Week 10 recap

Bengals 21, Ravens 7

Earlier this week, a cantankerous local sports columnist complained about the vast mediocrity we see in the NFL today, particularly at the quarterback position.
Parity in the NFL is what makes it great. The nostalgia of the 80's dynasties sometimes sickens me.
“There is one great team in the NFL now. The rest is just bad football.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t miss seeing the NFC East play San Francisco in the conference championship game every season. It was boring watching Jim Kelly’s sad-face year after year and I certainly don’t miss the days when the Bengals never stood a chance.
New England dominates the league now, and while we all agree they’re a bonafide dynasty, it gets old to watch. The fact that a team can climb out of the cellar to win the division the next year keeps people interested. It also, of course, makes the NFL an insane amount of revenue but you can’t fault good business. Attendance records are being made every week/year/decade. Compare that to the Reds who only sell out when the Yankees come to town and I’m not sure who would ever want to go to say, an Atlanta Hawks game.
Look at the NFC North. The Packers were bad and the Lions won two games all year, while the Bears made it a all the way to the Super Bowl (with a bad quarterback at that). This year the Packers and Lions combined have less losses than Chicago. Tony Romo, last year an average QB, this season has vaulted himself into my coveted top-five list. Steve McNair went from being pretty damn solid to pretty damn laughable in one season. Derek Anderson!?
True, a good quarterback makes up for a lot of other team inadequacies. Payton Manning has led his team to a ton of wins with some horrific defenses. Last year they ranked last and they won the Super Bowl. But the Bengals have proven to be a shining example of how a great quarterback can’t do it all, even with some decent talent around him. If it’s a quarterback’s league, why are we destined for a lottery pick?
The point is, the NFL season is a war of attrition and the best teams demonstrate good coaching and reliable depth. I don’t think that makes the games boring, it makes it heady. It becomes more of a thinking man’s game to watch with so much parity. The league has top five players at every position and then it gets pretty random after that. Mostly due to the effective salary-cap, a team can’t pay too many top-five guys to become like the old 49ers teams and the talent gets evenly distributed. It puts more emphasis on player development and game management, and at the end of the day, the coaches and GM’s are held more responsible than the players are. It’s beautiful.
College football is enjoying one of it’s most exciting seasons thanks to parity. To win in major league baseball almost always means you had to outbid someone for it. George Mason’s run in the tournament was thrilling because it proved that the parity of mid-majors had become stronger. The NBA is a better example of some gross mediocrity. You want to find a boring product in professional sports, check out a game. The San Antonio Spurs play with the excitement of C-Span.
Sports fans seem to love parity. Sports writers seem to love to gripe about it.

Mojokong - Cincinnati needs to cheer up.