Whatever Happened To: Parity In The NFL?

Remember when all you ever heard about was parity in the NFL? Anybody could beat anybody on any given day, games were entertaining, and everything was good. These days, though, parity is long gone.

Which is weird, because the same system is in place that caused the parity that the NFL wanted. The salary cap is still there (for now), free agency is as it ever was. But there are so many awful teams right now. This is resulting in some terrible football games. Look at some of the teams:

Buffalo Bills: The worst 3-win team in the league. The offence is just garbage, and head coach Dick Jauron is the embodiment of mediocrity. Throw in a front office full of non-football people, and an old owner who doesn’t seem to care anymore, I’m surprised they’ve won a game.

Cleveland Browns: This begins and ends with Eric Mangini. He’s put his stamp on things, all right. The Browns actually had a decent offence. But playing games with the starting QB position, trading away key weapons, and other tomfoolery has the Browns back where they belong. Oh, and the possibility that they are benching the not-so-good Brady Quinn for the terrible Derek Anderson just so that he doesn’t receive a large playing time bonus must really be making fans and players happy there.

Tennessee Titans: What the heck happened here? At least they finally got a win over Jacksonville, who also should probably be on this list.

Oakland Raiders: Al Davis. A head coach that beats up assistants (allegedly). Al Davis. A head coach that beats up women (allegedly). Al Davis. JaMarcus Russell (allegedly). This franchise will never be good again until the vampire kicks it.

Kansas City Chiefs: The Chefs just deteriorated slowly before our eyes, and Pioli has a big job ahead of him trying to fix this mess. If he does, he is the greatest GM of all time.

Washington Redskins: Daniel Snyder and Vinny freakin’ Cerrato (what has Vinny Cerrato ever done to justify his existence? Seriously!) have run this franchise into the ground. Their treatment of Jim Zorn (no matter how bad he is) probably isn’t endearing them to any prospective coaching candidates out there.

Detroit Lions: The only 0-16 team in history. They might be turning it around, but it’s going to take some time. Give Stafford some time to develop, because at least they have some hope with a decent set of triplets there with Kevin Smith and Megatron.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: The only winless team in the NFL. Wow, what happened to these guys? Gruden was canned at the right time, I guess. Their defence is awful, and their offence is, well, awful too. Looks like they’re returning to their “glory days”.

Seattle Seahawks: Remember when you could pencil them in as NFC West Champions?

St. Louis Rams: Terrible offence, sieve-like defence. At least Georgia Frontiere got one Super Bowl. Rush Limbaugh should thank his lucky stars he was kicked out of a potential ownership group for this team.

That’s 10 teams out of 32. When they play other teams, we usually get awful blowouts. When they play each other, well, one note I saw on a message board called it “the resistible force meeting the movable object.” And most of this is just incompetence. These are supposed to be the best football people in the world running these outfits. So why is there such awfulness?