Something strange is happening with the NFL. No, it’s not that the Dallas Cowboys have a shot at playing in this year’s Super Bowl at NRG Stadium with a backup quarterback, but rather TV ratings are down.

How down? Ratings giant Nielsen is reporting Monday Night Football is down 20 percent. Sunday Night Football is off by 18.5 percent and Thursday Night Football is down 21.8 percent.

The NFL is blaming the “unprecedented” interest in the presidential election, but someone who knows a little about sports and broadcasting has a different theory.

Back in 2014 when the NFL signed an eight game Thursday Night Football deal, Mark Cuban predicted that the NFL was overreaching and would soon see an implosion.

“I’m just telling you: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy,”said Cuban. “Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule No. 1 of business.”

Now to be fair, there could be many reasons for the decline if viewership.

• Games are filled with commercials and penalties and take way too long to play. Back in 2013, The average length of a game was three hours and 12 minutes and included 20 commercial breaks with more than 100 ads.
• The match-ups have been terrible. When the announcers are talking about whether or not they make their beds in the fourth quarter of the Tennessee – Jacksonville game, you know it’s a snoozer.
• Smart phones give fans access to game information with real time scores, stats and news without having to watch the actual game.

Granted we are only talking about a handful of games so far, and now that the election is here and the World Series is done, ratings could return to last year’s numbers. Still one wonders how worried the league is over what could be a ratings tremor, or seismic shift.