said by wavelength:Between the rule changes over the years that seriously changed the dynamic of the game to the increasing and incessant commercial interruptions, it just got to be unbearable to watch NFL games. Games got to the point that I would DVR them, wait till it had been on for two hours and then skip through all of the commercials and standing around and butt scratching that happened between plays. It is awful when the clock has two minutes of game time, but it takes twenty plus minutes for the game to end. Add in coach's challenges that take forever to rule on and watching just sucks.
It also used to be that you could go to the games and you did not have to put up with the commercials, but no, they started stopping the games in stadiums for commercial breaks and showing commercials in the stadium. If you are at a live game, watch for a person with bright orange gloves on the side line (pictured above) - he is literally signalling to the Refs when to stop the game play for commercials. That job did not exist until a few years ago because play continued, commercials or not, in the old days.
And this comes from someone who was a huge NFL fan. Not any more. I moved on to hockey, until the NHL ruins that.
Even in the seventies they stopped the games for commercial breaks. They didn't show them in the stadium but game play still stopped so they could show a commercial on TV. I went to a couple of Redskin games in the late seventies and this was the case with each game I was at.
