Call it a moment of weakness, but I turned on the TV hoping to find out how badly the Bears lost. I lucked out and happened upon the Eagles-Giants game, but was upset by what I heard.
Flash back to the 2022 ML season and Aaron Judge’s pursuit of homers 61 and 62. Roger Maris held the AL record (61) for the past 61 years. Asterisk aside, Maris hit 61 homers in 161 games. Judge hit 62 homers in only 157 games. However, the Yankees played 162 games in both seasons.
For the most part, baseball fans and MLB care about numbers, maybe to a fault. Mysteriously, NFL fans and the NFL completely ignore significance of certain, relevant numbers when they talk about records.
The CBS broadcast crew was talking about how the Eagles were excited about breaking the Bears single-season record of 72 sacks. Entering game 17 in week 18, the Eagles had recorded 68 sacks.
The 1984 Bears recorded 72 sacks in 16 games. Why is anyone talking about a single season record being in jeopardy. So as not to be accused of being a homer, I heard talk of some receiver possibly setting a yardage record today. At least the people discussing that milestone mentioned that he would be doing so in an additional game.
Seeing as how the NFL would eventually love to play 18 regular season games in the future, all of these records are meaningless.
And don’t get me started on scoring leaders in NCAA hoops.
I'd rather be sitting in a ballpark. 
One response to “Why does anybody care about NFL single season records?”
And don’t get me started on being a runner getting 1000 yards rushing in a 12 game season and having a season with FIVE more games. That is over 40% more games than Jim Brown, et al had in which to do it. They used to need an average of 83+ yards per game; now they need less than 60 yards per game. A one yard touchdown pass can actually travel 40 yards in the air and a 99 yard TD pass can travel 3-5 yards in the air and the receiver does the rest. No 12 year old memorizes football stats the way that baseball records are memorized. As you point out the number of games played in a season has been stable for 62 seasons and even in 1961 and 1962( for the NL)the additional games amounted to less than a 6% increase from basically the beginnings of the two major leagues. I know— I am preaching to the choir.
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