Has Parity Really Worked In The NFL?

[12thMan]

I really don't know where I'm going with this thread other than what the title simply states; Has parity really worked in the NFL, but more importantly is it good for the NFL? I guess what brought on this question in the first place is the Bobby Petrino departure. I don't know how this really ties in, but somehow I think it's related to or in some fashion contributed to the lack of true parity in the NFL. I'll get back to Petrino in a minute.

First of all, say what you will but most of the NFL is mediocre right now. While I do believe there is a fine line between a winning and losing record, most teams in the NFL right now just aren't all that good. From the coaching to the quarterbacking down to the waterboy, most of the league has been wildly erratic, in my opinion. Through 13 weeks of play this season, 18 of the 32 NFL teams currently have losing records. As it currently stands, 8-8 could conceivably get you into the playoffs. Now correct me if I'm wrong here, but is this what Paul Tagliabue had in mind?

When I was growing up as a kid, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders dominated the decade of the 70s. The Dolphins had some good runs too. During the decade of the 80s, the Washington Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers took home five Super Bowls between them. Fast foward to the the 90s and 2000s, and it's been the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots that have taken home most of the hardware, respectively. The common theme with all of these winning franchises was they usually had the same head coach year in and year out.

Now that we're in the era of free agency and the salary cap, I think it's situations like these, where a team plucks a coach from the collegiate ranks in hopes of returning to instant glory, that further contribute to the mediocrity that already exists in the NFL. Seems like reverse parity if you ask me.

In the grand scheme of things Petrino's name won't even be talked about this time next year, but has the NFL created such a "win now" culture that they've shot themselves in the foot? Don't get me wrong, business has never been better in the NFL and it's probably only going to get better. But It seems like that the good teams are still usually good and the bad teams are still consistently bad.

No matter what you're still going to have dynasties and you're still going to have perennial losers, and mostly everyone else in the middle. I guess the more things change, the more they really stay the same.