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Last night, MLB’s ratings shellacked the Sunday Night Football matchup between the Cowboys and Eagles, which was another blow to Roger Goodell’s solar plexus. But last Thursday night’s forgettable contest between Jacksonville and Tennessee was emblematic of the biggest problem. Who, in God’s name wants to watch Blake Bortles battle it out with Marcus Mariota on a Thursday evening in a four hour forced march that includes 112 penalties, 864 commercials, and ugly uniforms.

There’s too damn much football out there. And, on top of that, games are way too long, the quality of play has declined, and we’ve learned that some of the players are thugs, jerks, wife-beaters, cheaters, drug users, and have bad table manners. And there’s Kap.

No telling which straw broke the camel’s back. Thing it’s all of them together broke the camel’s back, but first is oversaturation. The other stuff was mostly icing on the cake or a tipping point. Kap ticked off a lot of people, and the guess here is that a lot of people who were suffering from too much football blame him for making them do what they were going to do, anyway. Which was reclaim their lives from too much unwatchable NFL football.

By the end of the year, we will have had Sunday Morning Footie with the Ka-ween, the early Sunday game, the late Sunday game, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Thursday NIght Football, and December Saturday Afternoon Football. And they are doing market research to try to figure out why it’s not Must Watch TV anymore?

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Because the NFL took such a bad PR hit. NASCAR took no such PR hit, so they kept the DoD’s money.

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Since I wrote this three part series over the course of several days last week there have been several additional accounts touching the same topic. Here are the links

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/sports/football/nfl-domestic-violence-josh-brown-new-york-giants.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/sports/football/tv-viewership-falls-in-nfl-and-epl-a-blip-or-something-worse.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/27/nfl-ratings-decline-football-fans-explain-viewership

If I were to do a part four, the focus would be on parity. This would be the NFL’s version of the participation trophy; mediocrity over excellence.

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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/27/nfl-ratings-decline-football-fans-explain-viewership

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/sports/football/tv-viewership-falls-in-nfl-and-epl-a-blip-or-something-worse.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/sports/football/nfl-domestic-violence-josh-brown-new-york-giants.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

If I were to do a part four I would focus upon one other area: parity. This has become the NFL’s version of the participation trophy, mediocrity over excellence.

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Rarely do I defend the NFL, but I have to on this one. People are more upset about this than they should be. The DoD went to the NFL to do this. It was part of a recruiting campaign and was paid for out of funds set aside for recruiting. It is no different than the National Guard race car in NASCAR.

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