#DeflateGate Aside, NFL Perception Down by 50 Percent

The "buzz" is still more positive than negative

Today in Not Really News, the survey masters at YouGov report that the NFL’s perception ranking is about half what it was one year ago as Super Bowl XLIX approaches.

This isn’t such a bad thing, though: positive news about the league still outweighs the negative, and ongoing media coverage of what looks like an inflated debate over “DeflateGate” (ugh) barely registers.

The graph below shows how the media cycle and public perception moved on from the league’s various domestic violence scandals amid excitement about the playoffs and the Big Game:

yougov NFL

This despite the fact that talk of cheating in football dominates sports media: just yesterday, a former quarterback and Pro Bowler called Patriots coach Bill Belichick “the NFL’s Richard Nixon” and asserted on CNN that the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) is chronic in the league…until an anchor cut him off.

Sigh.

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