Can Cowboys-Eagles Save The NFL?

Bad play.

Inconsistent and personality-purging officiating. Arresting election season. Ubiquitous and undeniably awkward scheduling. Alarming domestic violence issues, followed closely and consistently by league responses and light punishments just as alarming, so alarming as to be unforgivable. Shifting fanbase, some of whom care only for the game as an extension of their own fantasy, many no longer willing to tune in for a full 12-hour weekend day. Protests, riling at least some portion of those old school fans, the ones still up for watching as often as humanly possible, to the point where they’re finally flipping the channel in favor of some other politics- or issue- or POC-free Sunday entertainment.

Bad ratings.

We’ve all seen the news by now. The NFL is suffering, in some way or another, from all of the above.

But are things as dire as they seem?

It’s possible. In truth, it’s very possible.

And no, there’s no knight in shining armor, no cure-all of epic Jerry Dome-sized proportions waiting just around the bend. The league is too big, the factors at play too widespread and far-reaching to know if this dip is just a blip or a new trend, perhaps even the new reality of the outsized and over-saturated NFL.

Maybe it was halftime Thursday night in Nashville, as the teams were trotting off the field and should-be-soon-to-be-even-if-Shad Khan-says-he-won’t-be-ex Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley, obviously reeling and at a loss to explain just what it was ailing his Dijon-tinted team, suggested his guys were just “pressing,” just trying too hard to make a play as they were sucked in again and again on counter runs, conceding the edge and the game to the Titans after only two quarters of football. Or maybe it was somewhere around the 3-minute mark of the 4th quarter, as Bradley was calling timeouts in some vain, self deception-as-resiliency act, staring up at a 21-point deficit and the impending realization of both the mediocrity of his team and the dwindling grains of sand signifying his Florida football tenure.

No matter when it came, it was there, plain as day, for even the most casual fan to see – the NFL had bottomed out.

The ratings, no doubt, with it.

And really, how could they not? An AFC South matchup between “exotic smashmouth” aka “run, run, and run some more so we can limit our own mistakes while hoping the other guy messes up” and a Gus Bus missing its windshield and tooling around on more than a handful of bare spares wasn’t going to be the fix for the 2016-17 NFL season.

But was it to be the end? Was Blake Bortles’ sad attempt at competent NFL quarterback play and the Titans’ exuberance over finally reaching .500, something they haven’t managed this late in a season since a 5-5 record in Week 11 of 2011, the death knell for the formerly formidable, so loved as to be unstoppable, NFL?

Again, it’s possible. But probably not.

And all NFL fans have to do is endure the next 48 hours to see why the future may be brighter than they think.

48 hours for the next 10-plus years.

***

Let’s not delude ourselves.

There is no knight. No cure-all. No Salve To Fix All That Ails The NFL (And Can Withstand The Power Of A Possible World Series Game 5).

And this game, the upcoming NFC East bout between Jones’ Dallas Cowboys and the Carson Wentz-led Philadelphia Eagles, probably isn’t going fix things, let alone even fit the narrative you or I or plenty of media members will want it to.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that Wentz, the No. 2-overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft and Dak Prescott, the 135th pick in the 2016 NFL Draft and the unexpected usurper to Tony Romo’s throne, may just engage in the kind of old timey shootout we just haven’t seen much, if any of, this NFL season, rejuvenating the league’s ratings explosive play by explosive play.

But that’s probably not gonna happen.

What’s most likely to happen, looking at the respective teams a couple of days out, is that the Dallas offense, led by a league-leading rushing attack, and the Eagles’ defense, led by a front seven that’s averaging the second-most sacks per pass play, will decide another hard-fought contest. Think Seahawks-Cards from last week.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t be exactly the kind of game the NFL needs at exactly the time it needs it. And it also doesn’t mean it won’t be a start, a start to something so beautiful, so attention-worthy that the entire NFL may see the turnaround it so desperately needs (and hey, the fact that the aforementioned election will end next month with coverage dwindling not long after certainly won’t hurt).

On both sides, the young quarterback will be asked to make some plays, sure, and an abnormally outstanding performance from either Prescott or Wentz would likely go a long way toward ensuring victory. The Cowboys defense is a measly 20th in defensive DVOA and 22nd in yards allowed per play, so Wentz may have a chance to get back to the kind of performances he showed in leading the Eagles to a 3-0 record. And Prescott will see the return of All-World wideout Dez Bryant.

The truth is though, this game probably won’t come down to either guy.

The Cowboys are paced by another young offensive stud, running back Ezekiel Elliott and an offensive line comprised of three former first-round picks that have combined with Elliott to find immediate, league-leading success. Going into Sunday night’s game, the Cowboys were tops in the NFL in rush yards per game (161.2), rushing touchdowns (11), rushing first downs (59), and percentage of rushes resulting in a first down (29.2). They’re also second in the league in rushes of 20-plus yards or more (8), and fifth in yards per rushing attempt (4.8).

The Eagles are paced by a defense ranked second in the league, averaging just over 300-yards allowed per game. In terms of DVOA, they’re at the top. Philly’s also got the only two kickoff returns in the league this season. In back-to-back weeks.

This game, objectively, sets up as a great matchup. Only not between the two young signal-callers.

All that being said, don’t take your eyes off Wentz or Prescott.

Because really, that is what this game is about, because they’re exactly what the NFL needs.

***

We’ve all heard it a thousand times before – quarterback is the most important position in all of sports.

Too much credit when you win.

Too much blame when you lose.

Starring turn or no, the two most exciting young quarterbacks in the NFL – and in the case of the Cowboys and Elliott, two of the most exciting young offensive playmakers in all of football – are about to embark on the first leg of a journey – together – that could become the most compelling act in all of sport.

And yeah, Manning-Brady is a comp here.

A premature one, sure. But a comp nonetheless. Because the NFL needs great theater. It thrives on it. And for the past two decades, that’s exactly what Manning-Brady was.

It was the 2007 AFC Championship Game, with Manning leading the Colts back from 21-6, past Brady’s Pats and onto his first Super Bowl victory. It was Week 12 of 2013, when Brady erased a 24-point deficit to beat Manning’s Broncos in OT. It was Brady’s very first game, which, should be noted, was terrible. Just terrible.

Ugly.

Difficult to watch.

But it was also the start to so much more (including the Patriots’ first Super Bowl run under Brady). It was the NFL’s top two players, its most fervent and maniacal competitors, squaring off for supremacy of the powerhouse AFC. Anytime the Future Hall of Famers locked horns late in the season or during the playoffs, it wasn’t just must-watch television – it was must-watch, must-Tweet, must-discuss and -parse and -pull apart until there’s nothing left but the legacy to consider.

And when Manning, after battling his worrisome 2011 neck injury, made the leap to the Denver, the rivalry altered, but never disappointed, not even to the very end. Even when his skills deteriorated, his will eroded, if Manning suited up against Brady, it was the event of the week and at times, of the season.

Like Manning-Brady, Prescott-Wentz has that potential.

The impending Sunday night matchup, the first of what could and should be many supercharged showdowns, points to a defense versus running game script. And Tony Romo, returned to practice this week and surely determined to reclaim that gold-studded Jerry World throne, forged from the melted jockstraps of the vanquished, will have plenty to say about how long Prescott remains the starter this season.

It’s entirely possible that Sunday night is the only opportunity we’ll have to watch Prescott and Wentz square off this year.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because Romo is 36, coming off his third major back injury, his second extended absence in as many years, and seems to be increasingly frail with each passing season. The new-look Cowboys are well aware that, no matter Romo’s history with the team or his popularity or Jerruh’s ill-fated suggestion that the glass-boned QB could play another “4 to 5 years” or even Romo’s onerous contract, Prescott is now the future.

So is Wentz.

And for the NFL, so too could be their soon-to-be rivalry.

***

Maybe there’s no saving the NFL this season.

There’s certainly no saving the NFL from itself. The league is bent on growth and will force that fact, stretching itself as far and wide as quickly as possible all in the name of making several billion more bucks. At some point, if it hasn’t already, this will bite Roger Goodell and the cadre of uber-wealthy owners he plays patsy for. Hard.

But for now, the NFL has more than enough cache to endure Thursday games like that sad Titans-Jaguars tilt. Or 9 am snooze-fests between the Colts and the Jags (sensing a theme here? Guess, just a take a wild freaking guess, what franchise will be the first shipped off to Europe or Mexico or China?) or the Giants and the Rams.

It wasn’t all that long ago the NFL seemed an unstoppable force rolling over whatever poor cable thriller happened to occupy the same time slot. And the ratings dip surely has to be concerning for Goodell and Co., even as they maintain a brave face.

Already, we’ve seen small reactionary decrees, like limiting the amount of content that teams can post in-game, keeping highlights off Twitter and on the cable box.

But to this point, the league has maintained unconcern, at least publicly, with ratings. And for good reason. In its many digestible forms, whether television or fantasy football or Twitter or NFL Network, the NFL remains the most popular sport in the U.S.

So is this season’s slip a mirage? Something deeper, a shifting dynamic in the very landscape of American sport?

No one really knows. Maybe not even the NFL. On Friday, during a radio interview, Goodell admitted without really admitting anything that the league won’t “dismiss any theory” as to the failing viewership.

What is knowable is that primetime games this season have been bad. Like, really bad. Like really, really bad. There aren’t that many top teams, with even the best of the bunch sporting at least one significant blemish. Even the still-elite New England Brady’s and their suspect secondary aren’t immune. And the dearth of talent at the game’s, nay sport’s, most important position, is troubling to say the least.

Limited talent. Bad primetime matchups.

Bad national ratings.

As Goodell himself noted in that interview, viewership is not static. There are dips, ebbs and flows. This could simply be a matter of the line falling due to, as NFL executives put it and as laid out above, “a confluence of events.”

And Cowboys-Eagles, Prescott-Wentz likely won’t be a cure-all, a knight in starry or midnight green armor. But the matchup may be just what the league needs, what we all need, to save this NFL season.

The Cowboys have, and surely will continue to be, ratings gold. The Eagles, at least in their own region, can boast the same.

With a rejuvenated NFC East on the line and both teams looking ahead to bright futures, we may finally be in for something we haven’t seen all season.

A good primetime matchup.

Good NFL ratings.