Pete Rozelle famously strove for parity in the NFL, preferring not to have a league of “haves’’ and “have-nots,’’ top heavy with dominant teams beating up on the weaklings every year. 

The prescient Rozelle, who was commissioner from 1960-89, wanted every team to have equal chance to win the Super Bowl. What Rozelle surely didn’t want was for the NFL to be mired in widespread mediocrity. 

Yet that is where we are today. Through the first month of the season, the NFL has been marred by a lot of ugly football. 

Did anyone out there watch the game Thursday night between the Colts and Broncos? 

Did you find that game — a 12-9 Colts overtime win in what was essentially a pillow fight between a bunch of 300-pound men — entertaining? 

That game was offensive to the senses. It was difficult to watch. 

And to think: The two quarterbacks in that game — Denver’s Russell Wilson and Indianapolis’ Matt Ryan — have appeared in three combined Super Bowls. Wilson, who was given a $245 million contract extension by the Broncos, looked like an inexperienced free-agent rookie with the rash of mistakes he made. And Ryan simply looked 10 years older than his birth certificate age of 37. 

Through four weeks, just the Eagles (4-0) remain undefeated. After that, 15 of the other 31 teams have 2-2 records entering Week 5. 

Parity or mediocrity? You make the call. 

Mediocrity is the call Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, who knows a thing or two about winning, having won seven Super Bowl rings, made this week when speaking to reporters: “I think there’s a lot of bad football from what I watch. I watch a lot of bad football. Poor quality of football. That’s what I see.” 

That’s what we all see. 

I had a conversation with veteran Jets quarterback Joe Flacco on Thursday about what he thinks second-year starter Zach Wilson learned from the comeback win last Sunday over the Steelers, and this is what he told me: “His biggest thing Sunday was realizing sometimes games are ugly. You’re going to have a lot of wins that are not the prettiest.’’ 

Flacco unwittingly described most NFL games this season.

The good news is that there has been no shortage of close games this season. The bad news is that too many of those games were mistake-riddled affairs with teams looking as if they may never score a touchdown again (see: Colts at Broncos, Thursday). 

You recall the politically incorrect saying in golf and in baseball, “Chicks dig the long ball?’’ 

Well, the NFL digs scoring. For years, the league has manipulated the rules to help promote offensive production. Yet through the first four weeks, teams are scoring 21.9 points per game this season, a pace that would be the league’s lowest average since 2017. 

What has happened to the so-called dominant teams? 

Two of those teams, in recent years, have been the Chiefs and Packers. The Chiefs (3-1) lost to the same Colts team that Thursday set offense back two decades. And the Packers, who barely survived a Patriots team down to its third-string quarterback in overtime last week, are 3-1, but have a point differential of merely six points. 

The defending Super Bowl champion Rams are 2-2 and got back-alley bullied by the 49ers last week. The Bills (3-1) look like the class of the AFC East and the Eagles are atop the NFC. But do we truly trust either of those teams, both of which have vulnerabilities? 

Former Jets coach Herman Edwards often told me of the NFL: “The league is an 8-8 league. Most teams have 8-8 talent. It’s the few that get on a run that separate themselves.’’ 

Right now, the NFL truly looks an 8-8 league with few, if any, teams looking poised to separate themselves.