A few years ago a friend of mine from the UK made the observation that American Football would benefit greatly from a relegation system... every season I have the same reaction. By about the 4th week of the season, the NFL bifurcates into legitimate contenders and everybody else. You end up with Thursday nights and late season games that nobody gives a shit about because it's gonna be a blowout. For that matter - the last 2-3 weeks of the season the playoffs are already set, so half the league has no reason to even play - and the quality of the product on the field matches this. Some kind of two-tier system would go a long way to fix this, and might also help with the larger problem of the bridge between the college and pro games. At the moment, the NFL is maybe the only league that doesn't really have a "minor league" or development league - its the colleges, and between NIL and the portal system, colleges aren't necessarily producing pro-ready players.