the all encompassing 'discuss all things offseason' thread sponsored by Paintrain

Enjoy the NFL while you can since Mark Cuban says it will be dead in 10 years.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/cuban-nfl-10-years-imploding-152605631--nfl.html

Cuban makes some good points though. Also nobody ever imagined MLB being dead and now its a forgotten sport

Enjoy the NFL while you can since Mark Cuban says it will be dead in 10 years.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/cuban-nfl-10-years-imploding-152605631--nfl.html

Cuban is spot on. Greed will catch up with the NFL sooner or later. We can already see the Thursday games are borderline dreadful. Then we have these games over in London which is a stupid idea. And eventually we're going to have 14 teams in the playoffs and 18 regular season games, plus some Sat games at the end of the year. It will be watered down by then. Who wants see 8-8 teams in the playoffs? I blame the owners cause they're greedy and money hungry. Goodell is perfect guy for them as he's their 30 mil a year puppet. Eventually the ratings will slip. They just can't leave the damn game alone.

And please, no one say, "well Arizona was 10-6 and didn't make it!" That's a bunch of BS. We all know more times than not that we're going to see a lot 8-8, 7-9 teams make it, over 10-6 teams. 7 teams in each conference making the playoffs is a terrible idea.

Cuban is spot on. Greed will catch up with the NFL sooner or later. We can already see the Thursday games are borderline dreadful. Then we have these games over in London which is a stupid idea. And eventually we're going to have 14 teams in the playoffs and 18 regular season games, plus some Sat games at the end of the year. It will be watered down by then. Who wants see 8-8 teams in the playoffs? I blame the owners cause they're greedy and money hungry. Goodell is perfect guy for them as he's their 30 mil a year puppet. Eventually the ratings will slip. They just can't leave the damn game alone.

Cuban is right, the NFL is going to violate the basic principle of "supply and demand" (it's amazing how many businesses/governments/jackasses ignore this law). You're a poon if you think the availability/quantity of your product leads to long term growth. Evolve, change, innovate, whatever the hell you want to call it, you have to do something to increase your market share to avoid a plateau or plummet. The NFL is trying to do this by raping the core of it's product. The NBA sucks and is definitely not the model but Cuban is on point. He definitely wants part of the NFL though..

And please, no one say, "well Arizona was 10-6 and didn't make it!" That's a bunch of BS. We all know more times than not that we're going to see a lot 8-8, 7-9 teams make it, over 10-6 teams. 7 teams in each conference making the playoffs is a terrible idea.
The last 5 years don't seem to agree with you. Between 2009 and 2013 if 7 teams made the playoffs the 7th team's record would have broken down like this:
3 10-6 teams; '13Ari,'12Chi,'10NYG
4 9-7 teams; '09Hou, '09Atl, '10SD, '11Ten
3 8-8 teams; '12Pit, '13Pit, 'Chi

In 3 of the 5 years (2010,11,13) at least 1 division champ had a record worse than the 7th seed would have and in 2010 2 teams were better than the 7-9 NFCW champs Sea.
In no case would a sub .500 team have been the 7th seed.

Edit. I decided to go back to 2000 on NFL.com and without tallying it the results were inline with the numbers above. And all the way back to 2000 not one 7-9 or lower team would have been the 7th seed. Ever.

As for Cuban's remarks, its hilarious to me that an NBA owner with 82 regular season games per team is going to lecture the NFL. Every team's fan still has only 16 games to watch and hope their team does some good. When the other games are on matters less but if they are scheduled right you will still tune in because you want to see how the competition is doing.

The last 5 years don't seem to agree with you. Between 2009 and 2013 if 7 teams made the playoffs the 7th team's record would have broken down like this:
3 10-6 teams; '13Ari,'12Chi,'10NYG
4 9-7 teams; '09Hou, '09Atl, '10SD, '11Ten
3 8-8 teams; '12Pit, '13Pit, 'Chi

In 3 of the 5 years (2010,11,13) at least 1 division champ had a record worse than the 7th seed would have and in 2010 2 teams were better than the 7-9 NFCW champs Sea.
In no case would a sub .500 team have been the 7th seed.

Edit. I decided to go back to 2000 on NFL.com and without tallying it the results were inline with the numbers above. And all the way back to 2000 not one 7-9 or lower team would have been the 7th seed. Ever.

Did anyone honestly want to see any of those teams in the playoffs? Chicago's defense was worse than ours. Pittsburgh was the definition of average. Neither deserved to be in the playoffs. The owners just need to leave the damn game alone. It's already watered down as it is.

Did anyone honestly want to see any of those teams in the playoffs? Chicago's defense was worse than ours. Pittsburgh was the definition of average. Neither deserved to be in the playoffs. The owners just need to leave the damn game alone. It's already watered down as it is.

Since it is clear that the 7th seed would historically be on par with or better than at least the 4th division champ the added competition would be excellent. I am confident that the fans of that 10-6 cardinals wanted to see their team in the playoffs. And I certainly remember when the 11-5 Patriots missed the playoffs. Pretty certain a game pitting them against the 2nd seed that year would have been extremely entertaining..

Point is the 7th team isn't always, or even mostly, a floundering team. Its often a very good team in a very competitive division/conference.

Plus we've seen some teams that finish 8-8 or 9-7 do some serious damage in the playoffs.