Edited Apr. 16 at 9:47 a.m.
I don’t think any of this takes away from achievement: each moment is the collective group competing against each other and is what it is:
But I predict we will get more big numbers from standout performers - for quite a while. Like record breaking stats. This is good! The alternative is hooking and holding. Nobody liked that path. It was awful. It took years of obstruction calls to break out of.
Expansionary time, while only at 46 new jobs, has an effect.
And the pandemic shutdown year has had an effect - players in early development missed a year, everything got nudged right a little bit, and everything took a haircut.
What we’re seeing is the cream rising to the top, while the main contents are being diluted. The cream is still the cream, undiluted. It rises higher and higher.
If the league adds another 46 new jobs over 5 years, this will accelerate. If you remember or can go see how bad hooking and holding were during the last expansionary period, you’ll maybe guess that there is quite a bit of runway for the top performers to do even more.
As a side bonus, to combat this, the league is placing a greater emphasis on safety: each acl surgery or serious concussion is further dilution, and the leagues efforts here benefit all.
It’s a good time to be a team with an elite performer and it’s a good time to be an elite performer.