Having just struggled up from the turf, parity stands with its head bowed, shoulders slumped, jersey tattered.
Once the proud paragon of the NFL, parity today more closely symbolizes a tackling dummy that just took the full brunt of an Al Wilson pad slam.
“For all intents and purposes, we don’t have a middle class,” NFL commentator and former quarterback Joe Theismann said. “This year is the haves and have-nots.”
Entering their game against the visiting Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, the Broncos (9-3) are among 11 teams 8-4 or better. Compare that to last season, when only six teams had reached that mark.
Topping the elite are the Indianapolis Colts (12-0), who are one win away from securing the No. 1 seed for the playoffs. Indifference seems to be all that stands in the way of Peyton Manning’s Colts joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only NFL teams to finish undefeated.
Then there are the putrid, the awful, the buried. Last season, nine teams reached the three-quarter mark with records of 4-8 or worse. This year, the pool of poor has increased to 12 teams, including the Broncos’ next three opponents. Providing the Broncos don’t laugh while they’re playing, they should be 12-3 before the NFL can say “on any given Sunday.”
Anybody watched a mismatch Sunday night or “Monday Night Football” game lately? Hello, anybody?
What in the name of Pete Rozelle happened to the NFL’s parity plan?
“It’s competitive balance, not parity,” said former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt, now an NFL analyst.
Indeed, from year to year, football continues to uphold the parity standard other sports can only admire. The Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Giants finished last in their respective divisions in 2004, only to make quantum leaps to the top spot this year.
Conversely, the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and New York Jets were playoff teams last year, only to have their 2005 seasons collapse faster than a decayed building can spot a wrecking ball.
“What it really points out – I’ve always felt like this, but it’s more pronounced now than in the past – is there are only so many great players to go around,” Broncos owner Pat Bowlen said. “Not to say the other players are bad players, but there’s only so many impact players. And when you lose one of those players, your team can really take a dive, much more so than in the past.”
The result for 2005 has been a chasm between the good and the bad. By the absolute definition of mediocrity, the NFL has just one 6-6 team. Hail the average Redskins!
Unfortunately for Washington coach Joe Gibbs, this isn’t last season, when the Minnesota Vikings and St. Louis Rams made the playoffs with 8-8 records.
Since the NFL expanded to a 16- game schedule in 1978, only one 11-5 team failed to make the playoffs – your 1985 Broncos.
Since 1991, only one 10-6 team has not reached the playoffs – the 2003 Miami Dolphins. There is a chance the 1985 Broncos may get company this year, and one or two 10-6 teams might be staying home in January.
“People criticize our system sometimes because they think it’s going to lead to a year when everybody is 8-8,” said Greg Aiello, spokesman for NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. “We’ve heard that. That the teams are so close and everybody is so equal that there are no great teams and no really bad teams. Well, this year belies that theory.
“In the current system, with four divisions in each conference, there will be a year when a team wins a division with an 8-8 or 7-9 record. And we know when it does there will be some criticism of it. The commissioner would not view this year as a trend. It’s the inevitable consequences of a system where you do have competitive balance.”
So why is this year about as balanced as Warren Sapp and Koy Detmer sharing a teeter-totter? Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf says the separation begins in the upper offices.
In 1993, the NFL granted free agency to players in return for a payroll cap. The intricacies of the league’s new economic system were not easily absorbed. Free-agent mistakes such as Dale Carter and Daryl Gardener were made before the Broncos discovered better values could be found in John Lynch, Ian Gold and Stephen Alexander.
“Before you walk, you have to crawl,” Wolf said. “Some people have learned how to work within the framework of this system, and some people have not.”
Bowlen and Brandt espouse a different theory – that the line between great and awful is so thin, it doesn’t take much to cut it in two.
“I think the 32 teams are closer together than ever before,” Brandt said. “And because they’re so close, if we have an inordinate amount of injuries, like in Green Bay, we don’t have the pair and a spare anymore like we used to.”
Pair and a spare?
“You’ve got two guys at each position, and then you’ve got a third offensive tackle,” he said. “Now, Philadelphia is starting Todd Herremans at left tackle. He’s a rookie from Saginaw Valley State (Mich.). Before the cap, you’d have a veteran left tackle to stick in there. So the performance, when a Tra Thomas gets hurt, the dropoff is from 100 to 40 instead of 100 to 50.”
The 1972 Dolphins went undefeated even though starting quarterback Bob Griese missed nine of 14 games with an injury. Had the Colts played nine games without Manning, isn’t it conceivable their record would be closer to 3-9 than 12-0? In today’s NFL, there are no Earl Morralls holding clipboards.
“Because everybody is doing a better job of drafting, making the right decisions in free agency and not being saddled with a bunch of dog contracts, the talent is spread out,” Brandt said. “We come down to missed field goals now. Two weeks ago, we had six teams that won after they were behind starting the fourth quarter. That didn’t used to happen very often.”
Raising the bubble
Last season, two teams made the playoffs with 8-8 records. This year, it appears for only the second time since 1991, at least one 10-6 team will be left out. Teams on the bubble – six in each conference make it – with their current seeds based on tiebreakers:
AFC
Seed Teams (record) Remaining schedule
5. Jaguars (9-3) IND, SF, at Hou, TEN
6. Chargers (8-4) MIA, at Ind, at K.C., DEN
7. Chiefs (8-4) at Dal, at NYG, SD, CIN
8. Steelers (7-5) CHI, at Min, at Cle, DET
NFC
Seed Teams (record) Remaining schedule
5. Buccaneers (8-4) at Car, at N.E., ATL, N.O.
6. Cowboys (7-5) KC, at Was, at Car, STL
7. Falcons (7-5) NO, at Chi, at T.B., CAR
8. Vikings (7-5) STL, PITT, at Bal, CHI
9. Redskins (6-6) at Ari, DAL, NYG, at Phi
The worst of the best
The teams with the worst records to make the playoffs since the salary cap/free-agent system was enacted in 1993:
Season Teams, W-L
2004 Vikings, Rams 8-8
2003 Cowboys, Seahawks, Broncos 10-6
2002 Dolphins, Browns 9-7
2001 Bucs 9-7
2000 Colts, Bucs, Rams 10-6
1999 Cowboys, Lions 8-8
1998 Patriots, Cardinals 9-7
1997 Dolphins, Vikings, Lions 9-7
1996 Colts, Jaguars, Vikings 9-7
1995 Colts, Dolphins, Chargers, Falcons 9-7
1994 Chiefs, Packers, Lions, Bears 9-7
1993 Steelers, Broncos, Vikings, Packers 9-7
Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
