New Orleans-area Cox Cable service is terrible

I have been having the same problems with my service. I cant even get some channels. I am also disgusted that they dont carry the nfl network. I spoke to a lady yesterday as i was paying my bill and she said they lost a lot of customers for that. I thinkdirect tv has a contract for 10 yrs or something. I heard that they wanted it to be a premium channel and the nfl network didnt want you to have to pay extra for it. Not sure how accurate that is. For those with direct tv can u get local channels or not?