble from the Patriots' quarterback and the Raiders recovered, I simply thought the refs made a dumb call, ruling Brady's pump fake and fumble was really just an incomplete pass under the so-called tuck rule (did that rule even exist before that play?). But given the overwhelming amount of miscalls, missed calls and blatantly biased calls I've seen in the years since, it's hard to watch the tuck rule play today and think anything other than the Raiders were being screwed. If the league really did want the Patriots to win, or just wanted to keep the game close, then how can we watch Super Bowl LII or any NFL game without feeling as if we're being duped the entire time? It's certainly not scripted to the point of WWE wrestling, but it's become difficult to be sure it's 100 percent sport.


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Dads Checking Emails Miss all the Fun

During halftime at my son's flag football game, I wandered into the arcade with my daughter and noticed something odd along the way. A group of four- or five-year old boys was doing football practice drills with two coaches while their dads stood on the sideline checking their email, occasionally looking up to watch their kids. Not that it isn't possible the next Peyton Manning or even Wayne Chrebet could come from Hunterdon County, NJ, but I wouldn't cancel the college savings plan. And not that these kids weren't having fun learning how to move to the left and to the right (I didn't actually see any footballs being thrown) but I suspect that at such a young age, these kids would have at least as much fun playing football in the yard with their dads or throwing a Nerf inside the family room pretending to be Aaron Rodgers.

Go out and play. Photo courtesy Buzzle.com.

But what baffled me the most was why these dads would let these other coaches enjoy the fun of playing a little football with their kids. If you can spare the hour to stand around watching and the hour to drive there and back then why not just go outside and play together? There certainly may come a time when these kids will want or need to play football with a professional coach but at age four or five there's little that cannot be taught by any typical parent. Kids already know how to run back and forth and they already know how to have fun. With a little less formal instruction and a little more parent participation these very young kids might get even more out of the experience.

And if one of them does become the next Peyton Manning, he or she will remember playing backyard football with dad or mom as the earliest football memory when asked on Sportscenter - and will give thanks accordingly.


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