Photo: Nam Y Huh/AP
No sports entity markets itself quite like the NFL. The shots of rabid fans idolizing legends in the making, the countless hours of pregame build-up, the enormous popularity of fantasy football, the alternative broadcasts, the drive to grow internationally. For the better part of the last two decades, no league has fed its marketing department as much red meat as the NFL. But when it comes to the on-field product, this season has been pedestrian from an offensive standpoint, and especially putrid when it comes to quarterback play.
Tom Brady, who has been part of more than a few big matchups in his 23-year NFL career, blasted the state of football on ESPN CEO Stephen A Smith's radio show earlier this week.
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"I don't see the excellence I saw in the past," Brady said. "I don't think the coaching is as good as it used to be. I don't think the development of young players is as good as it used to be. I don't think the arrangements are as good as they were."
Harsh words from Brady, but he's not entirely wrong, especially when it comes to the lack of player development. Many of the young quarterbacks in the spotlight are replacing a wave of future Hall of Famers who have retired or aged in recent years. In addition to Brady, we said goodbye to Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers. And yes, we can throw Matt Ryan in there too. Some succession plans have worked out better than others - like Justin Herbert when his receivers decide to catch the ball and his coach doesn't mess up the game management - but most haven't. Thanks to the rookie pay scale, teams are increasingly dealing with unprepared quarterbacks while distributing their salary cap dollars elsewhere, copying a formula used to perfection by teams like the Kansas City Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles with Jalen Hurts and the San Francisco 49ers with Brock Purdy.
An unprecedented 10 freshman quarterbacks have started games this season, breaking the previous record of nine set in 2019. Of those ten, CJ Stroud of the Houston Texans is the only one worth watching on a weekly basis as he has shown himself to be a smart playmaker. It's easy to get excited about undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito, the hometown substitute for the New York Giants, coming off an improbable win over the Commanders - even if that was thanks in large part to Washington's frequent substitutions - but it is not that one loses sleep. awaiting his next match. The truth is, most of these rookies will be lucky to be on NFL rosters in a few years.
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Part of the reason some fans feel there has been a decline in entertainment is that, with the fading of the older generation, we are long gone from the days of Brady v Rodgers or (Peyton) Manning v Brees in the same week over with a side of Ryan v Rivers - slates that often lived up to the breathless hype of the NFL and made us feel good about being able to dedicate our Sundays entirely to football.
Of course, those matchups were so interesting because they had years to develop and penetrate. And there's hope that that rivalry will be replaced by new ones, like the Mahomes-Hurts matchup we saw on Monday Night Football this week. After all, Mahomes is already on his way to the Hall of Fame. And the NFL is full of great young quarterbacks who could join him, like Hurts, Herbert, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. But right now it feels like we're a few years away from a permutation of the NFL's young guns becoming a rivalry to rival Brady v Manning.
As for the younger quarterbacks who aren't at the level of Mahomes, Hurts or Burrow, it doesn't help their development to have so many terrible playcallers prowling the NFL sidelines. Just ask Justin Fields of the Chicago Bears; it is clear that Matt Eberflus is not helping his development. And the period in which Fields has been able to thrive under a true offensive wizard is not his fault. A trajectory like Alex Smith's, which was considered a failure in San Francisco before Jim Harbaugh revived his career and Andy Reid helped him rise, is rare. (But then again, Reid himself is rare.)
Now we're left with a bunch of inept head coaches fighting for their jobs while churning out struggling young quarterbacks. The ever-shortening leash of the head coaching position, coupled with the premature exit of young quarterbacks, has been detrimental to the position and, in turn, to NFL offenses. How are quarterbacks, and in turn offensive systems, supposed to be sustainable in the current climate?
The consequences are in full force. Yes, there are some great offenses, like the Tyreek Hill-led Miami Dolphins. But scoring is down for the fourth season in a row. Teams combined to average 45.9 points in 2021. This season, teams are scoring 43.3 points and the NFL is on pace for its lowest scoring season since 2009.
However, the drop in scoring isn't just due to a struggling offense. The NFL is a cyclical league in which the offense dominates for a period of time before the defense catches up and the whole process starts again. And right now, the league is in a period of defensive innovation. As college offensive schemes were adopted and flourished in the NFL, defensive coordinators turned to college to find their own solutions.
This year's most influential defensive coaches - Baltimore's Mike Macdonald, New York's Robert Saleh, Kansas City's Steve Spagnuolo and Dallas' Dan Quinn - have turned to college tactics to mask coverages and disrupt quarterbacks.
Defensive coordinators in particular have adopted the college style of "reversing the downs": applying pressure early in the down-and-distance to try to force a drive-killing play. And that pressure has become more sophisticated, a charcuterie board of zone pressure, read blitzes, some holdups and so-called creepers. On later downs, defenses have retreated, flooding the field with players in coverage and forcing the quarterbacks to roll the ball down the field. At every level of the defense there are more moving parts than ever before, more for quarterbacks to decode on the fly, and that can be especially difficult for young players trying to find their way in a league where the players are faster, stronger and to be better. smarter than those they faced in college.
Of course, injuries to the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Burrow and Kirk Cousins are clearly a factor, not just for scoring, but for overall watchability. But the league's quarterback-friendly rules should also boost offensive numbers to offset the defensive innovation. On the other hand, most offensive lines have yet to catch up to the era of the dominant pass rush that now defines the NFL. Football purists can easily get sated watching hybrid defensive star Micah Parsons do his thing, but when it's against Washington's porous offensive line and Sam Howell under center, it's just not the same.
Best vs. best is what moves the needle, it's what keeps the NFL water cooler talking all week. But the NFL in its current state feels like a major disappointment.
