They should just let the Jags play in London permanently already. Sure, there's a travel issue, but some teams already travel way across country for games. Just have them schedule like 3 home, 3 away, 3 home, 3 away stuff. There's extra travel for teams in their division (Texas, Titans, Colts)... but if it were me, I'd change the divisions anyway. What I'd do is rotate teams into different divisions every year. Or eliminate divisions entirely and just have AFC teams play the other 15 AFC teams + 1 NFC team (and vice versa) every year. Schedules are crazy unbalanced anyway... this solves that. If there's pushback on that because well we really want the Giants and Jets to play more than once every 16 years... fine, eliminate conferences, too, lol. Top 12 teams make the playoffs, by seeding. As much as people complain about instant replay rules being weird (eg. why couldn't Saints challenge the non-PI call yesterday), the unbalanced schedule is even dumber, and in 2019 absolutely not necessary as travel isn't nearly the deal it once was. The Patriots play 6 games against the Dolphins, Jets and Bills every year, lol. They'd still be really good obviously, but who knows... (maybe they would have won more SB's for all I know...)
Can we stop playing that team already? Twice a year. Every year. We're bored of it. Make it stop. Please.
Its not really that "unbalanced" schedule... the NFL schedule is set and planned years in advance. Its a division-specific schedule, with each division opponent having 14 out of the 16 games in common. Year-in/year-out divisional games are some of the most competitive/heated rivalry games throughout the season. Why would you want to get rid of that? The NBA basically did that and the regular season couldn't be more useless or meaningless now. Also, why would you not want the best teams from the AFC and NFC to play each other throughout the season? Lastly, the biggest issue with having a team in London is not simply the games itself... its where the team sets up its home operations, and where are they set to practice, and where do their players live for 6 months of the year? Free agents will not choose to play in London. The NFL basically has it set up as if there is a team there full time. 8 games/year is exactly what every home market gets. The fans there also enjoy seeing a variety of teams (vs the same team all season).
I disagree entirely. The Chargers has the 4th best record in the NFL. They didn’t get a bye. This happens every year. We have no clue whether they should of had a bye or not. And completely disagree about the nba. The Regular season and offseason are way way way way more interesting to me. Rivalry division games are simply that because you’ve stuffed these teams 100% randomly into a division. Fine... 50% randomly since there is some geography at play. It’s just the remnant of a bygone era imo. True balanced schedule is just math and obvious. This isn’t close to it. Edit: also the worlds getting more global. Free agents might go to London. Might not. I’d rather go to London than jacksonville x1000. But then I’m not an NFL. player. Also I think they played 3 nfl games in London this year. Not 8. Having an actual home team in London is completely different conceptually
You poll every single market, and they would relish divisional games/opponents over any other opponent. Yes, some years are imperfect... but the Chargers ended up playing a team with a better record in the 2nd round, and lost. It actually doesn't happen "every year". Likewise, you want to get rid of all inter-conference games, which basically takes out 8-10 marquee games/year. (and in a league where its only a 16 game schedule, that's huge). The fact that the NBA season is "interesting" to you is probably indicating there isn't any point to discuss this further. That's a league where more teams make the playoffs than don't. Its entirely meaningless and could be a good 30 games shorter (you should actually look at how arbitrarily they decided on a 82 game schedule). In the end, the NFL is hardly struggling from a fan interest or schedule interest issue... their schedule actually makes the most sense out of every league, in terms of both keeping divisions relevant and having a fixed formula. There is nothing "random" about a division unless you're focusing on expansion teams that had no true rival when they were made. Even then, the Ravens (who were considered a "new" team, despite being in Cleveland) immediately formed heated rivalries with every single one of their division opponents. The NFC East games routinely out-rate most other comparable games. The NFC North has rivalries that pre-date the merger, and the AFC West is possibly the best division in all of sports (better when the Raiders are relevant). In the end, this really isn't an "issue". The main problem around here is the Texans play in a lesser marquee division, with a bunch of small market teams. If you were an Oilers fan, however, there was nothing "boring" about Steelers or Browns games (and for a few years, the Bengals).
Well, this is really derailing the thread, but I'll reply anyway. I do think we just fundamentally view the whole point differently. Also, bear in mind, my comments aren't "how do I make the NFL more popular comments". They're entirely bearing in mind the "fairness" of the game. Unbalanced schedules make it impossible to really know... To me, that's neither here or there. Yes, there's established, historical, geographic rivalries (i'll address below). Then there's other teams - like the Texans - who are just in a division because they're in a division. I'm sure Texans fans relish games against the Colts more than other teams, too, other than the Titans (obvious Houston connection). So what? That Houston fans want to prove if they can be better than the Colts, Titans, and Jags every year has no bearing to me on whether it's the "right" way to do it. ESPECIALLY considering the NFL would still be just as popular either way. I mean... I know you probably did this on the fly, so don't take this as an attack... but did you actually follow the season, lol? The Chargers were 12-4. The Patriots were 11-5. The Chargers played a team with a worse record in the second round, BUT had to travel to their home turf. Bill/Brady at home is different than on the road and the stats back that up. Two years ago the Raiders finished second to the Chiefs, again both at 12-4, and the Raiders had to play the first weekend despite having the 4th best record in the NFL. Three years ago the Bengals were tied for the best record in the AFC, had the fewest points against, and the second highest point for, and were the highest rated SRS team in the AFC (and SRS is just a calc. that doesn't "really" mean anything, but is notable that it exists because it's really freakign hard to actually figure out who has been better in a given season...) but it was a 3 way tie so they didn't get a bye. I'm not saying there shouldn't be tiebreakers, or the Bengals were cost a change at a championship or anything. I'm just saying it's a completely unbalanced schedule so the seeding has a big element of "who knows" to it... It's just math... See comment above. I care about getting it fair.... Yes, this is the main difference in philosophy. I view the NBA playoffs like Law & Order [SVU]. Rinse, wash, repeat. Same thing every year, with some slight nuance changes. I think like old people still like that - again I'm not trying to offend. It's network tv where we're talking about a procedural that is more or less the same every episode that appeals to older people these days, with everyone else having long moved on to Netflix and other options. Meanwhile, the regular season of the NBA is more like the Netflix series. Sure, we know GSW will still be there, and there's that option to just keep watching them. But what will happen with the Kawhi-Derozan swap? What will happen with Jimmy B? How will the Celtics do all healthy? Is this Luka kid for real or just pudgy Euro-trash? Will Giannis and KD ever make the next leap? Melo on the Rockets? And there's always more surprising stuff. The Wizards and John Wall potential blowup. Donovan Mitchell coming out of nowhere last year while Markelle Fultz developed the worst case of the yips anyone has ever seen. The Russ triple-double watch. The Nuggets jump to #2. Oladipo and the Pacers just being better than anyone thought. Etc. It's the 82 games of the regular season that is entertaining to me. I've had NBA league pass for years. I pay for it. Not the free reddit streams. And I watch a bit of all teams all the time. Not just a couple of teams. Absolutely, I ALSO like watching marquee matchups, and the GSW explode and appreciate the dominance of some of the better teams... but I'm less interested in an NBA that is 10 great teams. Whereas I'm guessing you'll only watch the Rockets + a few other great teams. Even with all that said... it's neither here nor there when just talking about something that is, truly, SIMPLE MATH. The Texans and Chiefs had 4 common opponents this year. The Texans and Ravens had 3 common opponents. [if my quick checks are right]. Again, disagree. Their schedule is the MOST UNBALANCED of the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Again, see above. We have teams in the playoffs that not only have an unbalanced schedule playing opponents a different number of times or in a different home/away matrix (which prevents true balance in the NBA, where at least all teams play all other teams in the league, and in their conference 3-4 times), but more extreme than that, a good half of their opponents+ are just completely different. They're not even playing the same teams. If you want to really reduce it to things like divisions.... ok, then you really shouldn't let two teams from the same division play each other in the playoffs. Not to pick on the Texans as an example, and definitely not that the Texans might have been amazing had they played the Ravens instead of the Colts in the playoffs... but if the idea is "hey, at least the NFL tries to segment it and then figure out who is the best in each segment"... well, ok, then use that to then pit segments (segment = division) against each other. Hence my comment about "ok, at least then only have AFC teams play each other AFC team", and then you pit the SB as the truly best in the AFC as truly best in the NFC. yes, you're right, random wasn't a good term. and not even arbitrary. but based on things that aren't really impactful to the game. Like there's a reason... it's just not a reason that was borne out of the game... it was just borne out of history and geography. In 2019... so? It's just a historical rivalry game. Again, I don't care about that. I'm talking about fairness of schedule as it relates to figuring out who the best NFL team is every year. Not the best marquee matchup. I'm not really even coming at this from a Texans perspective. I can't speak to how they'd have performed in a more balanced system. Again, if I look to SRS... which is just a stat (you can see it on pro foootball reference, it relies on Margin of Victory and Strength of Schedule), the Texans were 6th in the AFC this year... Colts 7th. And I don't really care about the "marquee" level of the division. Clutchfans like to bash media coverage of Houston sports in general... but as a person that doesn't live in Houston, I actually find Houston gets a ton of coverage. It's not always positive, but they are plenty well covered. Again, just my two cents
The NFL has been doing London games for years now. Does anyone know if there's actually been any uptick whatsoever in NFL interest or even gridiron football interest over in Europe or even just England?
Well, the games sell out even though they mostly involve the Jags. There's obviously enough interest for that to happen.
There always been NFL interest, especially in England and Germany. There is a reason so many games are being played in England. The new Tottenham stadium was built with the NFL as alternate tenant in mind.
