Parity’s Playing Games With Fans

Chad Klassen
Love of Sports Correspondent

With the advent of the salary-cap system in the NFL, beginning at the juncture of the 1994 season, it has inherently meant greater parity between teams and overall better competition (although the Patriots’ three Super Bowls in four seasons might put a different spin on the situation).

The impact of the salary cap is clearly seen in the league when teams, which make the playoffs one season, lose key players via free agency and miss the postseason mark altogether the next.

However, more than any other season, there has been so little disparity between the truly good teams and those that are merely competitive. These disparities have resulted in some bipolar fans around the league, who are currently experiencing quite the emotional rollercoaster ride, because predicting how your home team will play is increasingly more difficult.

Injuries have surely played a big role this NFL season – with Tom Brady’s opening-day fatality, Peyton Manning’s slow start after recovering from knee surgery, and L.T. in and out of the lineup with his toe problems.

The top three preseason contenders in the AFC (Patriots, Chargers and Colts) are nowhere near as dominant as they were in the last three years.

We’ve seen the resurgence of the Titans and Bills back at the top of the AFC standings after years in hiding following those winning eras in the 1990s (and early 2000s in Tennessee’s case).

Not only have we seen a total shift in power, in the AFC particularly, but there is overwhelming parity that has made it difficult for odds makers in Vegas and sports fans putting huge money on weekly games to get a grasp on predicting the football landscape.

Comparing the last two weeks of action, in particular, really points to the ridiculous unpredictability and difficulty of picking the games correctly every Sunday.

In the Patriots’ case, they were royally embarrassed two weeks ago on Sunday Night Football against San Diego 30-10 and looked like a team in dire straits with Matt Cassel’s disastrous performance. Flash forward, going from one primetime slot to the other, New England flipped the switch and trounced the Broncos 41-7 at home on Monday Night Football when Cassel, and the rest of his teammates for that matter, looked like a totally different beast.

For their part, the Chargers, who creamed New England on their home turf, went to Buffalo last week and, while holding the lead for a short time in the first quarter, were handled quite easily by the Bills in a 23-14 loss.

Even looking at how the Bills played the previous week in a cross-country trip to Arizona, it was tricky to know how they would respond coming off the bye week after being knocked around 41-17 against the Cardinals, albeit without Trent Edwards for much of that game.

In Indianapolis, Colts fans welcomed back their old offensive juggernaut, which blitzed a solid Ravens defense for 31 points two weeks ago. Then, Manning looked pretty awful in Green Bay, where he threw two picks that went to the house for Packer touchdowns in an ugly 34-14 defeat at Lambeau.

Even for the Rams to beat an NFC East opponent back-to-back weeks, albeit against the crumbling Cowboys at home, was as surprising as anything, especially considering the 0-4 start and little expectation they could follow up on their 19-17 last-second shocking win in Washington.

The list of these scenarios has been infinite in 2008, and you have to feel for football fans who dare lay real or monopoly money down on NFL games. There are more games every Sunday that are stupid hard to pick – both straight up and against the spread – and we can largely thank parity for it.

Not that we condone that sort of thing.