Uh – Parity? Don’t talk about – parity? You kidding me? Parity? I just hope some of these teams can win a game.
The NFL loves touting their superiority in the realm of sports citing how equal the playing field is compared to other professional sports. I’m going to debunk that myth.
Now the NFL isn’t much different than real life…you have your CEO’s making in one day what most make in a decade, you have your hard working middle class cubicle drones, and you have the faceless janitors roaming the hall. Would you call this equal footing? Maybe if you’re a republican, but no, it’s not even close, and the same goes for the NFL.
We have the upper crust in the Pats, Colts, Boys, Green Bay and Pittsburgh. You have the lower crust in the field of 3-6 win teams, and then you have the moldy crust in the niners, St. Louis, Miami, Jets and Oakland.
Parity should mean any team can beat any other team on any given Sunday. This is simply not the case in the NFL. Let’s take a look at these middling teams and see just how close they are to those CEO’s of football.
Through 9 games
Wins....... # of Teams
9.......... 1
8.......... 2
7........... 2
6........... 4
5............ 5 ....... = 98 Wins vs 83 losses
4............ 10
3............ 3
2............. 2
1............. 2
0............. 1
The Middling teams in the range of 3-6 wins have accounted for 98 wins and 83 losses. Looks to be a few contenders in that bunch, and maybe parity does exist right? Wrong, these teams have only 4 wins against the CEO’s and a whopping 34 against the Janitors. Take out those cupcake Janitor wins and that leaves the middling teams with a 64-83 record. Where is the parity?
You simply can not obtain a level playing field when scenarios like Randy Moss for a 4th round pick happen. The human element crushes the chance for teams to remain competitive in this league. No one wants to waste away on a loser, so they jump ship to a winner for 50 cents on the dollar. The end result is the strong getting stronger while the weak remain losers. There has to be a dramatic shift in a team for it to regain a semblance of competitiveness. An example would be the Saints who went from Janitors to Cube Drones when they miraculously landed a stud RB and signed a pro bowl QB in the same season. This just doesn’t happen in the NFL too often, and what we end up with is either powerhouses, such as the Pats and Colts, or continually depreciating franchises, such as the Ravens or Eagles. Parity is just a buzz word the NFL throws around, and it just needs to go away. This sport is ruled by the few it’s their world and the rest of the teams are just playing in it.
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That's a new take on the discussion of NFL parity - I've heard this debunked before but that is a new take. I like it. The NFL likes to taut it's "parity" is because you can look at the revolving door in the playoffs (there's only about a 50-60% of teams in the playoffs make it the following year) and their salary cap and shared revenue plans make it a level playing field.
Here's some more evidence to back your claim: Only 17 of the 32 franchises have won titles, and 11 of those franchises have been multiple winners. 41 Super Bowls and 35 have been won by 11 franchises (SF, DAL, PIT, OAK, WAS, GB, NE, MIA, NYG, DEN, IND). And of the 15 franchises that haven't won a Super Bowl, only 4 have even been to multiple Super Bowls, the cursed Vikings and Bills (0-4 each) and Eagles & Bengals (0-2 each). That leaves 11 franchises - 5 have lost on their only trip and 6 haven't even danced. You're right, that's not parity. And one of those 11 multiple-Super-Bowl-winning franchises is winning it this year and it'll be two of those franchises facing off (DAL, GB or NYG from the NFC versus PIT, IND or most likely NE from the AFC). The rich get richer.