The NFL is built for competitive balance and parity, to avoid having a league full of have and have-not teams.
That is why all NFL TV and merchandise revenue is split equally among the 32 teams. That is why their draft and waiver-wire allow teams with the worst records to have first dibs at top college players, and the individuals cut by other clubs.
“While some have described our product with words like ‘parity” and ‘mediocrity,’ I prefer to use the term ‘balance,’ former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle wrote in a 1982 New York Times article.
So the late Rozelle perhaps wouldn’t be thrilled with the beginning of this NFL season, with six teams starting 3-0, and five teams 0-3, with a sixth team, Arizona, also winless, but with a tie.
The six 3-0 teams are the Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers.
The five 0-3 teams are the New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, Cincinnati Bengals, Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos. If these five teams, along with the Cardinals, continue heading south, it could hurt their fan interest, vis-à-vis attendance.
“Competitive balance is what builds fan interest,” Rozelle wrote. “The entire makeup of the NFL is geared toward keeping teams competitive on the field.”
The odds are long for 0-3 teams to make the playoffs.
“It looks like it’s over for the NFL’s 0-3 teams as history hasn’t been kind to slow starters,” wrote Joe Osborne for oddsshark.com “Going way back to 1980, there have been 176 teams to start a season 0-3, with only six of them going on to make the playoffs — a whopping 3.4 percent! If you’re a fan of one of the 0-3 teams and that 3.4 percent number is giving you hope, it shouldn’t.”
Ideally, the NFL, with its parity-driven business model, would at least want teams hanging around in playoff contention into late November, early December, to keep their fans interested.
So what created this divide between undefeated and winless teams this NFL season?
Usually, the factor you can point to first is the quarterback position. The good teams usually have an answer at this all-important position, and the bad teams don’t.
For instance, the Steelers were considered playoff contenders entering the season, but lost franchise quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, to a season-ending elbow injury in their second game. The Dolphins are reportedly tanking this season to land the first pick in the 2019 draft to likely pick Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa, so Miami might be winless by design.
“It’s unethical and morally reprehensible as far as I’m concerned,” ESPN’s Domonique Foxworth said about the Dolphins’ 2019 plan.
The undefeated Patriots, Chiefs, Cowboys, Rams and 49ers are all getting terrific QB play this season. The Bills have a young QB, Josh Allen, who is much improved from his rookie year, but Buffalo has clearly also has benefited from a weak schedule and strong defense. Buffalo will get their first legitimate test in Week Four when New England come to town.
Clearly the NFL office hopes the divide between the teams with perfect records, and also-rans, starts to reverse itself in the coming weeks.
“The goal of the N.F.L.’s founding fathers was to establish rules that permitted each of the franchises to have the opportunity to field a team that would be competitive with the other teams in the league,” Rozelle wrote.
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