It is fitting in a sad way that a society intent on punishing achievers and boosting the inept would have pro sports leagues that reflect that mindset.
The topic came up yesterday, while we held a birthday party for granddaughter No. 2. She turns seven years of age Tuesday, but Sunday was our best party option. My brother was in attendance and he was picking my brain about sports.
His mistake. I regaled him with a lengthy diatribe that there seem to be no great pro teams – just good, mediocre and bad.
I railed how even the supposedly best teams play poor fundamentals at times or have glaring weaknesses.
It’s true in Major League Baseball. It’s true in the NFL.
Begin with baseball, which will field exactly zero 100-win teams in the majors this year. So what? So this. It hasn’t happened since 2014.
Last year there were three MLB teams that won 100-plus games. In 2022, the number was four. And the average of 100-win teams each season for the past 10 years has been 2.75, smack dab between those recent results.
Simply put, MLB has invited this with expanded playoffs. Once upon a time, a team needed to win its league, or at least its division, to advance to the postseason. Now there are more divisions and three wild-card teams who advance in each league.
It reduces the 162-game season to a lengthy preliminary, with minimal reward for sustained excellence.
Just last season, none of the 100-win teams made it to the World Series, which was contested by a pair of wild-card entrants, Texas and Arizona, with Texas winning.
MLB teams figure – correctly in many instances – it’s better to aim for mediocrity and try to get lucky once in awhile in the playoffs rather than spending $300 million-plus annually on salaries, as both the New York Mets and Yankees have done this year.
The Yankees are in the playoffs and the Mets are in good shape to slip in as a wild-card. But other playoff entrants or contenders spent a fraction of what the Mets did. Division winners Milwaukee and Cleveland and wild-card contenders Detroit and Kansas City spent about $200 million less apiece than the Mets.
Moving on to the NFL, your Pittsburgh Steelers are a surprising 3-0, joining the likes of Kansas City, Seattle, Minnesota and, with a win tonight, Buffalo, as early season unbeatens at 3-0.
Based on franchise history, the Steelers are in the playoffs. They’ve begun 3-0 three previous times in the Mike Tomlin era, and every time they’ve made the postseason.
But are the Steelers a serious Super Bowl contender? My calculus says no. An offense that only got around to scoring multiple touchdowns in a game in week three, doesn’t seem like a Super Bowl winner to me.
Regardless, the Steelers are sharing the NFL penthouse early in the season, while a couple of expected contenders for that position from within the Steelers AFC North Division are stumbling and bumbling.
The Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals, ranking No. 4 and No. 3, respectively, in 2024 salary totals, are the equivalent of buying baloney for $25 a pound. Somehow the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons are able to spend more for less, but that doesn’t change the fact Baltimore and Cincinnati are huge disappointments.
Again, why spend money and aspire to greatness when it doesn’t seem to pay off?
The NFL is the leader in seeking mediocrity, as purveyed by former commissioner Pete Rozelle under the guise of parity. Penalizing success with poor drafting position and tougher scheduling, then mixing in a salary cap making it difficult to keep good teams together, produces a lot of churning.
Notable exceptions have been the New England Patriots with Tom Brady at quarterback and, more recently, the Chiefs as led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
If a team has a Hall of Fame quarterback for the ages, it can rise above mediocrity. But how many of those players are there?
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