Seahawks vs. Patriots and Cowboys vs. Steelers proved the NFL is going to be just fine

Week 10 was always going to be huge for the NFL. Flagging ratings were blamed in part perhaps on the most oxygen-sucking election in American history. With the election ending Tuesday, the American citizen body could ignore their feelings about whoever they thought would be leading the world’s next existential crisis, and let the NFL back into their hearts, brains, and bodies.

The NFL happened to be serving up a platter of great matchups. Falcons-Eagles, Broncos-Saints, Cowboys-Steelers, and Seahawks-Patriots all promised meaningful, uncomplicated fun.

They delivered.

The Eagles snuffed out a Falcons offense that had been volcanically hot. The Broncos won on one of the rarest game-winning plays ever. The Steelers and Cowboys played probably the best game of the season, changing leads seven times — three times in the last two minutes.

Then there was the Sunday Night Football finale. It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but the NFL’s two best franchises of the last several years played a wild game. The fourth quarter featured two controversial goal-line calls by the referees — one that forced the Seahawks to settle for a field goal, and another on fourth down of the Pats’ last offensive possession (referees made the right call on that one). It also had an inexplicable Pete Carroll coaching decision and LeGarrette Blount doing a Beast Mode impression.

Week 10 will be a good litmus test for the NFL’s ratings, and an indication of whether this season’s dip is really just a historical blip, a fundamental change in how we consume sports, or something else.

Arguments for “something else” include “the games have sucked,” and if that’s the case then the NFL should be bouncing back.

The games have sucked, but first let’s acknowledge that people have been saying the product is in decline for a long time without changing the NFL’s bottom line. This season’s primetime games have been mostly trash, but trash football hasn’t affected the league before.

There’s evidence behind the notion that NFL players are younger and more poorly prepared than they have ever been, which correlates to the season’s slow start. It also suggests that now might be the time that all that youth starts to find its stride.

Just look at Steelers-Cowboys — Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, two rookies, collectively outplayed Ben Roethlisberger and Le’Veon Bell, two proven stars who were in their best forms Sunday.

Week 10 was the first week that felt important — in the messy, icky, gut sense (every game is important, don’t you know), but in a real sense, too. Week 10 was the first time we saw the teams that we think will be in the playoffs show what kind mettle they may have in January. We learned a lot, like:

1. The Steelers could be the No. 6-seed everyone is scared shitless to play, which is a familiar position for them, but they may be an even more exaggerated version of their usual selves this season. Sunday’s game against the Cowboys was the first they hadn’t won or lost by double digits this season, and it was nail biter against perhaps the NFL’s best team.

The loss dropped them to 4-5 overall. This doesn’t feel like a team that should have a losing record, and if they skid into the playoffs they could make life hell for the “true” contenders.

2. The Cowboys are legitimately great. We’re 10 weeks into the season and it’s well past time to let go of the preseason notions. I have no idea how a player as good as Prescott slipped to the fourth round. I don’t know that any team has a solution for the Cowboys’ running game as long as Zeke and the offensive line stay healthy.

They’re an incredibly fun team led by youngsters that has showed no signs that it can be intimidated, as exemplified by the fact that they absorbed a haymaker from the Steelers at Heinz Field and stayed standing.

3. The Broncos and Chiefs are charmed. They’re determined to be the butt-ugliest teams in the playoffs this season. That’s fine for the Broncos, because they know they can win the Super Bowl that way. That’s fine for the Chiefs because Andy Reid thinks his team is beautiful, actually.

Meanwhile, Jeff Fisher is looking at both of those teams and wondering where he went wrong.

4. That the Falcons are totally that fun team that’s going to lose in the first round. This is coming from someone who desperately wants to see the Falcons in the Super Bowl.

The Falcons offense is a thing of beauty when it’s working correctly, and Julio Jones may be the most dominant player in the NFL right now. It’s just too bad that defense matters if you want to win football games, you know?

5. The NFL isn’t screwed. Let me preface this by saying that I think the NFL is a bad organization, that a) doesn’t understand what its fans want, and b) doesn’t take care of its players as well it should.

It isn’t necessarily Roger Goodell’s fault if the games aren’t good, but it is his fault that not-good games are so bloated with advertising, stripped of fun, and so restrictive of how fans watch.

Sunday proved that there are things that even draconian, mealy mouthed overbearers can’t screw up. Sports are inherently fun, and getting the best athletes on a field and watching them run circles around each other is as good of an idea today as it was eons ago when our ancestors invented sports —- playing rockball, or whatever.

This NFL season has been a slog, but with one well-timed week of great football it feels invigorated. Nothing changed. It didn’t need to be made great again. Greatness was always there, and with time it finally pushed through.

It’s easy to be suckered by a story of demise, especially when it’s the NFL’s, but the NFL is probably fine. The league isn’t going anywhere, and I like to think it’s because deep down there’s a good, robust core that can’t be destroyed as easily as it may seem.

At least, that’s a happier answer than the possibility that we’re just dupes playing a part in a bad game. That argument doesn’t seem right, but it’s hard to find the energy to think it through, not when there are days like Sunday that make you forget everything in the world.