Has Mediocrity Taken Over the NFL?
The GOAT passes judgment on the state of the league
Welcome to Black Friday! You good? Great. Let’s talk ball.
Tom Brady is a little early to the Back In My Day barb — the guy did just retire earlier this year — but he’s already pretty good at it. Must’ve been watching tape.
Shaq and Barkley are on this grind every damn week. The NBA’s most crotchety accountabilibuddies, going after modern bigs for being soft. Oftentimes, they’ve got a point.
Taking after those two, Brady also had a point this week when he fired this shot across the bow:
I’ll pull the newsmaking line outta there for ya.
Tom Brady, far and away the greatest quarterback who’s ever played the game, had this to say about the quality of play in today’s NFL — which, again, he just left:
"I think there’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL. I don’t see the excellence that I saw in the past. I think the coaching isn’t as good as it was. I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it was. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game. So, I just think the product in my opinion is less than what it’s been."
My anecdotal sense is that he’s right, but let’s check the numbers. The macroeconomic data, if you will.
Earlier this month, Warren Sharp broke down the data from this season through Week 6. Like Brady, he’s been unimpressed — and so has Vegas:
“Oddsmakers have set the average point total for games at 44.1 projected points scored. That’s an extremely low number. In fact, it is the lowest they’ve set average point totals since 2011. But they recognize how neutered the game is right now.
However, despite the extremely low expectations for scoring, only 38.5% of games have gone over their predicted point total. That is the lowest rate of games going “over the total” or more points being scored than predicted in more than three decades (1991).”
So, if you’ve been watching and thinking to yourself — is this sport worse now? — then you’d be right. Especially if you’ve been betting the overs. Sorry, optimists.
As you might expect, the quarterbacks have a lot to do with this. It’s often called the most singularly important position in sports, and we’ve already talked about the declining value of the NFL running back.
So if the scoring down’s by this much, you’ve gotta figure they have a lot to do with it, right?
Right! Over the last two years, we’ve seen a huge drop in scoring from the signal callers. The passing rate is essentially unchanged, but passing touchdowns are down by roughly 25% as compared to the sunny days of 2018. That’s a lot.
Again, anecdotally, I already had the sense that the league’s quarterback talent was just worse than it used to be when I was growing up.
But the numbers above support that, and though they’re far more subjective, I think basic position rankings do too.
They’re arbitrary, but they paint a picture.
Here’s ESPN’s list of the top 10 quarterbacks heading into this season, as well as some honorable mentions, according to a poll of coaches, execs, and scouts:
Patrick Mahomes (duh)
Joe Burrow (also duh)
Josh Allen (duh but drop-off)
Aaron Rodgers (this seems high)
Justin Herbert (losing patience here)
Jalen Hurts (I might have him 3 at this point)
Lamar Jackson (a rare overarchiever!)
Trevor Lawrence (also losing patience here)
Dak Prescott (can’t even keep track of whether I’ve lost patience here)
Matthew Stafford (yikes)
Honorable Mentions:
DeShaun Watson (countless yikes)
Kirk Cousins (best year of his career)
Jared Goff (same)
Derek Carr (not so much)
Tua Tagovailoa (movin’ on up)
And just for kicks, also receiving votes: Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones, Justin Fields, and Geno Smith. My, my, my.
They do this differently now, so the lists aren’t 1:1, but bear with me. Here’s the same list ten years ago, counting the same number of guys, when they ranked everyone 1-32, heading into the 2013 season.
Aaron Rodgers (Hall of Fame)
Peyton Manning (Hall of Fame)
Tom Brady (Hall of Fame)
Drew Brees (Hall of Fame)
Ben Roethlisberger (Hall of Fame)
Eli Manning (Hall… of… Fame…?)
Matt Ryan (Hall of Very Good)
Joe Flacco (lol)
Tony Romo (Hall of Pretty Good)
Matt Schaub (rofl)
Philip Rivers (Hall… of… Fame…?)
Matthew Stafford (Likely Hall of Famer)
Andrew Luck (Hall of Fame had he kept playing)
Russell Wilson (Likely Hall of Famer)
Colin Kaepernick (should’ve gotten another shot — different yikes here)
Robert Griffin III (Should have never suited up for that playoff game)
Cam Newton (Hall of Very Good)
Alex Smith (Hall of Pretty Good)
Andy Dalton (… lol)
Of that list, nine players won a Super Bowl as a starting QB, and three others got there — twelve in all.
A lot of players on the 2023 list haven’t had a chance to finish their careers, so we’ll give them the time to prove they’re better than they look right now, but they’ve currently got three winners and three others who made it.
That’s not close, and it’d be a lot worse if Rodgers and Stafford weren’t on both lists.
Now, obviously — somebody’s gotta win every year, so they’ll close the gap a little. But I bet they’ll never catch them. Why?
The level of talent is, to my mind, clearly lower. And that’s true at the top, middle, and bottom. I like Jared Goff this year, or I did until I watched him these last two weeks. I like Tua too. They’ve been good.
You know what they haven’t been? Great.
Russell Wilson — though you might have forgotten it if you watched him last year and the early goings of this one — was great. Andrew Luck was great. Cam Newton won an MVP and went on a 15-1 run to the big one.
Even Kaepernick, who was probably the second- or third-worst player on the 2013 list after Dalton and Schaub, was briefly electric. He, like Newton, led his team to a Super Bowl as an extraordinarily dynamic quarterback. These were outstanding players.
The three worst players on the 2023 list are probably Daniel Jones, Justin Fields, and Derek Carr. I’m prepared to inform you right now that none of those three will ever win an MVP, make a Super Bowl, or do much of anything of note in the NFL.
We’re not talking about the same caliber of players here. Nowhere near.
So, above and beyond the timeless question of whether Joe Flacco was elite (answer: no) looms a bigger one. What happened?
All I can offer are two possible explanations.
First, playing quarterback is really hard. We see guys with all the pedigree, college numbers, arm talent, athleticism, perfectly coiffed hair, etc. coming up every few years. But even with a lot of guys who look the part — guys like Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence come to mind here — there’s something missing.
The hardest part of playing the position will always be between the ears. Poise. Reading the game, limiting mistakes, and leading a team. It’s hard to check every box, and very few do. We see that today more than in recent memory.
That’s because, second, we’re coming off a historic glut of quarterback talent. It’s hard to argue with the Brady, Manning, Rodgers triumvirate as the best group of QB rivals we’ve ever seen.
We don’t have anything remotely approaching that today. Mahomes, in my opinion, is in that category, but nobody else is. Guys like Burrow, Allen, and Hurts would be the candidates, but each display lower ceilings and way more inconsistency than the guys I just named above.
That’s natural — you’re talking about three of the very best to ever play, so it’s a tough comp. But it does create this sense of whiplash. We’ve been spoiled, and now we’re not.
Get used to it, folks. Join me in wishing Tim Boyle well in his first start today for the ever-fortunate Jets.
That, in my view, rises above some valid criticisms of the way the game is played, as well as some less valid concern trolling to try and explain what is more likely just a talent gap.
It’s always possible — and inevitable — that new guys will come along to wow us yet again. Who knows, maybe that’s Caleb Williams, or Drake Maye. Or Arch Manning, or Dante Hall, or somebody still in high school.
It’ll be somebody. But looking around right now? Might be a while. Onwards and upwards.
Also, This
My fiancee Laura, of Baddies fame, wanted it noted in this column that she’s also seen a troubling degree of mediocrity in this season of Great British Baking Show. The steamed treacle pudding technical? Shameful, that.
Staying on football — can we talk about this whole dropping the ball before crossing the goal line thing? I have the same question as everybody else. How is this still happening? Kids these days.
Michigan dropped its court case against the Big Ten and Harbaugh decided to accept his three-game suspension — and then fire a linebackers coach — on the revelation of new evidence from the NCAA’s investigation. Allegedly, a booster nicknamed “Uncle T” (amazing) was helping fund the sign-stealing operation and the now-fired coach was tampering with the investigation. Trouble in Ann Arbor.