Ultimate Parity League
By Joe Giardina

There is some underlying force in the National Football League. It's what has the Browns respectable again. It's what keeps fans in Oakland from canceling their season tickets. It's what assures the Dolphins faithful that next year will be better (it would be difficult to get any worse).

It's called parity, and it can allow any NFL team to make the leap from chump to champ in as little as one season.

But while it keeps all fans interested, even the most casual, is it for the better?

"I think it is," said former Steelers lineman and current broadcaster Craig Wolfley. "You look around; a team can come off a 4-12 record and turn it around to 12-4 in just one year. I think it gives every community that follows their own team the opportunity to have hope."

And in a town like this one, with a baseball team like we have, hope is always appreciated. But now, because of parity, the days of a Joe Namath-type upset are over. Free agency and salary restrictions have spread out the talent. It is a cliché, but it's true - anyone can beat anyone on any given Sunday. This season is a perfect example.

The Steelers, a division leading team, lost to the New York Jets. A Jets team whose only other two wins were against the Dolphins. The Dolphins, who were 0-13 at one point, recorded their only victory against the Ravens. The same Ravens team who just two weeks prior nearly dethroned the undefeated Patriots.

The NFL has turned into a gambling man's worst nightmare.

It is for reasons like these that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin often refers to it as "the ultimate parity league."

The St. Louis Rams were the joke of the NFL in the 1990s, accruing a 45-99 overall record, including going 4-12 in 1998. The following season they posted a 13-3 record and won the Super Bowl.

In 2005 the New Orleans Saints finished 3-13 and hosted playoff parties from their living rooms. Twelve months later they were hosting a playoff game after going 10-6 and winning their division.

But as quickly as parity can get your team to the top, it can cause a descent to the bottom just as fast.

The Steelers built the first dynasty in the NFL by winning four Super Bowls in six years in the 1970s. Of the twenty teams to play in the Super Bowl that decade, only one of them failed to make the playoffs the following year ('79 Steelers).

Of the twelve teams to make the Super Bowl this decade (excluding last season), eight were sitting at home come January the next season.

"I think nowadays there are just more ways to be competitive," said Merril Hoge, a Steelers fullback during the 90's and current ESPN analyst. "The way the NFL is structured financially, it allows every team, regardless if you're in a big market or a small market, to financially compete."

Parity is what the NFL has strived for since Pete Rozelle was the commissioner. It's why there is a salary cap and free agency. It's what keeps the rich from getting richer and the poor from getting poorer.

"I've got to believe that [the NFL] likes the fact that you can be out of the playoffs one year, and have every opportunity to be in them next year," said Bill Fralic, former Pitt All-American and a Penn Hills native. "You look at other sports, it's kind of tough for the Pirates to compete with the New York Mets and New York Yankees. I think football has done a good job of keeping a level play field."

The downfall of this "ultimate parity" is the death of the dynasties such as the Steelers of the 70s, the 49ers of the 80s and the Cowboys of the 90s.

That is, unless you consider the Patriots. Three Super Bowls in four seasons, and seemingly on their way to their fourth of the decade. A team built through the draft and held together, not torn apart, through free agency.

"I think New England proves that there still can be dynasties," said Wolfley. "That's how I look at it - if they can do it then why can't other teams? You know what it does? It stresses everybody in the organization to be better than just average."

"I thought the dynasty era was over, but we've seen it with the Patriots," said Hoge. "They've been able to work free agency and draft and orchestrate a dynasty."

However, despite the salary cap, free agency and everything else that goes into the mix, the NFL has had seven different teams win championships in the past ten years, the same number as Major League Baseball. Yes, the same MLB that is largely criticized for not having a salary cap and for doing little to try to bring parity into its ballparks.

Parity is responsible for leveling the playing field, spreading the talent out and giving every team the opportunity to contend every season. It has made the NFL into a league where it is not necessarily the most dominant team standing tall at the end of the season, but sometimes the healthiest.

Depending on where you come from, that can be a blessing or a curse.