Bad Football? It May Be (Mostly) an Optical Illusion

Sunday’s slate of NFL games sure looked ugly. They were ugly before breakfast, ugly after midnight, ugly in the city, ugly in the desert, ugly on two continents. It looked like the ugliest week of football to ever come at the end of a stretch of ugly weeks of football. 

But was it really that bad? Or is the current “NFL stinks” storyline an optical illusion?

There has been lots of talk over the past month about bad television ratings, a saturated market and an inferior NFL product. And yes, 6-6 ties belong in 1930s football history archives, not on prime-time television in 2016. But as Jason Lisk pointed out last week at The Big Lead, columnists have been complaining about the decline in NFL quality for at least 25 years. Read Lisk’s quotes from yesteryear and you will find the same familiar themes you have heard in recent weeks: There aren’t enough good quarterbacks to go around, teams don’t stay together or practice long enough, and so forth.

I love debunking old sportswriter tropes as much as anyone else. But heavens, Sunday was excruciating, and there have been a few others like it this year. Surely this is the real decline and fall of NFL civilization, not one of the many false alarms Lisk documented. Right?

Holding Steady

Seeking hard evidence that NFL games really have gotten worse, I combed through the Pro Football Reference database for statistical indicators of “bad football,” including:

Increased turnover rates: Bad games generally have more interceptions and fumbles. Increased penalty rates: More flags equal a slow, sloppy, poorly executed (and/or officiated) game. Lower completion percentages: No one likes to watch a bunch of incomplete passes. Lower yards per rush: Bad games generally feature lots of futile plunges into the line. Higher sack rates: If they are up leaguewide, it means offensive line play is probably down. Lower field-goal percentages: Nothing says “ugly game” like a bunch of missed figgies… Increased punt rates: …Except perhaps an epic 15-punt duel between Johnny Hekker and Brad Wing.

Scoring rates have held steady at 22.7 points per team per game for several years, but scoring rates don’t tell a complete story of how compelling the games are. I collated the data expecting to see a collapse akin to what happened circa 1977: rising punt and turnover levels, sharply declining offensive rates, a general decrease in the things that make football fun.

But as the table shows, rumors of the death of fun in the NFL are greatly exaggerated.

Despite Case Keenum tossing air balls to Giants defenders and the Eagles and Vikings playing turnover pingpong on Sunday, turnover rates are actually down this year. Completion rates are up, sack totals and rushing averages are steady, and punt rates are at their lowest mark since 2008. The typical team scores 2.51 touchdowns per game, down from 2.56 last year. But no one is really missing five-hundredths of a touchdown each week. Teams are moving the ball and scoring as well as ever.

There are a few indicators of poor leaguewide play in the tables. Field-goal rates are down, though the tiny dip (essentially one or two misses) would not be noticeable if the Seahawks and Cardinals didn’t shine a Sunday night flashlight on it.

More intriguingly, penalty rates are at an all-time high. Some of those penalties are the result of important safety-oriented rule changes. Some are just sloppy holding/offsides/contact fouls. Too many involve someone imitating Robin Hood or Steph Curry in the end zone. The penalty rate suggests there …

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