Everyone loves the NFL again.

That was unbeleveable

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

No

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

If you dont you are lying to yourself and perhaps also a gay.

Nice bit but no.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I think it started a few weeks ago. I know guys here who were dead set against watching the NFL...blah blah blah. Then as the push for the playoffs started and their teams were in the hunt they began to be into it again. But yesterday definitely cemented it nationally

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

They did before as well but were just trying to attach themselves to some hipster position

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The officiating is a problem though. If there's one thing driving me away from the NFL it is the flag happy refs.

Agreed, and now these pussy WR are looking for flags on every single play...fans as well for that matter

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

A hipster position?

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Right. It kind of ruins the tension of a deep pass when your reflex is to see what type of flag there will be every. single. time.

I'd like to see them change it from a spot foul to a spot foul up to a max of 10/15 yards with a 1st down... I wonder if that would stop some of this heaving it deep just to try to get flags.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Yup

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You know, all those "stand for the anthem!" hipsters.

Zeph said a lot of people he knows aren't watching because Kaep didn't get signed!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Plenty of room on the soccer bandwagon!

Ah so you agree with me now that the people who claimed they were tuning out because of the anthem protests were either full of shit and/or not a significant portion the ratings decline?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

And there's a lot of flag-waiving, Trump-supporting, yokels that swear they'll never watch another NFL game again. Not very hipsterish.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Bullshit, the flag-waiving, Trump-supporting, yokels (what's a yokel?) Love Beer and the NFL more then their protest. Protest are for the liberal snowflakes who get pissed off if the wind blows a leaf in their hipster beard. #beardsmatter! Stop the wind!

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I was being sarcastic.

I think the ratings decline were because of idiot snowflakes who didn't like the protests in far larger numbers than those who aren't watching because Kaepernick wasn't signed.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I know you were being sarcastic. If it's the case that the protests were a significant reason for the ratings decline, it's of course also the case that those right-wing hipsters once again were revealed as being full of crap as usual. And if renewed interest and higher ratings in the playoffs are instead the result of people besides those angry about the protests tuning back in, my initial point that those mad about the protests received far more attention than was merited when it came to the NFL's declining ratings would hold.

I think anyone who didn't watch the NFL because of the protests was being a precious snowflake. I don't have any reason to argue the merits of it then. I do believe it had a big impact.

If they are coming back, I think you could argue that the protests have largely become a non-story in the past few months and therefore it is once again safe to watch NFL football.

Still though, I don't think many were not watching the NFL because of Kaepernick support as you said before.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I know two guys at work that are not watching the NFL because of Kaep not being signed. The one guy was a die hard Bears fan that took off Monday nights when the Bears where on national TV.

He is also a miserable, cranky Sox fan, so I am not that surprised he doesn't watch the NFL anymore.

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I think far more were not watching from the start of the season because of Kaepernick than you believe and I think far less were not watching because of the protests than you (and most national coverage) also suggest, especially beyond the few weeks Trump kicked up storm.

Quality of play is still a far bigger predictor of interest than anything politics-related IMO (as are things like people cutting cable and the rise in the number of people just tuning into unreported Red Zone broadcasts instead of the networks on Sundays). Average regular season ratings were on a downward trajectory before any kerfuffle about politics was raised by either side but in line with widespread perceptions of declining quality of play. I don't think this thread would even have been made if yesterday's games resembled Saturday's.

And as I noted in the other thread, saying you don't watch a game because of something politics-related gives you a far nobler justification for tuning out of a game you weren't likely to watch anyway, which is the whole problem of relying on self-reported surveys to get at the cause of any ratings decline.

People stopped watching because the refs suck and nobody knows what a catch is.

He’s not wrong about this.

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Well, Kaepernick hasn't been signed, and won't be signed, and is suing the league. The protests have virtually disappeared from the anthem stuff and it's almost certainly going to be a non-issue next year as the rules will change to play the anthem without players on the field next year. I guess we'll see if ratings continue to tank.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No they stopped watching because players can't beat the shit out of each other during 3 a day practices in early August. Try and keep up people!

or not.

Ratings down for divisional round
Posted by Mike Florio

Continuing a season-long trend, the ratings sank for the divisional round games.

Via SportsBusiness Daily, the ratings for the four games fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade, with each game dropping in comparison to the comparable game from a year ago.

The good news, if there is any, comes from the fact that the 21.8 rating generated by the Saints-Vikings in the late afternoon/early evening slot was only 0.1 lower than the 21.9 for Steelers-Chiefs last January, even though that game was played in prime time. The bad news is that the apples-to-apples comparison — the late-afternoon Sunday game between the Packers and Cowboys — churned a 28.2.

The Jaguars-Steelers game played at 1:05 p.m. ET posted a 20.4, the lowest overnight rating in that window in 15 years.

For the Saturday games, the 17.4 rating coming from Falcons-Eagles was down from last year’s 18.3 from the Seahawks-Falcons contest; that’s the lowest since Ravens-Titans in that same spot drew a 17.0 in early 2009. The 16.6 overnight for the Titans-Patriots game on Saturday night was the lowest since Cardinals-Panthers in early 2009.

The NFL would say that the drop is still lower than the broader drop in TV ratings for other shows, that the games lacked national brands like Green Bay and Dallas, and that the starting quarterbacks included Nick Foles, Marcus Mariota, Blake Bortles, and Case Keenum. (Three of them won, besting Matt Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees.)

Expect similar news next Monday, given the which-doesn’t-belong-and-why? quartet of quarterbacks (Foles, Bortles, Keenum, Tom Brady) for the championship round.

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