Bernstein: NFL Is Less Watchable Than Ever
By Dan Bernstein--
CSBChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) We may never stop consuming it, even if actually doing so seems like more of a chore each week.
Our thrall to the NFL remains too powerful and pervasive, too much part of the fabric of life, whether for the chunk of time devoted to the locals or even more spent monitoring wagers, pools or still-legal-for-now daily fantasy rosters.
That doesn't mean we can't point out that these games have become increasingly irritating to follow.
The 14 minutes of action stretched out over three hours has been long reconciled, conducive to social media interaction or actual, real-life groups of people in homes or bars. The rhythm of the broadcast is now second nature, too. Most of us can anticipate any comments as if generated by some football-observational algorithm — from each play itself to the clunky bits of obviousness that come next.
But now the combination of seemingly arbitrary officiating and cynical effort to pretend to make the game safer have turned games into a tedious arrangement of fits and starts. Plays happen, unless they then essentially un-happen, and are followed by a string of conflicting explanations that leave us simultaneously over-informed and unsatisfied.
What's a catch, anymore? What's a legal hit? What's a hold?
Nobody seems to know. We just know that whatever just occurred didn't count. Forget you saw it, it's coming back. Then they look at it again and change it. Or not. And then the network enlists its own officiating expert to opine on the call itself, because we've reached the point where the referees are players in their own right, as much a part of the action as anyone wearing a helmet.
Veteran NFL analyst and reporter Hub Arkush just sees too much left up to officials to decide for themselves.
"It's frustrating," he told 670 The Score. "So many of these rules are open to the interpretation of the guy calling it. There are too many judgment calls in this game. There should be a clear definition of what holding is, there should be a clear definition of pass interference, and there aren't. That's why you're seeing all this shaky officiating."
Adding to the problem is the league's ongoing desire to conduct a cosmetic, impossible safety campaign instead of simply being honest about the dangers inherent in football. Players should be running as fast as possible to smash into each other as violently as possible, but everybody has to pretend that they're not trying to hurt anyone. It's untenable to the point of being insulting.
Rather than embracing transparent, informed consent, the NFL chooses to pander in a way that it believes protects its interests. Rules that limit and punish contact have contributed to the weekly confusion, and there's no sign that it's going to improve.
"Invariably, any changes that they're considering have nothing to do with making the rules better or worse," Arkush said. "It's how the owners, the commissioner, the people running the league want to impact the game."
"If they want a little bit more offense, they'll skew things that way. If they want to do away with concussions, they'll skew things that way. But they never sit down and say, 'Let's look at the rules and figure out which ones we can fix.' They use them to try and interpret the game in a manner they're most comfortable with — sometimes for safety, but far more often trying to generate more revenue."
What results is the flag-strewn, largely incomprehensible game we now spend the subsequent days trying to figure out.
The NFL's ongoing aesthetic issues have yet to affect the bottom line, as we remain glued to the games, following dutifully. But at some point it has to matter, this repeated question we find ourselves asking.
What are we watching?
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.