The game would improve significantly. The short sighted, lying fool that is Roger Goodell is a complete incompetent. As big as the game is now, it could be better.
1. Return to a 16 game season. 16 is a good number; 17 is bad. You, as an entity. claim you care about player safety and yet you add another game. This isn't 1970. We now have 255 pound linebackers who can run 4.4 and bench press 500 pounds and squat significantly more. The collisions are much more violent.
2. Start the season the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. This used to be the case. I don't know if it was Goodell or a predecessor who changed this but the reasoning was poor at best. Not everyone goes away on Labor Day weekend. Not everyone has a boat. Not everyone has a vacation home. Does anyone really believe the boating industry is bigger than the NFL? To this point we have gotten a few college football matchups where the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world pile drive an overmatched opponent into submission. People are craving football games that aren't over before halftime. And if you think the boating crowd and vacation home crowd wouldn't adapt? There's a line from a recent movie; "the church used to own Sundays.....until the NFL took it from them." The vacation crowd would adapt.
3. Elimination of Thursday night games. Again, you as the NFL claim you care about player safety yet you have teams playing games a mere 4 days after their previous game. But you just have to have that prime time money.....yet put the games on a buffoon network like Prime. Anyone with a pulse realizes the quality of these games is not good. They try to mask the problem by having mostly divisional matchups but that's only putting lipstick on a pig. You can keep the two T-Giving games in Detroit and Dallas. That's it. The other aspect is teams coming off 10 days rest are at an unfair advantage when playing opponents returning in 7, or even 6 days.
4. Thursday night prime time games move to Saturday night. What? And step on the toes of hallowed college football? College football is nothing more than a minor league feeding ground for the NFL. Can you imagine David Stern looking at the G-League schedule when creating a schedule for an upcoming season? Or MLB not wanting to go head to head with the Pacific Coast League? It's laughable. College football can still have early and late afternoon. BTW, college football steps on high school football now by playing Friday night games. Why should they be immune? If they don't like it, get a better product.
5. Changes in pass interference rules. Limit PI to 20 yards. What? Too big of an advantage for the defense? If a defender gets flagged for a 2nd PI, it's an automatic ejection.
6. Change the touchback rule. I've railed against this rule in the past and like many, I believe its the worst (OK, second worst now that MLB has an invisible runner in extra innings) rule in sports. I'm referring to touchbacks where the offensive player fumbles the ball through/out of the end zone. Logically the offense should retain possession at the 1 yard line. I'm willing to even penalize the offense. Give them possession back at the 10 yard line. Possession doesn't change so if team A had the ball 2nd and goal from the 4, gets the near TD to fumble out of bounds in the end zone, its now 3rd and goal from the 10. Change of possession is crazy.
7. Back to one wild card for each conference. Stop rewarding mediocrity.
8. No 2 weeks between Conference championships and the Super Bowl. Football should never be played in the month of February.
9. Eliminate all UK and Germany games. The NFL will never have a team based in Europe in our lifetimes. Never.
My objective would be to improve the game, not provide more short term profits for Jerry Jones and David Tepper. But what they fail to realize, is my changes likely would mean more money for them in the long run.
1. Return to a 16 game season. 16 is a good number; 17 is bad. You, as an entity. claim you care about player safety and yet you add another game. This isn't 1970. We now have 255 pound linebackers who can run 4.4 and bench press 500 pounds and squat significantly more. The collisions are much more violent.
2. Start the season the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. This used to be the case. I don't know if it was Goodell or a predecessor who changed this but the reasoning was poor at best. Not everyone goes away on Labor Day weekend. Not everyone has a boat. Not everyone has a vacation home. Does anyone really believe the boating industry is bigger than the NFL? To this point we have gotten a few college football matchups where the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world pile drive an overmatched opponent into submission. People are craving football games that aren't over before halftime. And if you think the boating crowd and vacation home crowd wouldn't adapt? There's a line from a recent movie; "the church used to own Sundays.....until the NFL took it from them." The vacation crowd would adapt.
3. Elimination of Thursday night games. Again, you as the NFL claim you care about player safety yet you have teams playing games a mere 4 days after their previous game. But you just have to have that prime time money.....yet put the games on a buffoon network like Prime. Anyone with a pulse realizes the quality of these games is not good. They try to mask the problem by having mostly divisional matchups but that's only putting lipstick on a pig. You can keep the two T-Giving games in Detroit and Dallas. That's it. The other aspect is teams coming off 10 days rest are at an unfair advantage when playing opponents returning in 7, or even 6 days.
4. Thursday night prime time games move to Saturday night. What? And step on the toes of hallowed college football? College football is nothing more than a minor league feeding ground for the NFL. Can you imagine David Stern looking at the G-League schedule when creating a schedule for an upcoming season? Or MLB not wanting to go head to head with the Pacific Coast League? It's laughable. College football can still have early and late afternoon. BTW, college football steps on high school football now by playing Friday night games. Why should they be immune? If they don't like it, get a better product.
5. Changes in pass interference rules. Limit PI to 20 yards. What? Too big of an advantage for the defense? If a defender gets flagged for a 2nd PI, it's an automatic ejection.
6. Change the touchback rule. I've railed against this rule in the past and like many, I believe its the worst (OK, second worst now that MLB has an invisible runner in extra innings) rule in sports. I'm referring to touchbacks where the offensive player fumbles the ball through/out of the end zone. Logically the offense should retain possession at the 1 yard line. I'm willing to even penalize the offense. Give them possession back at the 10 yard line. Possession doesn't change so if team A had the ball 2nd and goal from the 4, gets the near TD to fumble out of bounds in the end zone, its now 3rd and goal from the 10. Change of possession is crazy.
7. Back to one wild card for each conference. Stop rewarding mediocrity.
8. No 2 weeks between Conference championships and the Super Bowl. Football should never be played in the month of February.
9. Eliminate all UK and Germany games. The NFL will never have a team based in Europe in our lifetimes. Never.
My objective would be to improve the game, not provide more short term profits for Jerry Jones and David Tepper. But what they fail to realize, is my changes likely would mean more money for them in the long run.
Last edited: