When a television show falls off a cliff in quality—think “True Detective”—viewers tune out and move on. When the NFL has a dip in quality, when backups are starting and games are decided by special-teams errors, America not only tunes in, it becomes totally transfixed.

Through seven weeks, it’s become clear that this isn’t a particularly glamorous year in the NFL. If you tuned in Sunday as Dallas Cowboys backup quarterback Matt Cassel uncorked passes that appeared intended for defensive backs, referees threw a flurry of illegal contact penalties or yet another kicker doinked an extra point off the upright, we’re not telling you anything you don’t already know.

But as tens of millions of viewers continue to tune in regardless, it’s worth considering why so many of the games seem borderline unwatchable.

Why the standard of play in the NFL is in the midst of a downturn is due to a confluence of wacky events, some of them intended, some decidedly unintended.

In some respects, the league has been wildly unlucky this season. High-flying star quarterbacks like Tony Romo, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Andrew Luck have missed games through injury, replaced by understudies like Brandon Weeden and Landry Jones, who are, to put it kindly, not high-flying stars.