HOUSTON — Hey, so you might have heard about this:
NFL television ratings are down.
I know, I know. Knock you over with a feather. There has been a lot of thought, a lot of fret, a lot of study put into this. For a time it seemed the NFL, like just about everything else in the country, had been overcome and overrun by the presidential campaign.
When things didn’t immediately bounce back after Nov. 8, a supplemental theory was hatched: There is too much football available, and we had reached a point of saturation — though most football fans glue themselves to the combine, even though most of them would watch an intrasquad scrimmage in April if they could.
Then the playoffs started.
And the problem was as clear as the Houston Texans trying to prove they belong on the same field — or in the same ZIP code — as the Patriots. It was as obvious as Steelers being unable to score a touchdown against the Chiefs in Kansas City — and still winning the game, thanks to six made field goals.
There is no scenario — there are no circumstances — by which six field goals gets anyone’s motor running.
And that is the problem. Across three weeks, spanning 10 games, the NFL’s playoffs have been a microcosm of the season: lots of uninspired football, lots of uninspiring games, stacked up and backed up. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a stroll down memory lane:
Steelers 30, Dolphins 12: Brutal.
Texans 27, Raiders 14: Dreadful.
Packers 38, Giants 13: Awful.
Seahawks 26, Lions 6: Atrocious.
Steelers 18, Chiefs 16: Unwatchable.
Patriots 34, Texans 16: Unbearable.
Falcons 36, Seahawks 20: Horrible.
And then the dueling bookends of conference championship weekend, when the Falcons stomped the Packers, 44-21, and the Steelers barely showed up in getting hammered by the Patriots, 36-17. You can empty out the rest of the thesaurus looking for words to describe those games and it will keep you busy for a week.
The outlier, of course, was the Packers-Cowboys divisional round game at Dallas, a classic that went down to the last play before Mason Crosby’s 51-yarder at the gun reduced AT&T Stadium to a quivering mess. That was game that had everything: a proud old gunslinger (Aaron Rodgers) and a pair of hot-shot stars (Ezekiel Elliott and Dak Prescott), a proud comeback by the home team, big plays in big spots all over the map.
And guess what:
The ratings for that game were extraordinary. Because of course they were. Because the NFL still can elicit some of the most incredible drama of any sport, anywhere. And when the Cowboys — still America’s Team, after all — are involved, it is an even bigger and better party.
A great Super Bowl — and by “great” we mean one that stays competitive until the final few minutes — can go a long way toward rewriting the agenda for the league, and reviewing how we’ve felt about this season. A great Super Bowl — really, one that resembles any of the previous six the Patriots have partaken in — would be a perfect coda on which to end this season.
A great Super Bowl — make one of these coaches have to make the kind of decision Pete Carroll had to make two years ago, at the goal line, to run or not-to-run — will reinforce what we already know: Professional football isn’t exactly ready for the retirement home. If you build the people a great product, they will come. And come back for more.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
