The problem is there is a baseball game almost every day, missing one game doesn’t mean a heck of a lot, in the big scheme of things. But every football game is crucial, since there are so few of them.
Yeah the 162 game season really damages baseball in many ways. Even serious baseball fans I know go through a couple of stretches a year where they just check the standings once a week. You pretty much have to have no responsibilities in life to really follow the sport or even 1 team. In football if you catch the once a week game and some pre-game show you can be pretty well in the know on your team.