Here's another idea that I heard. Conference round robin. Everyone plays each other in the AFC once. It would definitely intensify AFC vs NFC Superbowls. Also, players begging for flags should get a penalty, particularly on pass interference. It gets so old when the defender makes a good play and then you have guys making the flag motion. I know Holmes did that a couple of times with the replacements before getting hurt.
Get rid of automatic first downs for defensive penalties. Unless the penalty yards puts the ball beyond the first down marker, it shouldn't be a first down. If people want to keep automatic first down calls, then they need to add more loss of downs to offensive penalties. If the ball is knocked out of the QBs hand at any point, it's a fumble. Switch to college rules on defensive pass interference. No more spot of the foul crap where you can get like 50 yards on one penalty. 15 yards or spot of the foul if shorter.
^ To the begging for flags. Definitely have refs throw a 15 yard unsportsmnalike penalty. If a QB gets up and yells at a ref or a wide receiver goes up an down the field doing the flag motion, penalty. The players can still go over and talk to the refs and ask why a call was or wasn't called, but they can't scream at the refs, clap in their face, dance in circles asking for a flag. Yeah it cuts down on "emotion" but most of it just whining from the players.
So much this. And anything close to Harbaugh showing his ass the way he does should be a penalty. Like you said, voice displeasure but do it the right way.
These aren't necessarily good changes, but it would make life more interesting: 1. Bring the goalposts back to the goalline. "Longer" field goals, and mayhem on goalline plays. With that said, if you line up for a field goal at midfield and beyond (57+ yard FG under this system) it should be worth 4 points. I liked seeing Tom Dempsey line up on his half of the field for a winning FG. The wash is that if you miss it, you're giving the ball to the opposition in FG range for them already. For safety reasons, the endzone may need to be slightly extended another 5 yards to give people room to roam. 2. Forward motion for one receiver at the line, kinda like Arena football, but not full-scale like the CFL, where all the receivers can move pre-snap. I'd love to see someone like Chris Johnson split out on a fly pattern with a running head of steam. 3. Switch to the college system of instant replay. The booth checks everything, and stops play if necessary. Coaches get one challenge, not potentially 3. I've never liked the idea of the game referee being forced to look under the hood and try to see everything in a limited time. It always looks like he's taking timeout to watch a peep show. 4. Enforce college rules for the overtime, but move the ball back to midfield or something, so that you can't just line up from the 25, take a knee three times, and kick the winning FG. I want a team to earn their victory. Plus, teams would be more willing to line up for 60 yard FGs and the extra 4th point so that games don't go multiple OTs. 5. No more spiking/clocking the ball. Force the QB to throw out of bounds at his own risk, but relax interpretation of grounding rules in that situation. 6. To go with #5, after the 2 minute warning in each half or overtime, allow the clock to stop on 1st downs until the chains are in place. The clock will stop, but you can't stop it again on the spike play. By forcing the QB to throw it out of bounds, time will still run off the clock, so that the real length of the game won't increase exponentially.
Overtimes should be done a lot like basketball is. For example, another team scoring the ball isn't automatically a death sentence. Once the 15 minutes are up, and the score is the same, tie the game (regular season). Really good games end far too quickly because another team scores on like a punt/interception return in overtime.
I'm fine with OT the way it is...I hope they don't ever change it to college OT which is catering to the offensive side of the ball.
Here's another one I just thought of: Division opponents should be played in the last six weeks. It'd give struggling teams one last chance to win a division and it'd make for some exciting playoff implication games. Not exactly the best idea, but interesting.
I actually like this, but I'd reduce it to the last 3 weeks, so you guarantee that you play each of your divisional opponents in weeks 15-17. Spread the other divisional games from say week 1-10 or 11, so that you're not playing the same team twice in 3-4 weeks. The only catch would be that rare time when divisional opponents play each other week 17 then again in the Wild Card game, but that can't really be prevented, short of forcing a team to play an opposite-conference team in week 17.
Change the draft order. It drives me crazy that teams get an incentive, and a reward for sucking or giving up on the season, or having inept front offices that keep squandering away high picks --- I'm talking to you Detroit Lions. The team with the best record that misses the playoffs drafts first. The team with the next best record that misses the playoffs drafts second ... And so on until you get to the playoff teams. From that point you draft according to how far you got, until you get to the SB winner drafting last.
I'd like to see them unbundle preseason games from season ticket packages. Having to pay full price for preseason games is ridiculous. Either that or cutting the preseason down to just two games.
lolol yeah. The NFL is a small scale display of socialism. In a way it is cool because it helps parity but in a way I agree. But we don't want the nfl to become the NBA where a handful of teams win the past 20 or so titles.
Add a draft lottery.. I'm tired of seeing teams tank on purpose. The suck for luck campaign was cringe worthy.. Better yet eliminate the draft all together... Eliminate the rookie wage scale and allow the rookies negotiate and sign with whoever they want - most likely the highest bidder.. Keep the salary cap to make it fairly even but it will become kind of like college where teams have to sell their organizations to rookies! I don't believe you should punish good teams by sticking them in the draft. If they find a way to win and still have a lot of cap room - good for them, have at the rookies!
But if you have a draft lottery, you're potentially rewarding a team for going 8-8/9-7 and just missing the playoffs by giving them the #1 pick, instead of a pathetic 2-14 team who really needs it. That, and you might have the Patrick Ewing conspiracy fiasco to deal with.
Not only should we potentially reward them ... We should definitely reward them ... As I described in my post above. The pathetic 2-14 will have to draft wisely with the 20th pick and get their overall act together. It's better than giving a team Peyton Manning for 13 years, having them suck for 1 year, and having Andrew Luck for the next 13 years. Total bullshit.
^ Would be interesting if the Jets had the #1 pick after 2011. Would they have believed in Sanchez or went after Luck. A lottery I could see being beneficial for the NFL. It still favors the worse teams, but adds in that the worst team doesn't automatically get the 1st pick. Also it adds another TV even, as the NBA loves to do with having the actual lottery on one night and the draft on another one. Since 1990 and the NBA introduced the weighted lottery, only 3 of the worse teams won it and 4 of the second worse teams. I don't see ranking the teams from just missed the playoffs to worst team, so like an 8-8 team that just missed the playoffs getting the 1st pick and the 0-16 team getting the 20th pick makes sense. Because it could be argued missing the playoffs at 8-8 is more beneficial than making the playoffs at 9-7 and then losing 1st round. You also could add in the really scary idea that a team tanks to miss the playoffs on purpose. That would be so bad for the league. You would 100% of the time have bad teams tank than playoff teams tanking. It's a 20 pick difference. Also, what happens with division winners like the 7-9 Seahawks? Any other division, they would have a top 5/10 pick. In this case the 10-6 Giants get the #1 pick in the draft? Ehh that just compiles on the issue that division winners can sneak in with poor records compared to teams in tougher divisions.
