"Parity" is DEAD in the NFL this year.

[Mile High Jedi]

In 4 of the 6 early games, winning teams scored more then 30 points on their opponents who could not manage more then 7. There's been a 'shut-out' nearly every week and this week is shaping up the same way.

Teams are almost completely polarized this year, if one isn't good enough to compete, then it's trounced by all the ones that are. The only thing they contend for is the Lions' Share of the first round picks (pun intended) to take more high-level talent and squander them in systems proving to be unsucessful.



Tragic.

[BRONCOS_OWN_U16]

no one cares

[BroncFanIN]

no one cares

be nice!

I care!

All the coaching changes and changes in philosophy have hurt the competition level in the NFL.

Its seems this year you are really good, really bad, or lucky enough to be in limbo, playing a mixture of both.

But there are a lot of bad teams out there. Personally,I like watching good games against equal opponents, and its not like that this year.

[Mile High Jedi]

no one cares

Ouch B.O.U, a tad ignorant. YOU don't care now, becuse Denver is winning and its future looks bright. But what is bad for these other teams that are getting embarassed on a regular basis is bad for their financial bottom line, which is bad for the NFL, and THAT is ultimately bad for the Broncos.



You'll care eventually.

[JoeyBee]

no one cares

Not cool, man.

This is actually an excellent topic. Everyone is seeing it but no one wants to talk about it.

The state of the NFL is just sad right now. Whats worse, is I don't see it trending upwards. Seems more like a downward spiral.

[BRONCOS_OWN_U16]

Ouch B.O.U, a tad ignorant. YOU don't care now, becuse Denver is winning and its future looks bright. But what is bad for these other teams that are getting embarassed on a regular basis is bad for their financial bottom line, which is bad for the NFL, and THAT is ultimately bad for the Broncos.



You'll care eventually.

trust me. i dont care if the browns and raiders get beat 40-0 every week.

but here is a sign of hope. peyton manning and tom brady are both getting old and might retire in the next 3 to 5 years. everything will be back to normal then.

[broncos1997]

trust me. i dont care if the browns and raiders get beat 40-0 every week.

but here is a sign of hope. peyton manning and tom brady are both getting old and might retire in the next 3 to 5 years. everything will be back to normal then.

brees? rivers? eli? orton? (sorry couldn't resist) there no peyton/tom yet, but one or more of them could easily step up. we need that rookie salary cap soon, and for the love of god please come up with a new cba agreement for a league salary cap

[BRONCOS_OWN_U16]

brees? rivers? eli? orton? (sorry couldn't resist) there no peyton/tom yet, but one or more of them could easily step up. we need that rookie salary cap soon, and for the love of god please come up with a new cba agreement for a league salary cap

eli and orton are not on that level. and rivers isnt as dominating as peyton and tom.

brees is good though even if he is showing signs of being a human today.

[floridabroncos]

It will only get worse next year unless a new CBA is agreed upon. Then teams like Buffalo, Jacksonville, etc won't have the financial means to compete with the likes of Denver, Dallas, Washington, etc.

[Tarquin]

Parity is not dead.

It never existed in the first place.

This is the biggest lie ever told by the NFL. There never was parity. We still have great teams and we still have terrible teams. It's been that way ever since the CBA was created. It was true before the CBA, it's true now, and it will be true after the CBA is gone.

We never had parity. What we did have was a dynamic league. A leage where the teams that were good and the teams that were bad changed frequently and a far more rapid pace.

We've seen it. The Saints were bad. Then they were one of the most feared in the league. Then they were bad. This season they're undefeated and appear to be Super Bowl favorites.

That's not "parity."

It's "chaos."

It's rapid change. It's not an equal playing feild. It's a rapidly alternating uneven playing field. The only thing the CBA did was change the rate at which teams changed from bad to good to bad to good.

Don't say parity is dead. It was never alive to begin with.

[DancingHorsey]

Parity is not dead.

It never existed in the first place.

This is the biggest lie ever told by the NFL. There never was parity. We still have great teams and we still have terrible teams. It's been that way ever since the CBA was created. It was true before the CBA, it's true now, and it will be true after the CBA is gone.

We never had parity. What we did have was a dynamic league. A leage where the teams that were good and the teams that were bad changed frequently and a far more rapid pace.

We've seen it. The Saints were bad. Then they were one of the most feared in the league. Then they were bad. This season they're undefeated and appear to be Super Bowl favorites.

That's not "parity."

It's "chaos."

It's rapid change. It's not an equal playing feild. It's a rapidly alternating uneven playing field. The only thing the CBA did was change the rate at which teams changed from bad to good to bad to good.

Don't say parity is dead. It was never alive to begin with.

While I agree that the parity claim has been mostly b.s. (in the last two seasons we've had both the first 16-0 team and the first 0-16 team after all), I will say that this season seems to be short on upsets. The gap between the good teams and the bad teams does seem to have grown a bit.

[BroncoManiac_69]

It's all about team management and ownership.

Bad teams remain bad because they have bad leadership.

Good teams remain good because they have good leadership.

The Saints for example have turned around a franchise that was a laughing stock. So have the Cardinals and Bengals.

Teams that have dominated, remain in the top because they know how to stay competitive.

We Broncos were supposed to stink it up. Suck. Whatever.

Our owner made moves that prevented that and good for Pat!

Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, St. Louis ALL have had issues for a while now. It's up to THEM to figure it out. The Titans and Bucs have fallen on bad times lately but they should not be compared to the previous 4 I just mentioned.

Rapid change is EXACTLY what keeps a team competitive. You don't throw all your eggs ($$$) in one basket as some have done only to fail. It's how these teams are managed from the front office that keeps this league what it is.

We have doormats and we have powerhouses. The doormats are the ones that need to address their internal issues, deal with them, and move on.

[Poindexter]

I have a theory about this subject.

20 years ago the league was built around a few "elite" teams who dominated the NFL on a regular basis. Call it coaching, call it talented players, call it scheme. It doesn't matter. What matters is those teams had a winning formula that allowed them to stay on top year after year. As time has passed the teams have changed, but the practice hasn't. In the mid-90's it was the 49er's, Cowboys, and Bills predominantly. In recent years it's been New England, the Colts, and a few long standing teams such as the Steelers who have a storied history of success.

On the other side there have always been teams who have struggled to put together a winning season. Teams like the Cardinals, Saints, and Bucs have had limited success while many of the other teams in the league have hovered around the middle.

My theory is that people get so caught up in the history that they forget it changes over time. That balance of power shifts every few years as players retire and coaches move.

This off season people have forgotten that there were 12 different head coaching changes. That is a drastic change in mentality over the course of a few months. You couple that with the fact that new designs like the Wildcat, and new league rules have effected the philosophy of teams this season. Some teams have been able to adapt and hence have grown into better teams, while many others are riding off of their past successes and have failed to move forward. As an example of this I feel that the Titans failures this year stem from a lack of growing with the changes. They are trying to repeat the same things that made them successful last year all while failing to account for the differences this year. It has lead to them becoming a predictable, easily read team. It shows in how they have played and lost this season.

The teams who are getting blown out are the teams who are playing last seasons ball. This is a new, rapidly developing NFL. You have to grow with it to survive.