Parity is dead. The NFL killed it.

Like a socialist dictator who vows to spread the wealth but merely hordes it for himself, the NFL in recent decades has purported to create an even playing field but instead has carved an uncrossable chasm between pro football’s haves and have nots.

Proof of the modern NFL’s disparity unfolded Sunday as the Patriots disposed of the Jaguars, 51-17, with the dutiful nonchalance of a garbage man tossing out trash.

Opponents and fans around the country seethe in anger over New England’s success. But they have nobody to blame but the NFL itself: the league’s modern efforts to genetically engineer offense unduly reward teams like the Patriots with great QBs and punishes teams like the Jaguars without one.

No quarterback? No hope in today’s NFL.

The league in recent years has emasculated defenses, begun to legislate special teams out of the sport, and rendered the ground game meaningless. As a result, we have a sport in which the only path to success runs through the quarterback.

Remember that iconic image of 49ers receiver Dwight Clark making “The Catch” from Joe Montana past the outstretched hands of Cowboys cornerback Everson Walls in the 1981 NFC title game? Walls, despite the lingering image, intercepted 11 passes that year. No defender has matched his INT total in the 33 seasons since.

Quarterbacks threw interceptions on 4.3 percent of attempts back in 1981; that rate was down to 2.5 percent in 2014, the lowest in NFL history. That’s 320 fewer INTs over the course of the 17,879 attempts we witnessed last year: 320 fewer opportunities to make a game-changing play; 320 fewer opportunities to give an offense good field position; 320 fewer opportunities for defenders to score a game-winning TD.

Clark caught just four TD passes in 1981. Rookie defensive back Ronnie Lott scored three TDs on INT returns. The punishing 49ers defense that year picked off 27 passes — easily would have led the league in 2014 — and accounted for nearly 10 percent of all the points the Super Bowl champs scored (35-of-357).

Kickoff returns, meanwhile, are the biggest plays in football. But the NFL in 2011 moved the kickoff line forward from the 30 to the 35. Touchbacks have skyrocketed, while kick returners have been eliminated as weapons. The NFL witnessed just six kick return TDs in 2014, the fewest since 1993, when there were only 28 teams (kickoffs were at the 35 in 1993 before being moved back to boost scoring).

The running game has always been overvalued but today is a virtual non-factor. NFL teams averaged just 26.7 rush attempts per game last year, the fewest in NFL history. The Patriots won the Super Bowl with a leading rusher, Jonas Gray, who totaled just 412 yards and five TDs — much of it in a single game against the Colts. He’s no longer with the team.

So what we have today is an NFL in which defenses are neutered, special teams are restricted, and the running game is meaningless.

As a result, success in the NFL comes down to one player: the quarterback. Wins and losses move in virtual lockstep with their efficiency. Great QBs win. Bad QBs lose.

Passing has never been more prolific. But the rising statistical tide has not lifted all boats. Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers put up space-age numbers and win a lot of games. Teams that can’t find a QB are stuck in an offense-less stone age.

The Brady Patriots averaged 29.7 PPG over the past decade; the helpless Jaguars scored just 17.0 PPG. The QB-less Browns are even worse: just 15.7 PPG from 2005 to 2014, barely half the total of the Patriots. That’s not parity, folks.

Here’s the irony: despite the best efforts of the NFL to gin up offense, scoring is no higher today than it was in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The 1948 season stood for 65 years as the highest-scoring campaign in NFL history (46.48 PPG). The record was finally broken in 2013 (46.82).

But this recent record only proves the divide: the 2013 Broncos scored 606 points and were the only team to average more than 30.0 PPG. Five teams failed to score half as many points. Without Denver, 2013 fails to make the top 10 scoring seasons.

Back in the grainy, leather-helmet days of 1948, three of the NFL’s 10 teams topped 30.0 PPG. Scoring was more equitable because there were more ways to score. Defenses forced more turnovers, which meant more defensive scores and more short fields for offenses. Return specialists were far more likely to score, too. There were 0.70 non-offensive TDs per game in 1948, just 0.45 per game in 2013.

The NFL produced more touchdowns in 1948 than it does in today’s era of genetically modified offense. Teams combined to score 5.8 touchdowns per game in 1948; just 4.7 TDs per game in the one-dimensional 2013 season.

Hell, there’d be no scoring “boom” in today’s NFL if not for the fact that highly trained contemporary kicking specialists are more accurate than ever: field goals accounted for just 4.8 percent of all the points scored in 1948; 21.6 percent in 2013. The NFL has been reduced to quarterbacks and — ugh! — kickers.

The Patriots are armed with a QB many concede is the best ever. No coincidence that they score points and win games at a clip unprecedented in history. Frustrated opponents lash out at Brady and the Patriots. But they really need to blame the NFL.

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Kerry Byrne is the founder of ColdHardFootballFacts.com