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Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
While plenty of football traditionalists may disagree, one of the things that makes the NFL great is its willingness to adapt. Fans are bored with the extra point? It’ll make it longer. Kickoffs are linked to severe injuries? It’ll change the rules.
No one knows exactly what a catch is? Well, OK, sometimes rule changes and clarifications don’t make things better.
This doesn’t mean the league isn’t going to continue trying to make the sport better, safer and more fair. Owners and officials will discuss potential changes in the offseason, and with that in mind, here are five changes or procedural tweaks that need to happen.
And no, changing overtime rules isn’t part of the list. If a team is unhappy its quarterback didn’t touch the football, it should have built a better defense.
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Bill Feig/Associated Press
Have you ever been watching your favorite team and suddenly screamed at the television because the other team chucked the ball downfield just hoping to draft defensive pass interference—and they got it?
These plays are all the more infuriating when they happen with just seconds remaining in a half (Free field-goal attempt, anyone?) or put the ball at the 1-yard line.
While the rules for defensive pass interference are similar in the NCAA and in the NFL, the punishments are far different. In the NFL, the ball is spotted at the point of the foul, no matter where it occurred. In college, DPI 15 yards or farther downfield results in an automatic first down and 15 yards.
The NFL punishes defenders too much for interference deep downfield, especially when offensive players are often the ones initiating contact.
The NFL should adopt college rules. Defenders already have enough NFL rules working against them.
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John Froschauer/Associated Press
Fumbling at the goal line is stupid. Players should do everything they can to avoid doing so, even if it means not laying out for the pylon. What’s stupider is the NFL’s touchback rule that awards a fumble over the goal line and out of bounds to the defense.
Now, the offense should be punished for fumbling that close to the end zone—it just shouldn’t be punished as much as it currently is.
If a ball is fumbled at midfield and goes forward, the defense has an opportunity to secure it. The defense doesn’t, however, get 20 free yards. This fumble rule is particularly problematic late in halves when the team awarded possession can simply kneel out the clock from its own 20.
Instead of awarding a touchback when the ball goes over the goal line and out of the back of the end zone, the NFL should consider moving the ball to the 1-yard line. This would still punish the offense by changing possession, but it would keep things interesting late in halves or in games. The team awarded possession would have to execute in order to avoid a safety.
Watching a player cough up the ball and then kneel on it would no longer be a way to win.
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D. Ross Cameron/Associated Press
This one isn’t so much of a hard rule change as a procedural tweak that needs to happen. Officials are simply too quick to blow plays dead—and there isn’t much teams can do about it once it happens. Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders fans can both attest to this.
In the Cleveland-Oakland game alone, two touchdowns were probably taken off the board by premature whistles. Marshawn Lynch was likely robbed of a touchdown run when officials blew the play dead—despite him not being on the ground. Larry Ogunjobi was robbed of a scoop-and-score on a Derek Carr fumble when officials blew the play dead too early.
These things just shouldn’t happen, and they are a relatively new occurrence. As Martellus Bennet recently pointed out on Twitter, the now-infamous Eli Manning pass to David Tyree in Super Bowl XLII would have never happened by way of today’s quick whistle.
Officiating must be encouraged to allow plays to continue unless they are absolutely and unequivocally certain it has reached its conclusion.
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Bill Kostroun/Associated Press
Kickoffs are dangerous. They’ve also become boring as the league has incentivized touchbacks by moving the ball out to the 25 instead of the 20. Even the onside kick—the epitome of NFL desperation—has become somewhat routine because they rarely work.
This is because of recent rule changes implemented to make the kickoff safer. Kicking teams no longer get a running start. Kicking teams cannot stack one side of the field. The receiving team must bring eight players into a zone between their 40-yard line and the kicking team’s 45-yard line.
So why not just dump the kickoff already?
Instead, the league should consider having punts replace the kickoff. Punts are still dangerous, but they’re safer than kickoffs because players are engaged in blocks instead of all running into each other. Plus, the potential for a block would make the post-score play a must-watch play.
Teams wanting to attempt an onside kick could instead face something like a 4th-and-25 situation from their 35—with the caveat being that defensive pass interference would result in yardage plus replaying of the down instead of an automatic first.
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Stephen Brashear/Associated Press
There were plenty of bad calls during the 2018 season that would have been overturned if coaches had the ability to challenge them. There’s one, of course, from the NFC Championship Game that stands out. There’s no reason to rehash it here, but that play has at least motivated Commissioner Roger Goodell to consider adopting new replay rules.
“We will look again at instant replay,” Goodell said, per Dan Graziano of ESPN.com. “There have been a variety of proposals over the last, frankly, 15, 20 years on whether replay should be expanded.”
All plays should be subject to instant replay if initiated by a coach’s challenge—and coaches should have the ability to challenge any play they choose. Offsides? False Start? Helmet-to-helmet contact? Coaches should be able to argue that the initial call was incorrect in every instance.
While some may fear that the ability to challenge every play would lead to more unnecessary replays and reviews, the opposite may actually be true.
Under current rules, coaches frequently make bad challenges because there are only so many things that can be challenged. It’s worth challenging an iffy catch that makes it 3rd-and-3 instead of 3rd-and-8 if catches and ball placement are about the only things you can challenge.
Coaches will be more likely to keep at least one of their two challenges in their back pockets if they know they can potentially challenge a clutch pass-interference or face-mask call late in a game. It would make the game fairer and would make for a better overall product.
from Viral News Show http://bit.ly/2MTcbwt
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