American Football (NFL)
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I'll take NFL officiating seriously when they get a better rulebook* and hire full-time professional referees. It's the easiest sport to manipulate with officiating because there are so few plays and each play is so consequential, and there are so many judgment calls.
So, the cost of incompetent officials can be very high in terms of damaging the integrity of the game. Make them full-time employees and subject to constant assessment. Make it a lucrative gig that will attract the best and brightest instead of a job some lawyer does off the side of his desk.
- McLain's select Listing of dumb rules:
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"Complete the catch" is weird to me. If you have control of the ball in bounds, I don't care if the ball pops out when you hit the ground, in the same way that the league considers a ball breaking the plane in a runner's control to be a touchdown regardless of what happens after–it's inconsistent, confusing, arbitrary, and opens the door to needless controversy
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Defensive pass interference spot foul. Especially when some prayer is thrown from beyond midfield into the end zone and the offense is awarded the ball at the 1. The could make it 15 yards like they do in college, or a spot foul under some conditions with half the distance to the goal under others... I understand disincentivizing a beaten defender from just wrapping up a receiver, but there are plenty of better ways to adjudicate that foul
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Fumble through the end zone awards possession and a touchback to a defense that didn't do anything to secure possession, as they must do in every other turnover scenario I can think of. I could think of superior alternatives to this, like awarding the fumbling team the ball at midfield or the 20 or whatever or treating it like a penalty like a kickoff going out of bounds
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Preferential treatment of WR in PI rules. The WR already has the advantage of knowing where they are going--PI rules should be completely 50/50 between defenders and receivers instead of disadvantaging the defender. I get that the league wants big plays so I at least understand the rationale
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The review system is dumb AF. Why is it the head coach's job to keep the officials in line? Just review every play. If they can do it in the final 2 minutes they can do it the whole game. Making coaches responsible for this introduces dumb shit like limiting the number of challenges and tying them to times out. The whole game-within-a-game they created here is really lame IMO, and it's so much simpler to just review it all and accept responsibility for the league's job of officiating the game instead of burdening the coaching staff with it
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Spotting should not be done by human beings. Every moment of every game is shot from many angles and computers can give exact spots (including determining TDs). Failing that, you could use RFID tags in the ball or something
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OT rules are terrible. College does better here, though for the NFL I might start the offenses at the 50. Or maybe home team determines where the ball gets spotted and visiting team who gets it to start OT. That a coin flip can win a game without one of the teams even touching the ball is shit, and the correlation between coin flips and OT wins demonstrates there is a problem here
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When you get penalized, say, 15 yards inside the 5 yard line, it's half the distance to the goal, but they don't move the marker for the first down out to make it an actual 15 yard penalty
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Offsetting penalties = do-overs, even if one is trivial and the other extreme. Net the difference of the fouls under appropriate circumstances (e.g., defensive holding vs offensive personal foul = 10 yard net penalty to offense and either repeat or loss of down)
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Two feet in bounds for a reception. Literally no reason for it, especially when a knee, shin, or forearm is enough. Sure, you can argue that it makes for more skillful catches, but it's inconsistent and arbitrary
Hey, other football, I can fix you too. Have you ever heard of a penalty box?
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All really great ideas/suggestions. Don’t know how anyone bets on football.
I agree @mclaincausey that was a nice, precise read and I appreciate you typing all of that out.
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I gave up watching the NFL games years ago as I didn’t enjoy the pace of the game and many of the things pointed out in @mclaincausey post.
If I’m going to watch football, I would much rather watch the college/university level. More heart, faster paced, and guys trying to make it to the next level.
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…and a little more thought into this. I have found over the years that NFL players have been getting larger and larger. 20 years ago the avg. player was around 225 with the avg. now being 245. I don’t know if weight plays into more serious injuries or not, but I feel it does have a role to play. If you take physics and vectors into it, you have to guys with more mass hitting each other which should equate to more serious damage upon impact.
College players are now pushing the body weights that the NFL was 20 years ago (their avg. used to be 190). Games were quicker and the hits less severe.
I hate to see guys destroying themselves for a game, especially now that we are starting to understand the long term neurological damages being done.
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glad as I am surprised to hear a positive reaction to my sports hot take
A game that used to have almost no padding and leather helmets has never been more dangerous than the current era of space aged armor that the players wear, and I agree it’s because of the increased size, strength, and speed of the athletes combined with the recklessness that comes from the false security this armor provides. It’s a meat grinder and a blood sport, but hard to let go of it when you grew up with it. Then there is the more subtle chronic damage from not just concussions, but repeated minor impacts that go unnoticed until CTE sets in years down the road.
At this point the cow is out of the barn and it would be dangerous to remove padding, but the padding probably has led to a more dangerous game on balance. I know rugby is similarly violent with relatively no padding by comparison, and I’d be interested to see a comparison of injuries. My guess is more ears ripped off and fewer of just about everything else. One difference though to a rugby scrum is whole concept of how the lines work in football is hard to reconcile with safety, as it is predicated by sudden collisions at the snap of the ball.
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Thank Christ.
yeah, thought he was gonna Harbaugh up this game too
and the Iggles are unbeaten. The mind reels.
I yelled FOR THE LOVE GOD DONT GO FOR IT!!!
he's thinking with his dick
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…and a little more thought into this. I have found over the years that NFL players have been getting larger and larger. 20 years ago the avg. player was around 225 with the avg. now being 245. I don’t know if weight plays into more serious injuries or not, but I feel it does have a role to play. If you take physics and vectors into it, you have to guys with more mass hitting each other which should equate to more serious damage upon impact.
College players are now pushing the body weights that the NFL was 20 years ago (their avg. used to be 190). Games were quicker and the hits less severe.
I hate to see guys destroying themselves for a game, especially now that we are starting to understand the long term neurological damages being done.
anybody played rugby? speaking of destruction. just saw your post @mclaincausey ,I'm betting lots of knee and shoulder damage along with the headbashing. and some players are NFL sized
Your rule changes are excellent #5 is on the money -
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@mclaincausey Really well thought out set of changes that would improve the game. I would think the NFLPA would be against the one I like most which is changing the overtime system. The college system is far superior but can stretch a game’s duration by…a lot. Would think that increases injury chances and therefore won’t happen. It’s more exciting and fair to both teams for sure.
@goosehd I’m with you on preferring College to Pro.
@steelworker i played rugby once in college with a buddy who played regularly. It’s pretty brutal. Most of the guys would smear Vaseline all over their faces like a boxer to avoid cuts that would require stitches. It’s fun to play but even at 20 I knew I didn’t want to spend my time in the ER after a game. Can’t imagine football ever going back to less padding.
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Mahomes isn’t looking for anyone else and everyone in the stadium knows that’s who’s getting the ball.
like Brady back in the day-you know whats gonna happen
longtime Pats fan from the Berry days to the sports pornography that was the Brady era. I work with Philly fans and I lorded it over them like the asshole that I am
until that 2nd Super bowl. 
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I like divisions to make geographic sense. I love the rivalries, but Cowboys being in NFC East never made sense. I
