Parity fading in the NFL

After the New Orleans Saints obliterated a very good New England Patriots squad on Monday Night one question remained. Where has the parity gone?
The National Football League has billed itself as a league typified by parity. Salary caps and free agency were implemented to guard against a sustained run of supremacy by one team but this past decade has nevertheless been dominated by a few great teams.
Both the New England Patriots
and the Indianapolis Colts will assuredly break the record for most wins in a decade in their final few games of the season. During the same stretch, Detroit and Tampa Bay have been as dismal as any team in NFL history.
There certainly seems to be a lopsided balance of historically
good and bad teams in the league today.
Parity was prevalent in the late ‘90s when teams like the Rams, Titans, Ravens and Falcons
made the leap from bad to great in one short season. The Patriots ushered in a new era of superiority in 2002, winning three of the next four Super Bowls. This unprecedented pre-eminence altered the state of the NFL. We now have a landscape dominated by three teams. The Patriots, Colts and Steelers have won seven of the past eight Super Bowls and have clearly cemented themselves as the best.
Improved front offices and more advanced scouting techniques
have allowed the smartest
organizations to stay ahead of the curve. Smart, fiscally responsible personnel moves are the catalyst to building a winning franchise. This shift in philosophy has created frenzy in the NFL, forever revolutionizing how teams are run.
In contrast to previous years, every team is now out to find their Tom Brady or Antonio Gates; an unheralded player that they believe is ready to be a difference maker and can pay pennies on the dollar for. The Patriots’ penchant for hoarding lower draft picks has proved that you can build a winning franchise around quality players that may not be as flashy, but are affordable and therefore only a fraction of the risk of a first round pick.
Gone are the days where two-thirds of the league have a shot at winning the Super Bowl. In the foreseeable future, only a handful of teams will have a realistic chance of winning it all. The parity on a game-to-game basis will always be there to some degree but not so when it comes to the Super Bowl. Hopefully
you are a fan of a good team with a dedicated owner and an intelligent front office because, if not, you may suffer through another decade or two or three before you win it all.
COURTESY OF WIKI COMMONS
M
anny Pacquiao lays a solid right hand on Miguel Cotto in their epic Las Vegas clash in November. After 12 rounds of domination Pacquiao came out victorious. Cotto was beaten both physically and emotionally as he ran away from his assailant in the later rounds.