what changes would you do to the NFL if you could

[A.C Vegas]

It's teh off season so I thought this might be fin to do jsut to see what people say. This is what I would change if i could

1) Punt that go more than 25 years are live balls as long as they are outside the 10 yeard line. If the punter cna get the ball inside the 10 then it can be fair cought or downed other then that the returner has a 5 year buffer zone to catch the punt. I think this would make punt much more exciting to watch and still reward the punters that are good at the coffin corner punts.

2) each team get the ball in overtime. I would adopt the college rule but instaed of startng on the 25 yard line the start on the opposite 20 that way it's more relistic to the true NFL game

3) a full blown minor league system. I would create minor league system that is within a certin number of miles of the NFL team but not in a major city (i.e. The partiots team would be in like mancherster, portland or providance). but the NFl couldn't hide players there if they are on the team in the begainning of the season they have to stay there. the only excetpion is if they are covering a players injury and once that player comes back the minor laugue player can go back down and the injuried player cannot. I would allow teams the have short injury reserve lists like a 2,4,6,8 week injured list and that would allow a minor leagure player to step up for those few games as a replacement.

what would you change and what do you think of my changes

 

[SmokeShowin]

I'd have the games on Saturday so I can recover on Sunday. My boss doesn't like it when I take out a Monday after a late Sunday game. He just doesn't understand what it takes to get out of those effin lots.

 

[#12]

I'd kick Bill Polian off the competition committee and get someone MUCH less biased....

 

[JDP111]

It's teh off season so I thought this might be fin to do jsut to see what people say. This is what I would change if i could

1) Punt that go more than 25 years are live balls as long as they are outside the 10 yeard line. If the punter cna get the ball inside the 10 then it can be fair cought or downed other then that the returner has a 5 year buffer zone to catch the punt. I think this would make punt much more exciting to watch and still reward the punters that are good at the coffin corner punts.

2) each team get the ball in overtime. I would adopt the college rule but instaed of startng on the 25 yard line the start on the opposite 20 that way it's more relistic to the true NFL game

3) a full blown minor league system. I would create minor league system that is within a certin number of miles of the NFL team but not in a major city (i.e. The partiots team would be in like mancherster, portland or providance). but the NFl couldn't hide players there if they are on the team in the begainning of the season they have to stay there. the only excetpion is if they are covering a players injury and once that player comes back the minor laugue player can go back down and the injuried player cannot. I would allow teams the have short injury reserve lists like a 2,4,6,8 week injured list and that would allow a minor leagure player to step up for those few games as a replacement.

what would you change and what do you think of my changes

1.) No. You would have too many injuries for no reason. This reeks of Arena League/XFL cheese.

2.) No. Its the NFL. Either stop them or lose, it's simple.

3.) No. What's the point if you can't move players up and down at will. This was attempted--it was called NFL Europe.

I'd relax the refs and allow football players to do what they do - play football.

 

[nittanylions52]

It's teh off season so I thought this might be fin to do jsut to see what people say. This is what I would change if i could

1) Punt that go more than 25 years are live balls as long as they are outside the 10 yeard line. If the punter cna get the ball inside the 10 then it can be fair cought or downed other then that the returner has a 5 year buffer zone to catch the punt. I think this would make punt much more exciting to watch and still reward the punters that are good at the coffin corner punts.

2) each team get the ball in overtime. I would adopt the college rule but instaed of startng on the 25 yard line the start on the opposite 20 that way it's more relistic to the true NFL game

3) a full blown minor league system. I would create minor league system that is within a certin number of miles of the NFL team but not in a major city (i.e. The partiots team would be in like mancherster, portland or providance). but the NFl couldn't hide players there if they are on the team in the begainning of the season they have to stay there. the only excetpion is if they are covering a players injury and once that player comes back the minor laugue player can go back down and the injuried player cannot. I would allow teams the have short injury reserve lists like a 2,4,6,8 week injured list and that would allow a minor leagure player to step up for those few games as a replacement.

what would you change and what do you think of my changes

#1 is interesting, but not very likely. If a punter can consistently get it high and far enough, it would pretty much be a jump ball and would defeat the purpose of punting (change possessions).

#2 is one that I like. If a team is oriented more towards one side of the ball, it gives them a chance to show their strengths whether they get the coin flip or not. It's usually hard not to give up a FG when that's all the other team is going for, and they have all the time in the world to get it.

#3 is probably not viable. There's already too many teams - talent is spread too thinly across the league already. Besides, there's a few other leagues cropping up that will act sort of like a minor league - The All-American Football League, and there's another one that is starting this Spring also, but I forget the name.

These changes are too major at this point anyway. Wouldn't be approved for many years. The one change I'd REALLY like to see is a cap on rookie salaries - they're getting way out of hand. If you're a bad team picking first, the guy you get handicaps you and prevents you from signing other players that would make your team better. Defeats the purpose, imo.

 

[IcyPatriot]

1: No Punting inside your opponents 40.

2: No timeouts in the 1st half.

 

[SeymourTrophies]

-Keep the salary cap (obviously that's not a change yet)
-Perhaps allow players to come off of the IR if they are fit. This might sound dumber than I meant it to be, but a lot of teams put players on the IR if they can't play a certain percentage for financial reasons not because they can't play for the time period that the season would imply.
-Have refs that aren't on the field make decisions on challenges.
-Be able to challenge possible penalties. Penalties that aren't judgement calls and are objective like a facemask, 12 men on the field (you can already do that), leg whip, helmet to helmet hit, or chop block.
-Stop teams from looking to hire anyone until the season is over for everyone. No phone calls or e-mails until the super bowl is over.
-Get rid of the franchise tag. It's a good way to lowball players.
-Abolish the phrase "America's team" and banish anyone who uses it
-Get rid of the excessive celebration penalty. It's too subjective, and it's like a holding call, you could throw the flag on every play if you wanted to.
-Play a few more super bowls further north than south beach or arizona. You can put on just as big of a show in chicago or new york as you can in miami. Pay some of those great NFL towns some respect by putting the big game in their venue. If more people that actually want to watch the game instead of party come because of the cold weather, and the league has a problem with that then there's a serious problem developing.

 

[DarrylS]

Not sure I would change all that much.. but would take a look at:

Holding, this is so inconsistent, look at the last Superbowl..
PI making it a 15 yarder instead of at the point of contact..
"Mike up" 1 D player
Get Polian off of the Comp Committee
Loosen up on some of the idiotic rules, i.e. fines for unbuckled chin straps(that should be an internal matter), idiotic press conferences that are scheduled by the league, idiotic mandatoryadidas clothing for coaches on the sideline.

 

[spook75]

Holding, this is so inconsistent, look at the last Superbowl..
PI making it a 15 yarder instead of at the point of contact..
"Mike up" 1 D player
Get Polian off of the Comp Committee
Loosen up on some of the idiotic rules, i.e. fines for unbuckled chin straps(that should be an internal matter), idiotic press conferences that are scheduled by the league, idiotic mandatoryadidas clothing for coaches on the sideline.

I agree with each and every one of these. Especially the PI change.
let them play ref...let them play ..grrr

 

[Miguel]

If a team charges a premium for postseason games, then they should give a discount for preseason games.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

Turn the clock back 2 weeks ago...

 

[oldskool138]

More consistent refs. The refs during the SB "let the guys play" but the refs in the Indy game threw the flag more than they had it in their pocket.

I think the Pats were probably looking for some calls that they just didn't get early on (the non-OPI call comes to mind)...

I know that refs are like umpires in baseball. They follow the rules but have their own "strike zone". In a game like football, there needs to be more uniformity in the calls. It's either a penality or not...I hate the idea of a ref getting up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever and deciding that he's going to throw the flag at every borderline hold.

And I'd also allow for one penality challenge flag in addition to the two normal challenges. You could use it to challenge calls and non-calls but only once per game.

 

[PatriotsRule99]

Ah, yes, I can finally post my opinions on this (I dont have 50 posts yet)

###########1: (As you can see it's very important) PUT REFEREE'S ON THE CAMERAS!!! Then they could get these calls that other refs cant see! There is no point not to do so.

#2: Robot refs. They would have no bias, and they could be programmed to call a f-mask if it goes on for too long. IDK how'd they'd understand Unsportsmanlike Conduct, though...

Okay, no number two. But number one is big.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

I agree with each and every one of these. Especially the PI change.
let them play ref...let them play ..grrr

Except you'd need to have some sort of "blatant PI," or else people would just start tackling Moss/Stallworth every time he went deep.

 

[chrisfx811]

1. Change the OT format.
How about the team that had possession of the ball at the end of regulation has to kick off in OT? Teams that are way out of scoring position would have to consider punting before the end of the game or risk giving possession to the other team in OT.
(This becomes much more fun when Devon Hester, Cromartie, etc is on the receiving end of the punt) Fwiw, possession would not be considered to have changed until the other team caught the punt, or on an OB punt, the receiving team's offense runs one play.

2. Fix the td celebration penalties. No flag unless it goes over 10 seconds in duration.
3. Allow challenges on penalties, or have refs in the booth with the ability to overrule a bad call.
4. Allow refs in the booth to stop play for official review like in college.

5. Change PI penalties to something like the facemask calls.
Spot of the foul if it's blatant. 15 yards or something like that if it's not as serious

 

[oldskool138]

2. Fix the td celebration penalties. No flag unless it goes over 10 seconds in duration.

Okay but what if say Brady throws an 75 yard bomb to Moss and Brady wants to celebrate with Randy. Chances are, it would take more than 10 seconds for him to run to the end-zone to give him a hug or whatever.

The excessive celebration penalty flag should only be throw for choreographed or prop celebrations.

 

[chrisfx811]

Okay but what if say Brady throws an 75 yard bomb to Moss and Brady wants to celebrate with Randy. Chances are, it would take more than 10 seconds for him to run to the end-zone to give him a hug or whatever.

The excessive celebration penalty flag should only be throw for choreographed or prop celebrations.

Give em 15 seconds then.
I think the prop celebrations are funny.
To me the excessive celebration penalty is kinda ridiculous.

 

[A.C Vegas]

the punting thing wouldn't create jump balls cause the returner has to be given 5 yards to catch the ball. I just fund the punting so boring it's like the balls up and ten either fair catch or the occianlly run back for a few yards (unless your devin hester) and i think just about any improvement would be good i'd settle for a bigger interfernace window

 

[spook75]

Except you'd need to have some sort of "blatant PI," or else people would just start tackling Moss/Stallworth every time he went deep.

You are absolutley right... but how would that be determined? If not a change in the penalty then there needs to be better consitency on calling them ( train the refs?) is needed.

 

[Spiral]

No more commercial time-outs just after a kick-off. You often end up with six or seven minutes between a TD and the first play from scrimmage after the ensuing kick-off.

A change in the rule regarding recovery of fumbles. In some of those dog piles, I bet the ball can change hands 2-3 times after the whistle blows.

Delay of game on first or second down results in loss of down, no yardage. Would speed the game up.

At the draft, the commissioner walks up to the podium at 12:00 and announces the first pick in the draft. After four months, the team picking first shouldn't need an extra 15 minutes. Ten minutes between picks for the first round, five minutes after that.

No more amortization of signing bonuses over the life of the contract. This results in a wide disparity in actual spending on payrolls in any given year.