Category: Football

From PFT:

…one of the options being considered for replacing kickoffs entails giving the ball to the team that would have been kicking off at its own 30, automatically facing a fourth down and 15 yards to go. The team can then choose to punt or go for it, via fake punt or otherwise.

In other words, the kickoff would be replaced with the punt, and the onside kick would be replaced with a fourth-down conversion roughly half the distance of Ray Rice’s recent catch-and-run.

I like the spirit behind this idea. In fact, I’d been wondering about ways to improve the kickoff recently, but I was not approaching it from a safety perspective.

For anyone whose been paying attention for the past 20 years or so, touchbacks have gone way up in the pros. I’m not talking about catching the football in the endzone either. I’m talking about kickers routinely booting the ball past the endzone and out of play. The kickoff is quickly becoming the most tedious play in football as a result. While watching the recent Dallas-Philadelphia game, I think there might have been 1 return I could remember in the entire game with over 71 combined points scored! The only point of the return anymore is the opportunity for an onside kick.

I’d been thinking a solution might be to change the kick from the ground off a tee to a punt style free-kick kickoff like after a safety. I’m not a rules guru, but the problem there might be that there’s no opportunity for an onside kick scenario as the ball is not considered live after the first 10 yards.

This idea floated by Goodell has some merit to it. It preserves the salient features of the kickoff and also improves the likelihood of an actual return to a near certainty. I don’t think there’s any punter that could regularly kick the ball into the endzone with the line of scrimmage being their own 30. That’s a 70 yard punt just to the goal line. Also, my sense is the average starting position for offenses will improve to the 25 or so (I figure it’s the 20 right now.)

I don’t like that the “live ball” feature of the kickoff is lost. Practically speaking though, it’s not that big a deal. It did occasionally lead to some interesting highlights with the squib kicks or returners forgetting the ball was live and such; but those moments are pretty few and far between.

As a way to make the change of possession after a score interesting and relevant again, there’s a lot to like here. I’ll be curious to see where this goes.

I have to admit this is giving me a case of it:

Rodgers acknowledged on his weekly show on ESPN Radio in Milwaukee that he had a hard time swallowing the Saints fumble on Sunday that didn’t count because the regular officials wrongly ruled that Saints kickoff returner Darren Sproles was down before he lost the ball.

Ah yes, the “regular” officials who never make mistakes and are veritable oracles of the football Gods. Their word is law. Until it isn’t, apparently.

Having watched a good portion of the New Orleans-Green Bay game, there were a lot of questionable calls made and missed in that game. But then, as I’ve said previously, that happens all the time, regardless of who’s officiating the games.

Let’s just thank our lucky stars that the officials didn’t affect the outcome of the game. Who could we call in then?

Who’s protecting the integrity of the game?

The locked out officials who make more as part time workers than most full-time workers and whose absence is, according to some, lowering the quality of the game?

The NFL players and coaches who are actively trying to take advantage of the replacement referee’s inexperience by bullying or manipulating them?

The sports media who have clearly taken sides against the NFL owners and are blowing up every little call and non-call the replacement officials make into controversies, creating the impression of a league in chaos?

Or the NFL owners, who, faced with a labor issue created by their current officials and compounded by forced solidarity from college officials, had to rely on more inexperienced people to officiate the games? These replacement officials have been receiving constant training from the league the entire time so the NFL could continue with it’s season.

Just wondering.

Here’s the opening line of a post up at PFT:

One of the most-hyped preseason games in recent memory didn’t really live up to its billing.

What “hyped” game is he talking about? Why, it’s between the Colts and the Redskins. And why is it “hyped”? Because Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin are playing against each other. You know, the two QB’s with all the Super Bowls, MVP’s and NFL passing records between them…

Seriously, 2 rookie QB’s without a single regular season passing yard to their credit and who we won’t even know if they’re any good until the season is over, yet this is some hyped game? Actually, it will likely take until their 3rd season before either of them can come into their own and can be evaluated properly. Oh, and did I mention that this was a preseason game? A time that’s essentially meaningless with regards to the regular season?

I know Florio needs to drive eyeballs to his sight, but this is pathetic. Stupidity like this creates more pressure than is necessary for these guys to deal with. Plus, the guys at PFT have been hyping these 2 QB’s ever since the college season ended to the point where you’d half expect they’ll be vying to compete in a Super Bowl against each other at the end of the year, one with a league MVP trophy in tow. In 4 weeks when both of them are getting plastered by defenses, I’m sure we can expect some real sharp “What happened?” style posts from the brilliant analysts at PFT.

Maybe they should write up another concussion post or something so we can know that football is a really rough game.

Right here. The short of it is that Jason Witten won’t need surgery to repair his rupture spleen. He may miss the opener, but he won’t miss much more than that.

I just discovered this while reading this article, but LSU apparently has team rules regarding drug use and, more impressively, is willing to enforce them on a star player. LSU kicked “The Honey Badger” off it’s team for failing drug tests. It would be one thing if he was a scrub, but he was a marquee player on their team last year, an All-American and a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Consider me surprised. This is usually the sort of thing we find out about years later when the program is being investigated for violations of one sort or another.

Yesterday I wrote that I didn’t think the replacement refs would have that great an impact on football, ultimately taking the official’s leverage away. It was based on assuming the NFL had replaced them with competent people who would be motivated by the potential for a new job.

Well, honesty compels me to note this article at Deadspin. They go through a number of preseason games and highlight various flubs by the new guys. Mainly, the majority strike me as “nerves” sorts of errors. But still, there are some legitimate screwups that don’t bode well.

But I won’t be backing off my prediction, yet. People need to keep in mind that the regular refs were hardly foolproof, with flubs like screwing up an overtime coin toss on Thanksgiving. Or, for good measure, how about a Super Bowl altering screwup? Those are off the top of my head, but a little googling would reveal plenty more, I’m sure. All from the regular guys.

There will be a tendency to blow every screwup by the replacements. That’s just the way it goes. I still think they’ll prove more than adequate to the task.

At the end of a blurb about Bill Belichik’s opinion regarding the replacement officials, Mike Florio throws out this zinger:

Strategically, they’d be wise to do so. Eventually, the locked-out officials will be back, and it will be impossible for them to complete ignore who had their backs- and who didn’t- when making close calls in real time.

This strikes me as a foolish statement for a couple reasons. First, Robert Kraft is the owner of the Patriots, so he’s partially responsible for the referee situation in the NFL, regardless of Bill Belichik’s position. So if the refs are going to hold grudges against teams, why would they spare the Patriots?

Second, if the officials get what they want, but then turn around and behave as Florio implies, how does that make them any better than the replacement refs which are supposedly worse? Arguably, it makes them worse. It’s one thing to makes mistakes (even the regulars do that), it’s another to deliberately punish one team or another because of some personal pique against one team or another. It violates a key element of being a game official, impartiality. Implying they would do so isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for them.

With all due respect to the striking game officials, I doubt we’ll see much of an impact. They tried to strong arm the league once before and their bluff was called. The replacement officials performed just fine and the regular officials had to come back and accept whatever deal they got. I think we’ll see an identical result. While being an NFL official isn’t easy, it’s not rocket science and the guys the NFL has recruited already know how to officiate fooball games. Plus, for all these replacement guys know, they’re auditioning for a permanent job and a nice bump in their income. That gives them plenty of incentive to do the job and do it well.

An interesting comment (to me anyway) from Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans:

I feel like if I would have kept training for track I’d have a chance, but I play football and he runs track, so it’s totally different. I think I could still probably beat him in the 40. If I actually trained for the distance he trained for, I think I’d have a chance.

I’ve long felt that the decline in US sprint dominance was a direct result of the financial incentives for guys with world class speed to pursue a career in football or baseball- the two sports where speed is the greatest asset. In addition to Johnson, there were guys like Deion Sanders, who was arguably faster than Johnson. Additionally, Randy Moss would have been in the conversation. Plus, there was that fellow by the name of Renaldo Nehemiah, who wasn’t even the fastest guy in the NFL during his time. Also, see Calvin Hill and Willie Gault.

I’m not saying that the US would have been winning gold at every Olympic sprint. I do think the US team would be a lot deeper in the sprints though, possibly medaling consistently in the sprints. Usain Bolt may well be the fastest man on the planet, but I’m quite certain that he isn’t running against the fastest the US has to offer. So who knows.

Technology has been transforming the mental game of sports for several years now. The MLB has been using tech to allow pitchers to better prepare for opponents. They’ve got software that allows a pitcher to know the exact perfect pitch to throw against a batter in any situation. Football has not been immune with playbooks being transferred to iPads and the like. NFL teams have been bragging about their ability to be able to instantly start breaking down game film, even on plane flights home, because of digital technology.

With that in mind, this is interesting as the first negative thing I’ve seen in regarding sports and technology. To be fair to the iPad, it has nothing to do with the iPad itself; rather, it’s the maturity level of young players. Or perhaps better stated, the young players don’t have the discipline to use it as the tool it was intended to be. Instead, they use it as they’re own personal toy.

If older players can be trusted to use it, then this suggests a potential compromise position where veterans get iPads and young players have to earn their way up to them.

Still, this is the first time I’ve read anything about anyone backing away from technology, particularly the iPad. Thought it was interesting for that alone.

All week, the Freeh Report has been the talk of the town on the sports blogs. And with good reason as it basically confirmed what most anyone with the ability to think critically has suspected- Joe Paterno knew about Sandusky and put “his” University first.

I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it now. The great irony of the situation is that if Paterno had followed through and made sure that Sandusky was dealt with, he would have truly lived up to the lofty ideals he had come to personify. Penn State’s and Paterno’s stature would have increased immeasurably because they’d have done the right thing, when it counted.

In fact, if I really think about it, it’s hard to understand why they didn’t follow through. It seems to me like there was nothing to lose. Sure, there would have been flurry of activity, but they’d always be able to say “Look, people like Sandusky are masters of hiding in plain sight. We fell for it, but when we found out about we did the right thing.” Sure, you’d rather not have to deal with it at all but that wasn’t the hand they were dealt.

So instead, we end up where we are now. It’s almost surreal, to think of the position and stature he held and how it’s all gone now. A college football tragedy, if you will.

One of the final questions swirling at this point is whether or not Penn State should receive the death penalty. There was a time not long ago where I’d have said “No, it’s time to move on.” But I’ve reconsidered. The fact is there are a bunch of kids who were victimized by Sandusky, needlessly because of the inaction by Penn State. How can a football program possibly weigh against that? Also, gutting them should serve as a cautionary example to other programs so that, hopefully, something like this doesn’t happen again.