We continue our look at five on-the-field rule changes needed in the NFL.
Click here to read Part 1.
3. Thursday Night Football games should only occur between teams coming off a bye
Unlike most sportswriters, I like the Thursday Night game. But for a league that wants to pretend it cares about player health and quality of play, it’s regularly a bad scene. The human body, especially these elite athletes, isn’t made to perform at peak level with just a handful of days’ rest between games. If teams only play TNF after their bye week, that all changes. In fact, they’d in effect get two byes with bonus time before and after the Thursday nighter.
Does that mean that byes should start Week One? Sure, if you want. Frankly, I think that after the season opener, the best move would be to skip Thursday Night games until October. If the league wants to keep the Thursday showcase, and they do, changes need to be made. This is going to be a significant talking point in the next collective bargaining agreement. Believe it.
4. Teams should have more gameday jersey, helmet and logo freedom
Am I advocating that an NFL team could take the field like Oregon or Maryland in something completely different every week? Yes. Why the hell not? The NFL’s uniform rules are far too strict and silly.
I refuse to recognize the Rams' resurgence until they start wearing these uniforms again. https://t.co/FUahQexVUi pic.twitter.com/c3bl0rFrgJ
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) January 12, 2018
The Tennessee Titans just made a uniform change this offseason and they look good, but I hate to lose the white helmets. So why not work them back in? Look at the mess the uniform business has caused for the Rams out in Los Angeles. The NFL sells alternates and throwbacks on their website, but won’t let the teams wear all these uniforms and helmet combos on the field. The Rams want to wear their throwbacks at home this season. Their fans want them to wear the throwbacks at home. In fact, I’d love to see them wear throwbacks on the road. Or just throwbacks all the time. Bring back the old unis is what I’m saying, Rams.
5. On kickoffs, a player can fair catch the ball inside the 10 and the play is ruled a touchback
There’s no question that the kickoff return is the most dangerous play in football and the NFL isn’t wrong to want to tweak it to protect players. What we don’t want is to get rid of it altogether and replace it with some kind of video game backyard shenanigans when you have to replace an onside kick.
NFL V.P. Troy Vincent says League will look at changing or eliminating kick-offs. pic.twitter.com/ndMfjw5XCS
— Andrew Perloff (@andrewperloff) March 22, 2018
When the NFL changed the kick off touchback from the 20 to the 25-yard-line they all thought they’d really figured out something. Surely the return team would rather have the ball at the 25 instead of risking a return. And most of the time they would, but the problem is the kicking team didn’t want them on the 25. So special teams coaches started teaching their kickers to angle their kicks short, inside the five, to force a return. It’s what we call unintended consequences. And, sure, returns were down, but you can’t really claim the plan worked.
So now if the kicking team tries that, all the returner has to do is wave a fair catch signal and the ball goes on the 25. It doesn’t kill the return as a play and guys like Cordarrelle Patterson and Pharoh Cooper are never going to wave off a return (and they shouldn’t), but it’ll make the original rule change actually work the way it was intended.
