Everyone loves the NFL again.

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

Everyone loves the NFL again.

Everyone loves the NFL again.

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

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

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

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.

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

A hipster position?

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!

Plenty of room on the soccer bandwagon!

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

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Everyone loves the NFL again.