Its such a part of our upbringing, our lives, literally stitched into the fabric of our beings I suspect we'll never succeed in turning away from it totally. Already with Streaming of games I can avoid commercials almost entirely, exception being when I don't get to the mouse in time to Mute so have to suffer a few seconds of psychotic screaming...designed to sell tires or insurance of course because psychotic bloodcurdling screaming and/or portraying White Males as feminine idiots is the best strategy to sell things.
As for the games themselves, appears Money has changed it. We don't get consistent effort from players, as you pointed out "Cardinals who have 3 timeouts let the clock run to just over 1 minute. Does that extra possession mean nothing? Does anyone care in this league?"
Less So, man. Less So.
So, naturally, longtime fans even some of the hardest-core fans of NFL are starting to care a whole lot less as well. Just like the Millionaire Players some of whom it seems like having to interrupt their lavish lifestyles to play a football game is an unwelcome hassle. No way its the "passion" that it was before to most players...
Then you have Holding Back (understandably) due to the Concussion concerns. That part I can relate to of course....
Perfect Storm of Money, Marketing and Health Fears combining to transform the game we loved into this.