I can't recall an NFL season with top teams as bad as they are...

[trumad]

Now don't get me wrong--- If these top teams are bad--- what does that make the lower teams---like my Phins?

It makes them really really bad.

It's been a very weird football season.....

[WilliamPitt]

1. "Any given Sunday"

...has never meant more than it has this year, in my memory.

I said it 50 times this season: "I'm glad I'm not a gambler. I'd have lost my ass ten times over."

Truth.

P.S. The Pats weren't "good." They were "pretty good." Remember the Cleveland game, and the Green Bay game...and if Rogers had started that game, the Pats would have lost by three scores. Parity has arrived.

Let's hope there's a season next year.

[JonLP24]

2. I personally think the top teams are very good

but that is just my opinion.

I think your Phins run the ball well and play good defense. They just haven't found a passing game.

[Carnage251]

3. There were no undefeated teams after week five and Seattle made the playoffs

[Forkboy]

4. Weirdest year in a long time, imo.

Fun though. :)

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Mediocrity is the child of parity

!!

[trotsky]

6. Of the Bears, Packers, Steelers, and Jets...

which one is "bad"? The Packers and Jets defeated the #1 and #3 teams in their conferences, in consecutive weeks, on the road. Bad teams can't do that.

[MrSlayer]

7. The whole league sucks.

It just does. This was a terrible year for the NFL. The game is very mediocre due to this parity they so want. Too many teams means no depth and a shoddy product. The latter is a problem with all professional sports really.

[bluedigger]

8. If you hate it now, wait until they go to an 18 game season...

:thumbsdown:

[Awsi Dooger]

9. More passing equates to worse football

Most predictable residue ever. It's identical to the decline in college basketball caliber of play once the 3 point shot was instituted.

The infatuation with passing has softened the league. I have numerous systems that rely on historical percentages of rushing attempts and this year many of them weren't even applicable. The Dolphins are a prime example, declining a full 4 rushes per game, from 509 in 2009 to 445 this season, despite the identical W/L record. Normally a decline of 64 rushes would mean 2 fewer wins. This season it's merely falling in line with the league trend. And somehow Sparano is considered a conservative coach. He was an idiotic coach, substituting short passes for rushes, the most masochistic choice imaginable.

Yesterday I posted the link to the late Bud Goode's awesome stat, Yards Per Pass Attempt Differential. It's obscene. There were only 4 teams at +1.0 or higher and only one above 2.0, a team that didn't make the playoffs (San Diego). I realize it's not a well known category but there have been years with more than a half dozen teams at +1.5 or higher. Neither of the #1 seeds even reached +1.0, when typically both will be above 2.0. I wouldn't have believed it was possible for a #1 seed (Atlanta) to have a negative YPPA Differential but they were -.2.

http://mule.he.net/~budsport/pub/killer.php

[trumad]

10. Agree

Look at the great teams in NFL history...

Balance...