Felger & Mazz: What An Awful Year For The NFL
BOSTON (CBS) - Mike Felger and Tony Massarotti opened Thursday's show with a big picture topic involving the NFL and its off-the-field problems.
The commentary began on the state of the NFL, and what an awful hit the league has taken from an image standpoint. The impetus for this discussion came on the heels of a Washington Post column by Thomas Boswell titled "What Has The NFL Become?"
Just to name a few: a work stoppage, replacement refs, Aaron Hernandez, Jovan Belcher, Richie Incognito and work-a-holic coaches like Gary Kubiak and John Fox nearly dying.
That's just this past calendar year.
Go back further and you will find Spygate, Bountygate, Ray Lewis, Ben Roethlisberger's sexual assault and Michael Vick's dog fighting ring.
The list goes on and on and on.
But more importantly, do we even care?
"The league has taken a massive hit over the past year, year-and-a-half. My question is does it matter? Does it matter?" said Mazz. "Does anyone even care? Or are we just interested in the entertainment value and not the reality of it?"
"I care," said Felger. "But I don't know if it gets me to turn the TV off. I don't like it, but I'm gonna watch the Pats the next time they're on."
Off-field issues aside, what about the game on the field? Between season-ending injuries to star players, and the lack of practice time allowed in the new collective bargaining agreement, are we getting a lesser on-field product than in years past?
Felger thinks so.
"This has not been a good season. How many good games have there been, Patriots or otherwise? We can all list the number of bad games. Do you understand how many bad games there have been?"
"The Thursday night games, the Sunday night games, the Monday night games - do you fully appreciate how awful some of these games have been? Do you know how many bad teams there are in the NFL? And do you know how many great ones there are? Zero," Felger argues.
Marc Bertrand got in the mix and the three guys went into more detail about the lack of marquee games and teams, and how the national games have been lackluster.
Listen to the discussion below:
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