Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 2024-11-21 8:15PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cleveland Browns
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Dallas Cowboys @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Detroit Lions @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM New England Patriots @ Miami Dolphins
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-11-24 1:00PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ New York Giants
Sun 2024-11-24 4:05PM Denver Broncos @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-11-24 4:25PM Arizona Cardinals @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-11-24 4:25PM San Francisco 49ers @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-11-24 8:20PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Los Angeles Rams
Mon 2024-11-25 8:15PM Baltimore Ravens @ Los Angeles Chargers
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Notes -
It's still better than the alternative, though. In 35 years as a Pirates fan I've experienced exactly 6 playoff appearances (1990–1992, 2013–2015), one winning season where they didn't make the playoffs (2018), and a handful more that were worth paying attention to at some point (1997, 2003 (April only), 2005 (Early June only), 2011, 2012, 2016, 2023, 2024). The rest were all over before they even started. Yet I watched anyway, hoping something would happen, hoping they'd turn the corner. Prior to their 2013 playoff appearance I made a list of all the little things we'd suffered through as Pirates fans over the course of 20 losing seasons. I put together an all-time 20 years of losing commemorative team, full of players who personified 20 years of losing. I'm accused of my family of either being insincere or an idiot for continuing to pay attention. Mostly, though, no one cares. The Pirates continue to exist primarily as an inexpensive pro-sports option for families. Kids watch until they are old enough to understand that the team sucks and isn't worth watching.
Winning does not rectify this. Every time the team appears to be having a decent season, there's a loud chorus warning that the success is ephemeral; don't get used to it. During their string of winning seasons in 2013–2015, people still said that the best we could hope for was a few winning seasons per decade. Even if the team won the World Series, all we'd hear about is that it's a fluke, like the Marlins, and that Nutting would soon sell off the team, like the Marlins. Granted, Bob Nutting is part of the problem, but if the league were actually concerned about parity and had a structure akin to the NFL, there would at least be some incentive for him to try to have a winning team.
The thing about NFL rebuilds is that they're at least short enough that they're fun to watch in real time. Granted, as a Steelers fan my team will never rebuild (or at least never admit to it), but there was always a reason to watch. Will Mitch Trubisky perform better than geriatric Ben? Is Kenny Pickett the answer? How will Russ and Justin do? Will the defense be enough to compensate for an anemic offense? Elsewhere, no one expected the Commanders to turn it around as quickly as they did. No one expected the Bengals to do the same a few years earlier. The Patriots suck, but there's reason for optimism. I'd much rather have this than a league where every decade there are like 5 good teams, a few teams that will occasionally make the playoffs, and a hige raft of incompetents.
Look at the NFL in the '70s. The Steelers, Dolphins, Raiders, Cowboys, Vikings, Rams, and maybe Redskins were good. Then you had teams like the Colts, Broncos, Browns, and Oilers that were kind of good, sometimes. Then you had everyone else, who largely spent the decade in obscurity. the New York Giants did not make a single playoff appearance between 1964 and 1980. The Jets didn't make one between 1970 and 1980. The Patriots made 6 total playoff appearances (AFL included) between their inception in 1960 and the introduction of the salary cap in 1994. As I mentioned in my post below, the Steelers made the playoffs once in their first 40 years in the league.
A better example may be the NHL during the Dead Puck Era. You had New Jersey, Detroit, Colorado, Dallas, and maybe Philadelphia as legitimate cup contenders. The Sabres almost wone won but that was due to Hasek more than anything else. Even teams like the Penguins who consistently made the playoffs were never expected to do much. Look at the rosters and those teams were stacked. The other playoff regulars had a few stars but got thin quickly, and a bunch of teams had nobody. This is a big reason why Gary Bettman takes so much heat over expansion; everyone points to how long it took to get hockey going in the new markets, but most of the time those markets had very little to root for.
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