OT: Why I hate the NFL

As far as the offenses comment goes I'll address a couple points.
1. Rules differences cause some of this homogeneous in the NFL. Hash marks being only 15ft apart vs. 45ft in CFB or 50 ft in HS makes a HUUUUGE difference. Also the NFL actually enforces the ineligible downfield calls. This makes spread to run concepts which open up the short-mid passing game impossible.
2. Divas. You could run all sorts of variations on wish bone, double wing, wing T etc but the "name on the back" players would never subjugate themselves to the commitment it takes to run those precise, blocking dependent schemes.
3. Team speed. When the slowest LB on the field is only a few fractions behind the fastest it takes the exploitation of deficiency nature of the spread right out.

When I started to drift away was around the time they started the FOOTBALL IN YOUR FACE!!1!! marketing campaign. Football tv shows. Football food. Football for everything in your life because football if your family.

I used to love the NFL but their marketing overload is killing the product just like everyone said it would.

I also feel like they're watered down the game by analysis in your face as well. They've got sideline reporters. They've got a rules expert. They even have a kicking expert. It's too much. Some people just want to watch the game.

Saying the regular season doesn't matter much is nonsense.

Too many commercials. I hate the cheesy songs they constantly play. The overall lack of emotion. The general anti-fun attitude. The players who aren't decent people. Generally, greed. Lack of anything special or interesting. Slow pace. That owners exercise too much leverage over fan's

I believe that's probably a major factor. If you grew up in a city with a successful college team, it skews you towards the college game - see Columbus. If you grew up in a city with a pro team, but no competitive college team, you probably prefer the nfl- see Cleveland. I have little to no interest in the NFL. I used to watch Cleveland, but found I no longer have time for football both Saturday and Sunday. While being a Browns fan probably contributed to my lack of interest, I also believe I was turned off by the entitled nature of the players. As I grew older, I related ticket prices to their salaries.

I might not have as much love for my team as I do for Michigan, but I watch every week, and it is usually on in the background on Mondays and Thursdays well (The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones win out on Sunday nights unless it is a big matchup).  

To address your points, though...

1.  I don't think you can really say the  offenses are similar.  You have the Saints throwing on nearly every down, the  Panthers running a quarterback in short yardage situations, the Patriots throwing intermediate passes up and down the field.  Yes it is a copycat league, but you still must master the things you try to implement.  

2.  I feel like there are a lot of commercials during the college games as well, there just seem to be more injury stoppages during the NFL games.  

3.  I get that the regular season does not matter as much as the college season, because you can go 9-7 and win a bad division.  But you don't think the Patriots would love to have beaten the Brock Osweiler-led Broncos last regular season, to secure home field and host the AFC championship game?  Might have been a far different outcome if they are playing that game in the winter of Foxborough.  

4.   Almost every celebration has been a penalty this year.  So much so in fact that players and teams are really speaking out about it and trying to come up with "celebrations" to spite the NFL.  

5.  I get the seemingly imbalanced suspensions, and Brady got screwed.  But Ray Rice was originally suspended 2 games, then indefinitely after the  video I believe, guys like Josh Gordon get suspended for a year after failing like 3 drug tests.  And the Josh Brown story is developing and likely to change.  Also, you don't think colleges have inconsistent suspensions?  

I remember Goodell changing the business plan.

Instead of longevity Goodell believed that no one could ever unseat the NFL as the top sport in the country. So why not squeeze out every dollar they can since the NFL is going to be here forever anyway? That's how you kill a business and it could be we're seeing the decline now.

The NFL is amazingly boring (except the playoffs). I never get excited to watch their games. I get genuinely excited for random college games, like this VA Tech and Miami game.

I'm sure I am in the minority here, but I love the NFL. Always have and always will. I have SundayTicket and watch all day long. When it comes to college, I am so obsessed with Michigan, that I just have no interest in any other game. Its all Michigan for me. Alot has to do with going to every Michigan home game. It takes up the whole day, so i dont even have a chance to watch other games.

I have the same view as many on here. The NFL is a worse product than it was in the 70s 80s and 90s, Goodell is a twat and has made punishing players a spectacle, the over-the-top officiating of every celebration (hated TO as a person, loved TOs celebrations), the players seem less "invested" playing for $$ instead of something important (team/school) .... basically a combination of everyone else's posts.

And sure, college football has its problems. My pet peeves are how some games are damn near unwatchable due to the fact that every other play is reviewed, making a 3 hour game a 4 and a half hour game. And the NCAA is a corrupt fraud,

But college is far more exciting and a better fan experience being on campus, going to your old hangouts, strolling down memory lane . . .

While I still will watch the NFL I am also not going to make sure I catch the big game that week. It would take a lot for me to miss a Michigan game, even a cupcake game. I think the biggest factor for me is the emotion of the college game is real and not a bunch of egotistical assholes playing for a contract.

All regular season pro sports basically suck. My order of suckitude:

1. NBA, by a mile

2. NHL/NFL

4. MLB. I think baseball is easily the most boring of the 4 major pro sports. So imagine my surprise when I still find myself checking the Tigers score on my phone on a regular Tuesday afternoon in June when my date excuses herself to poweder her nose. It's mindboggling.

I used to call the direct TVs retention department every summer and bitch about my service and they would give me the NFL Sunday ticket for free. I did that so I could watch the Lions in Florida. I no longer waste my retention department free stuff phone call and it's been a great decision.

Pretty much the only time I'll watch an NFL game from start to finish outside of the Lions in the playoffs (never) and the Super Bowl is if I have money on it.

But in the last 10 years it has started to bore me.  I remember switching to Direct TV just to get the NFL Sunday Ticket, I was in heaven.  But over that same period of time the game became uninteresting, it lost it's luster. I quit getting the NFL Sunday Ticket about 4 years ago. I use to be able to watch any team, but the offenses became so routine with the NFL.  The games are the best during the playoffs. Yeah the commercials have helped ruin the game, just too many of them. That starting to hurt the college game as well. Although I love college football, I can just about watch any team play. I am watching VT v Miami right now.

Not sure what the NFL can do, probably get rid of the salary cap would be a start, maybe it's time for Roger Goodell to move on, get someone fresh.  I believe a lot of the rule changes to protect players has also made the game boring.  

These guys play for the money and not the sport.  Plus, the NFL is turning into the NBA - some games unwatchable.   Then you have ESPN race baiting every weekend.  it gets old.  

I lost it at FA and the salary cap. 8-8 commie football. My Fix. Take the QB's out of the salary cap. They become luxury tax like baseball. hopefully this will reward God organizations and punish the bad. Teams will be able to keep talent as long as they QB void doesn't migrate to other positions.

NFL sucks

I watch the Patriots every week....not ony because of Brady but because 99% of the time I will be watching a Well Coach, discipline football team in action.  That is very rare in the NFL.

The Glorious Revolution - the rising up of the Michigan fanbase and media diaspora to remove Dave Brandon from power - was one of my proudest moments as an MGoBlogger and a fan. I felt like I was taking part in something organic, something that would have a tangible, lasting influence on a team that I love. Such a move is impossible with billionaire owners in the NFL. Jimmy Haslam is some sort of Dave Brandon - Jed York Frankenstein bastard hybrid with none of the business sense and a quarter of the charm. Haslam makes Randy Lerner look like Don Canham. This in turn cripples the rest of the franchise from the President and GM on down.

Browns fandom is periodically checking the scores on nfl.com or google, seeing an unexpected 10 point lead, and wondering how the Browns will manage to blow it this time. 28-26? Bit higher scoring than usual but ok. 17-9? Atta boy Browns. I have family in Cleveland so they're the only team I would even consider rooting for. NFL fandom is there to help remind me that there are more important things in life, like medical school, or getting good at [counter-strike-like game]. Most of the good teams with the exception of NE I hate for one reason or another - JerryWorld, the Steelers get away with helmet to helmet hits on Browns quarterbacks all the time, BountyGate, etc. When Woodson left the Packers I immediately stopped caring about that franchise except insofar as it is publicly owned and not an absentee landlord tax writeoff. I also enjoy the extension of the proxy fight from college into rooting for Michigan players and booing the Sparty or Olentangy River Road A&M grads.

My loyalty to Michigan Football speaks for itself.

when they're in an important game. I'd be mildly tickled if the Lions got it together. But not a fan.

I haven't watched any NFL football for 3 years. It's horrible!!! I rewatch the Michigan game or watch a game that I didn't get to see on Saturday.

Some of this is my young children monopolizing the TV but I have also lost interest. 1. Goodell seems to be a pretty despicable person. 2. The lions are depressing. 3. They have politicized the league. Sports used to be a fun distraction from life, not anymore. 4. The seemingly corrupt nature of how the NFL operates. Teams holding cities hostage, former non profit status, concussion cover-up, etc.

and then an old John Madden Miller lite commercial pops up....weird but awesome

I only really started watching for fantasy. I love fantasy more than anything else in sports save Michigan football. But I'd rather watch redzone than an actual game. Still, watching players like ODB, Julio Jones, AJ Green, David Johnson, Gronk, Brady, etc. is better than anything college football has to offer.

Never liked the NFL. I'll watch bits of the Pats game or lions. Who knows, maybe I would have a different attitude if my hometown team wasn't the worst franchise in professional sports.

I'm thinking the essence of your problem might be that you're a Lions fan.

Sorry bout that

I'm with you but for none of the reasons you mentioned. I'm starting to become completely comfortable with missing NFL games because they make it so difficult to watch games they deem unworthy of being televised without paying a ridiculous amount for Sunday Ticket (which I have done but refuse to anymore). When I watch ESPN for college football there are numerous games on the many ESPN channels and you can watch many other, completely unpopular games and nationally broadcast games on tablets, computers, phones, etc. Obviously you need cable and Internet, but that's not much. It's like one group, NCAA and ESPN even FS1 and other networks want their product available to many and the NFL wants it limited like some fancy cheese. I remember watching football in Michigan and there always being an early game on even if it wasn't the Lions. But, I've lived in Phoenix and Houston the last 10 years and there are quite a few Sundays when there's no early game on Fox or CBS, just some bullshit infomercial.

NFL games are also really, really boring. Little passion; it's totally professionalized and gray.

But I have increasingly lost interest in the NFL since they changed the extra point rules. I hope NCAA doesn't switch to that.

You forgot sissy sliding quarterbacks and dumb conventional jersey number rules, its nonprofit status and how different football is when you play for pay vs pay for school, nickname, colors, pride and state.

The NFL product has always sucked. The sad part is how consumers have tolerated crap product for so long.

College is just better. And always will be.

Going to the SuperBowl last Feb to see the team I have been rooting for my entire life win it all was fucking awesome and one of the best sports moments of my life. But aside from the Broncos, I could care less about the NFL, fantasy football or any other team. The league was over-promoted and the talent diluted. College football is better for so many reasons. Brady is 2-7 at MileHi and 8-9 overall vs Denver too, tbh.

After a Saturday of CFB excitement, the NFL on Sundays just doesnt measure up.  The cool thing about CFB to me has always been that losses have consequences.  I think they will ruin the college game by having a bunch of 2 loss teams in the playoff if they were to expand to 16 or 32 teams. Also, way too many commercials.

Everything mentioned above has me not tuning in.  Now, with players like Kaepernick trying to use their position to promote social justice issues during the pre game National Anthem have really turned me away.

NFL is balanced to a fault..no elite dominant teams..It was Cam mania last year but no team is dominating this year..and the Vikings are a defensive team so no they are not enticing