Parity is Over… Thank God
One of the most annoying things in the NFL over the past few seasons has to have been the word “parity” being loosely thrown around in the vernacular of all NFL analysts and announcers. Why was this so annoying? Because parity completely replaced the “Any Given Sunday” rule. On Monday Night ESPN Analyst and former all time 49ers great Steve Young busted out the term once more, albeit in a different fashion telling us all that “the days of parity are over”. Well these days, if they did exist, are in fact over because there is a large crop of teams this year that just can’t get it together and hence are paving the way for the teams that should be racking up the W’s.
Looking back historically, by this week the NFL has an average of 98.3 losses over the last 4 seasons; right now the NFL currently has 107 losses, which is not dangerously over pace but is a quick example of what is being spoken about. What I mean to say exactly is that there are a handful of teams this year that can easily be scratched off your teams schedule for a win, unless of course you are one of these teams. These teams are: the St. Louis Rams (0-7), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-7), the Tennessee Titans (0-6), the Cleveland Browns (1-6), the Kansas City Chiefs (1-6), the Detroit Lions (1-5), the Washington Redskins (2-5), the Oakland Raiders (2-5), the Seattle Seahawks – if they fail to stay healthy (2-4), the Carolina Panthers (2-4), the Jacksonville Jaguars (3-3), and finally the Buffalo Bills (3-4).
Are all of these teams really that bad, or are the teams they are facing off against that good? It is of course a combination of both, but a good indicator to solve this is the point differential of these teams in question. Rams (-151), Raiders (-115), Titans (-114), Browns (-107), Bucs (-107), Lions (-85), Chiefs (-76), Panthers (-51), Redskins (-27), Jaguars (-27), Bills (-25), Seahawks (+9). These differentials are astounding; not only are these teams losing, but by an average of 11.5 points per game. Seattle has a small glimmer of light in this equation, but don’t look too deep into it: when everyone was healthy they blew out the Jags 41-0.
Last Sunday on the field 6 out of 13 games were won by 25 or more points, and 5 games were won by 10 or more points, leaving only two close games on the scoreboard: the Cardinals 7 point defeat of the Giants, and the Texans 3 point victory over the 49ers (the Pit/Min and NO/Mia games were close too but had at least a 10 point differential by the end). This was apparently one of the worst days in sports book history for the NFL, and with these teams it’s likely to happen again.
I think it’s safe to say that these teams really are that bad. The truth of the matter is that the Rams are bunk, the Raiders have actually sunk into their own black hole, I’m happy I’m not a Titans fan, at least Drew Carey still thinks Cleveland rocks, the Bucs are swashbuckling their way to losses, the Lions and Chiefs are, well, the Lions and Chiefs, the Panthers are the real cardiac cats… as in watching them puts you into cardiac arrest, the NFC East would like to thank Dan Snyder for the Redskins, Maurice-Jones Drew is pissed, Terrell Blowens, and Seattle just cannot stay healthy.
