Did you see the Denver Broncos last night? Did you see the Jets Sunday? Did you see the Giants in Cleveland? Have you heard about the Cowboys? The Patriots? The Colts?

What is going on here? The NFL has turned into a junkyard league, a billion-dollar industry made up of 32 terrible franchises. Does anybody play good football anymore?

Once, parity meant equity. Now it means that everybody is pretty much in the same lousy, sinking boat. The Giants, touted as the best team in football, and the defending champs by the way, have had three lousy games: Cincinnati, Cleveland and San Francisco. That’s out of six games played. And that’s with the weakest schedule they possibly could have had.

The Jets? Yeah, right, Brett Favre was going to cure everything. He was going to make them a lock for the playoffs and a contender for the Super Bowl. That loss Sunday was pathetic. They look to be going nowhere. Again.

There have already been four coaches fired, plus a GM, in the NFL this season. There continue to be arrests and bad-behavior suspensions, and fines for illegal hits. Not to mention PSLs. I’m telling you, it’s getting bad.

In the past, you could always fall back on the idea that at least the football was always good. Now?

10:15 a.m., Wednesday, Sam says:

This is one of those questions that, while reasonable, is also pretty unfair. History always smooths out the edges of what we remember from years gone by, and I think that saying the quality of football in the NFL is suffering is somewhat misleading; the style of football is very different than what it once was, and thus the quality is different, too.

It is a quarterback’s league now. QBs and wide receivers are the dominant personalities, whereas in the past, running backs and, at various points, linebackers (or superior defensive players) were the flashpoint players. Is it better that players like Drew Brees and Eli Manning and Chad Johnson (Ocho Cinco) are the stars now instead of guys like Barry Sanders or Lawrence Taylor? Frankly, I find the NFL more entertaining with more passing and scoring, though I concede it’s not for everybody.

Beyond that, I think it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the NFL has actively sought out this particular situation. They wanted parity, wanted the teams to be close to each other in talent level so that no market could ever feel like playoff contention is that far away. It’s part of the league’s overall business model. And in a time when expansion has pushed the number of teams higher and higher, it’s hardly surprising that getting everyone to a similar talent level means lowering that level slightly. That’s just basic human natural selection, no?

Oh, and by the way: In Week 6, six of the 14 games played finished with less than seven points separating the teams. In Week 7, it was four out of 14. If right around a third of the games played are that close in the fourth quarter, it means there’s a good chance you’re going to see some drama on Sunday. And isn’t that the whole idea of pro sports being entertaining?