Who Is the Worst Team in the NFL?

[Marsha Gupton]

Ideas?

[Sara Sheppard]

It hurts me to say it, but I think it may be our beloved Titans, Marsha. :(

Sara

[Jon White]

The NFL season has been going only two and a half weeks, but I'd have to say the Raiders are the worst. It didn't help any that Aaron Brooks went down this weekend with a strained pectoral muscle that will put him on the shelf for two to four weeks. Andrew Walter, Brooks' replacement at QB, was a sitting duck against the Ravens. (Yeah, Baltimore's a great defensive club, but...) The offensive line is in disarray, and Randy Moss hasn't been a major part of the offense. I know it's early, but I think the Raiders are in BIG trouble.

[Alisa Stoll]

you didn't give me the option of "ALL of Them" - I used to watch professsional football but then it became a business. I don't watch businesses for pleasure so I tend not to watch NFL very often. Now college football ....

Alisa

[Gary Swartzlander]

you didn't give me the option of "ALL of Them" - I used to watch professsional football but then it became a business. I don't watch businesses for pleasure so I tend not to watch NFL very often. Now college football ....

Alisa


So, what do you watch that isn't business?

[Gary Swartzlander]

The Raiders are easily the worst. It's really to soon to judge fully but based on personnel and early returns they have it. There seems to be no plan with the raiders, most the other teams seem to be playing with a purpose and have young or new talent to develop for the future.

[Alisa Stoll]

So, what do you watch that isn't business?


Like I said I don't consider college football a business (yet) - it is still a sport. IMO NFL used to be both a business and a sport but when they instituted salary caps, free agency, and Dallas fired Laundry, it became primarily a business and not a sport. Players used to stay with one team for most of their careers. Now even playing well is no guarentee because of the salary cap.

AJ Hawk was smart and played all four years of college for that very reason - he wanted to continue playing a sport instead of having a job.

A team used to be about the coach and players - now it is an emblem on the helmet with coach and players interchangable. So why should I care about an emblem? I cared about the coach and players.

There are plenty of good collge football games on to get my football fix.

Alisa

[Bruce Carriker]

Thursday night college football games, just for the sake of ESPN?
New stadiums built or old stadiums expanded?
The hated BCS, with its choice bowls offering bids only to the favored few?
$10-15 million dollar payouts to teams that get one of those BCS bids?

College football not a business? Perhaps not if you're watching MNU play Benedictine, Emporia State v. Ft. Hays State, or West Chester v. Shippensburg. But if you're watching college football on network TV (or ESPN), you're watching business at work...BIG BUSINESS.

[Alisa Stoll]

Thursday night college football games, just for the sake of ESPN?
New stadiums built or old stadiums expanded?
The hated BCS, with its choice bowls offering bids only to the favored few?
$10-15 million dollar payouts to teams that get one of those BCS bids?

College football not a business? Perhaps not if you're watching MNU play Benedictine, Emporia State v. Ft. Hays State, or West Chester v. Shippensburg. But if you're watching college football on network TV (or ESPN), you're watching business at work...BIG BUSINESS.

My point was and is that both are a mixture of business and sport but that IMO there is more sport in the mix for college football than in the NFL where I feel the sport has been greatly sacrificed for the sake of the business. Yes it has been sacrificed in college also - using your example, the Rose bowl is no longer consistently the PAC10 vs the Big10 so some tradition has been lost. But I attribute that as much to the desire for a true number driven by the fans as driven by the colleges/television desire for $.

I would also say that Thursday night football games is as much driven by the fans as ESPN. There are only so many games that can be televised on a given Sat. Opening up Thursday nights allows more people to watch more games and allows fans access to games that they wouldn't see otherwise. MAC teams wouldn't be on TV if it weren't for ESPN.

The bowl games have always been about $$ long before the BCS. The Ohio State University is pretty much guarenteed a bowl game even in off years as long as they meet the minimum number of wins - and they will get a better bowl than many teams with better records - why? Because their fans will fill the stadium and turn on the TV better than most teams. Any team that does that will get a better bowl bid because the bowl needs to cover expenses or it can't survive.

Why does a college build a bigger stadium or better stadium - for the fans. If there weren't fans to fill it they wouldn't build it.

Alisa

[Gary Swartzlander]

Thursday night college football games, just for the sake of ESPN?
New stadiums built or old stadiums expanded?
The hated BCS, with its choice bowls offering bids only to the favored few?
$10-15 million dollar payouts to teams that get one of those BCS bids?

College football not a business? Perhaps not if you're watching MNU play Benedictine, Emporia State v. Ft. Hays State, or West Chester v. Shippensburg. But if you're watching college football on network TV (or ESPN), you're watching business at work...BIG BUSINESS.

In some respects the business of College Football is more questionable than Professional Football. There is no doubt that Professional Football (along with all other professional sports) is in the business to make money and the athletes play it to earn money. College Football and the universities benefit from the money side of it immediately while only the good athletes can benefit from it when and if they are lucky enough to go to the pros. The percentage of college and university athletes that actually make it to the professional level is very small, so while the schools benefit from the dollars received from athletics, very few of the athletes show any financial reward.

Notre Dame receives $60,000,000 from NBC for a four year TV contract, that sounds like big business and NBC wouldn't pay that just for the pleasure of the fan if they didn't know that advertisers will pay big bucks so that Notre Dame Alumni will be watching games and spending money. Just about everything is sponsored, even the headsets that coaches us on the sidelines have sponsores on them. Nike, Reebok and Adidas have shoe contracts with schools.

[Bruce Carriker]

My point was and is that both are a mixture of business and sport but that IMO there is more sport in the mix for college football than in the NFL where I feel the sport has been greatly sacrificed for the sake of the business. Yes it has been sacrificed in college also - using your example, the Rose bowl is no longer consistently the PAC10 vs the Big10 so some tradition has been lost. But I attribute that as much to the desire for a true number driven by the fans as driven by the colleges/television desire for $.

I would also say that Thursday night football games is as much driven by the fans as ESPN. There are only so many games that can be televised on a given Sat. Opening up Thursday nights allows more people to watch more games and allows fans access to games that they wouldn't see otherwise. MAC teams wouldn't be on TV if it weren't for ESPN.

The bowl games have always been about $$ long before the BCS. The Ohio State University is pretty much guarenteed a bowl game even in off years as long as they meet the minimum number of wins - and they will get a better bowl than many teams with better records - why? Because their fans will fill the stadium and turn on the TV better than most teams. Any team that does that will get a better bowl bid because the bowl needs to cover expenses or it can't survive.

Why does a college build a bigger stadium or better stadium - for the fans. If there weren't fans to fill it they wouldn't build it.

Alisa

Alisa,

I don't disagree with what you've said. My point is that almost all of it runs AGAINST your idea that college football isn't big business.

As for the MAC not being on TV, nobody much outside Ohio really cares if the MAC's on TV or not. ;)

[Bruce Carriker]

College football program revenues for 2004 season (last data I could find):

1) Texas $47,556,281
2) Tennessee $46,704,719
3) Ohio State $46,242,355
4) Florida $42,710,967
5) Georgia $42,104,214
6) Alabama $39,848,836
7) Notre Dame $38,596,090
8) Michigan $38,547,937
9) LSU $38,381,625
10) Auburn $37,173,943

Not big business at all.

[Alisa Stoll]

Alisa,

I don't disagree with what you've said. My point is that almost all of it runs AGAINST your idea that college football isn't big business.

As for the MAC not being on TV, nobody much outside Ohio really cares if the MAC's on TV or not. ;)

My point wasn't that college is not big business but that it still has a large component of sport unlike professional football where big business is the dominent factor.

As to your statement about nobody outside Ohio - Eastern Michigan, Cental Michigan, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, Buffalo, and Ball State fans might disagree with your statement. MAC does have 6 teams in Ohio but it also has 6 teams outside of Ohio. Not to mention Alumni who have moved out of the state (one of the big things politically speaking that comes up during elections - the number of college grads who leave Ohio).

Alisa

[William Hunter]

I know this is a fun post, but I want to ask, does anyone really care? Does it really matter? Professional sports teams are made up of overpaid, and often maladjusted young men who have not learned out be civilized in many cases. If I want to watch sports with spirit and still with some sportsmanship in it, I turn to high school or small college sports. Fortunately I live close enough to Olivet to take advantage of seeing well run sports programs where character and sportsmanship are still practiced.



Ideas?

[Glenn Harris]

There are four games with 8 teams who haven't won a game playing each other. That's going to narrow the number of win-less teams down considerably.

Washington vs. Houston
Green Bay vs. Detroit
Carolina vs. Tampa Bay
Tennessee vs. Miami

My gut feeling is to put my choice on the Tennessee vs. Miami game. Both teams are pretty bad and which ever one can't beat the other win's the prize.

[Glenn Harris]

Professional sports teams are made up of overpaid, and often maladjusted young men who have not learned out be civilized in many cases.

I was about to say "and then you have college football teams that are made up of over-idolized, often maladjusted young men who don't make money officially but who are showered with under the table "gifts" from alumni, who have not learned how to be civilized in many cases, and then you had to ruin it by putting a disclaimer about small (ie. Olivet) colleges in there to distinguish it from teams like Nebraska, Texas and Miami where the team captain is usually the one who hasn't been arrested this year.

I love NCAA college football, I love professional football. It's entertainment. Smaller College and High school Football may be more pure but it isn't as entertaining, so quite honestly, unless I have a vested interest in a particular player or team I don't really care. As for the monitary issue, I don't question how much the actors make on my favorite T.V. show or how much someone earned making a movie that I love and if I did I would also have to start asking myself what the Gaither Vocal Band makes on tour or how much royalties does Bono get when I buy a U2 CD?