Gary Seymour, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
In the face of growing criticism, the National Football League last week sought to address what is wrong with its product.
Viewership and betting action on football were down, domestic abuse was up and no one was allowed to have fun anymore.
The league has become less “fun,” one survey said, because evidently fun is no more about playing well and winning games than it is about promenading around after making a tackle.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell brushed aside the grousing, insisting that the lower ratings have nothing to do with a diminished product. The temporary dip has much more to do with a confluence of competing events, he said.
The great October overlap gives a look at what’s going on in all four of the big team sports, sometimes with interesting story lines. As football season smashed forth into its eighth week, two high-profile baseball franchises brought their unrequited love story to the big stage. In the National Basketball Association, the super-duper Golden State Warriors took all of one game to find out whether or not they would go undefeated.
All told, for the stretch of October, the NFL’s television ratings were down about 12 percent for prime-time games.
Goodell has a reason to at least feign concern, when the red flags are as black and white as a 12-percent drop in viewership. But, he was also correct in asserting an all-of-the-above explanation of why viewers hadn’t been watching as much.
The Green Bay Packers’ 4-3 start has also been described in an all-of-the-above manner for what’s gone wrong. When the defense was healthy and stuffing the opposition, the offense hadn’t got untracked. When the offense finally got popping, the defense took a powder. As always, injuries are the inescapable X-factor.
The Packers’ 33-32 loss to Atlanta last week was Exhibit A in the argument that there is nothing wrong with pro football, or with the Packers. Despite the loss, it was one of the more entertaining games of the year, exciting to the end. The Packers looked unstoppable on offense.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers played one of his best games of the season, completing 28 of 38 for 246 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.
As a team, the Packers committed zero turnovers. Score 32 points in a turnover-free game and feel free to assume you will win your fair share.
Packers fans were already starting to look at the standings through wild-card eyes after the loss to the Falcons. Then the mighty Vikings proceeded to get clocked by the last-place Bears, and the Packers once again were just a game off the pace. It may be safe to say that no team is really that good this year, only a few teams are really bad, and for the Packers it may just be starting to get interesting. As in any year, the goal is to get to the playoffs and be the hot team when they start.
“I’m proud of the way the guys played,” Rodgers said. “We just have to figure out a way to get on a roll.”
The next two weeks look about as good as any time to get on that roll. The Packers play at home against Indianapolis and then at Tennessee, the first of three straight road games. Both teams are eminently beatable.
It wouldn’t hurt to stay on the roll for the two after that, either. Washington (Nov. 20) and Philadelphia (Nov. 28), like the Packers, may be wild-card hopefuls, so gaining a head-to-head tiebreaker edge over either of them now would be useful later. And fun.