Last week, I proposed a few changes to make the NFL a better product for the fans in the stands and the viewing public. I haven’t been bombarded by messages and phone calls from the NFL Pooh-Bahs as they fall all over themselves to implement my suggestions. However, I have heard from more than a dozen readers who have said that they liked all or most of my suggestions and thought they would make the NFL product better. And that’s the whole idea here. Here is a sample comment from a frequent reader and correspondent:
“Your improvements are so logical and well-meaning. That means they will never happen.”
Let me reset the parameters here. I am not trying to imply that the NFL product as it exists now is low quality nor am I hinting that the NFL needs to do anything along the lines of my suggestions to survive. I just think my ideas will make the games better for the fans.
Having just finished watching the divisional playoff games for this weekend, I want to suggest a new rule – actually it’s a rule with two parts – that can’t help but make most of the games more enjoyable. The basic rule is this:
There shall be no on-field celebrations by any player for any reason except for scoring a TD or a field goal or a safety. Any demonstrative celebrations to celebrate a first down or a catch or a sack or a tackle or anything that does not involve scoring points or winning the game will result in the immediate disqualification of the celebrating player for the balance of the game on the field. Any repeat offenders will be disqualified for the game in which the celebration occurs plus the next two games.
The corollary to this rule is:
Notwithstanding the rule that allows celebrations of TDs and field goals and safeties, no player on a team that entered a game with a record at or below .500 for the season may celebrate anything other than a victory at the end of the game when the clock has run out. Players on losing teams who celebrate anything will be disqualified immediately and suspended for the next game. If you have a losing record for the season, you have no reason to be celebrating.
I know that these two rules have exactly no chance of passing the “Competition Committee” but tell the truth: What goes through your mind when you see a team that is 5-10 going into the final game of the season and one of their players does a demonstrative celebration of a first down in the first quarter of Game 16? What goes through my mind is that the player is a [bodily orifice that rhymes with “glass bowl”]. The world can go on without this nonsense. And in case anyone thinks the suspensions/disqualifications identified here are too draconian, I suggest that this is the only kind of punishment that many of these self-absorbed, overly-entitled, locked-in-adolescence athletes might understand.
I’d also extend the 5-yard zone where defensive players can make contact with pass receivers. The defensive backs have to be given a reasonable chance to succeed and the 5-yard zone is too restrictive. And while I’m on that general subject, how about making it a “point of emphasis” for officials that they call the intended pass receiver for offensive pass interference when the intended pass receiver initiates the “downfield hand-fighting”? The receiver initiates the contact about 50% of the time and draws the penalty flag about 2% of the time.
On a more serious note, the NFL is beginning to look as if it is complacent with or tolerant of the felonious off-field behavior of its players and coaches. Taken to an extreme, this cannot make the league more marketable or its products more valuable. So, the owners and the union need to come together to agree on a way to punish felons and players/coaches who do things that are socially unacceptable such as DUI or domestic violence or child abuse. The league penalties need to be swift and fixed in terms of a negotiated schedule, and there needs to be a provision for the permanent banishment of a player who is a repeat offender in terms of serious violations. The NFL spends a lot of time and energy and money to protect its public image; their tolerance of these kinds of behaviors undermines most if not all of those expenditures.
In terms of putting momentum and flow in the game, the NFL needs to find a better way to get its TV commercials on the air instead of having a team score a TD followed by a series of commercials followed by a kickoff/return followed by another series of commercials. No offense, but that’s not compelling TV for the folks at home and it’s brutally boring for the folks in the stands. There has to be a better way…
I’ve said before that the Pro Bowl should be placed in the dust bin of bad ideas. The game is stupid and meaningless. However, if the NFL absolutely and positively must have a Pro Bowl game can it de minimis pretend that the selection of the players for the teams matters even a little bit by putting off the final voting for the teams until after the regular season is over? At the moment, the teams are decided before Christmas and players have two or three more games in front of them to demonstrate their worthiness for selection to the team. In case the suits in NFL HQs haven’t noticed, it’s those games in December that are usually critically important for lots of teams and games in which the truly elite players really tend to show themselves. As it stands now, the NFL sort of admits that the make-up of the two squads doesn’t matter all that much – which is true since 30-50% of the players selected will find some kind of excuse not to go and actually play in the game.
Normally, I am opposed to too many teams being involved in playoffs in sports leagues. However, in the NFL I think the field needs to be expanded to 16 teams simply because the first round bye-week in the playoffs is such a huge advantage. I know that both of the AFC teams with bye-weeks this year just got bounced from the playoffs, but that does not deny the fact that a week of rest in January is too big an advantage for a regular season record that does not consider the strength of schedule. Alternatively, the league could cut back the playoffs to 8 teams meaning no bye-weeks but that would cost them four games of TV revenues and that’s just not gonna happen…
And while I’m suggesting changes to the playoffs how about making it a rule that no team can be in the playoffs without a winning record? If that means that the brackets in one conference have to be filled out by teams from the other conference, so be it. Here’s the concept:
If a team has been playing NFL football from Labor Day weekend forward and has not been able to show more wins than losses, why do we need to see that team in January against other teams who actually win more often than they lose?
And finally, I want the league to eliminate the “one-day contract” so that Joe Flabeetz can “come home” and retire as a member of a team that he left some time back to go and collect more money elsewhere. Those news conferences and events have become almost as annoying as a case of the crabs – or the “walking freckles” as they are lovingly known. Here’s the deal; if Joe Flabeetz felt all that choked up about the team he’s going back to, he shouldn’t have left in the first place. And if the team essentially kicked him to the curb by low-balling him on a contract offer so he had to move on to “save face”, then neither party deserves a feelgood moment in front of the TV cameras. Ban this practice now!
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…