Category: Football

Apparently, there is finally a formal proposal to expand the NFL season to 18 games. Here are some of my thoughts on what it will mean(try to read past the first couple, which I admit fall into the “Duh” category):

1. Assuming a strike doesn’t happen, it will mean more money for the owners. Of course, even with the strike it will eventually mean more money for the owners, it’ll just take longer to get there.

2. It will also mean more money per season for the players. Expect a lot of contract renegotiations when the transition occurs.

3. I’d expect more late season injuries- especially to older players where bodies basically breakdown. Along the same lines, I’d expect more injuries during the playoffs.

4. Careers will get shorter. I don’t think the average person understands the physical toll taken on an NFL player. I think the affect of 2 more games of wear on a player is greater than just 2 games. Players are already beatup mentally and physically at the end of the current season. Many will be downright primed for breakdowns with 2 more games.

5. Expect team turnover to increase. A successful team has about 6-8 years as a unit, depending on talent, because of the extra playoff games. Happened to the Cowboys in the 90’s, it happened to the Patriots in the 00’s. So a good team with Super Bowl aspirations will have fewer years in which to win one, and fewer years that they remain competitive before their talent pool is used up. Probably more in line with 5-6 years. No more “Team of the Decade” titles. It’ll probably shift to “the best team of the past 5 years.” The 4 Super Bowl mark of greatness for a team goes away.

6. The possibility of an undefeated season disappears I think. I know the undefeated record is something like 23 games, but that’s spans from the middle of one season to the middle of the next and includes playoff wins. Two extra games makes the odds of running the table (what, 21 games from the season opener to the Super Bowl) astronomical to the point of impossible.

7. I expect the first 4 weeks of the season to be much more chaotic. Timing and game conditioning won’t be the same. I know part of the current justification rests on shortening the preseason. But those games are used to gradually ramp players up to speed. Look at Favre this year, or Darrelle Revis who both missed training camp and both were not ready for their respective openers. Now imagine that on a league wide basis.

8. I think all season records should be reset to 0. The new benchmark for season rushing yards becomes 1500, with a great season becoming 2000 yards. The record will be 2500 or so. I think 6000 yards passing is now doable, with 4500 yards becoming the new benchmark.

9. Expect more late season playoff runs. The extra games will likely throw-off precision teams, such as the Colts, early. But once they hit their stride, they’ve got a couple extra games to make up for a slow start. The effect won’t be huge, but it will be there.

10. The transition for rookies will be brutal. They will have two fewer weeks to learn offensive and defensive systems. They’re body and minds will have the shock of switching from a season that starts in late August and ends in November to a season that starts in mid-August and ends at the end of December. I’d say rookies will be used more sparingly early in the year in the hopes of having them capable of meaningfully contribute at the end of the year.

11. Youth becomes king. Veteran teams will not be able to keep pace with younger teams because they just won’t have the energy at the end of the year to make their experience matter.

12. Good defenses become downright stifling by the end of the year. Defensive coordinators will have 2 more games to figure out what makes offenses tick. They’ll put it too good use.

On a pure speculation note, I think the raison-d’etre for this move is television. Specifically, no one watches the pre-season and the networks are none to pleased with that state of affairs. I’m a Cowboys fan and I can’t tell you anything about how they looked in the pre-season. I know I’m not the only one. Only the fantasy guys and diehards who think they can coach care about the pre-season- and even there it’s only because they haven’t figured out that the pre-season is a predictor of absolutely squat. So the owners figure that making the games “count” will increase the viewing season. They’re probably right.

Looking at the above, I’m struck by how easy it is to come up with net-negatives for the longer season. I suppose the main plus for fans is the longer viewing season and probably all the season record setting. Largely, the move seems to be a net negative for players. Sure they’ll have higher paying seasons; but there’s a good chance it’s offset by shorter careers.

I’ll be curious to see justifications beyond “more games that count.” I’m sure they exist; but I can’t think of them, which makes me dubious of their convincing power.

A few observations, in no particular order:

• The Cowboys and Vikings win, which I guess means we can pencil them in as shoe-ins for the NFC Championship. I mean jeez- right up until Sunday everyone was getting their “Jerry Jones is about to clean-house” story into draft form. Ditto for the “Maybe Favre should have retired afterall” stories. Now, their 1-2 and everything is just fine. Sheesh.

• OK- Michael Vick played well again. So what. I mean, I guess if you’ve got to go to jail to finally figure out that you need to do a little more than show up on Sunday, so be it. As far as him actually being better than he was before, this one is going to take time.

  First, let’s see if he’s still playing in December. He just got the starting job, he has yet to play the Cowboys, Texans, Colts and Titans to name a few. Let’s see if he still has triple-digit passer rating in December. A player just doesn’t, in an instant, become the best quarterback in the league. He earns it one week at a time. Vick doesn’t get an exemption, even if he has straightened out his act.

• Pittsburgh will not got undefeated. Anyone thinking that right now needs to put their terrible towel down and take a chill pill. New England couldn’t do it, and that team was better than this Pittsburgh team. I’ll predict right now that they lose Roethlisberger’s return game.

• Kansas City is not for real. Yet. They beat the Chargers , which isn’t looking like all that big a deal right now. Other than that, they beat Cleveland and San Francisco. This proves KC’s viability how exactly?

• I’m starting to really dislike the Jets. I mean, actually want to see them get beat and badly at that. This is a bad thing because typically, that means the team is very good. I used to feel like this about the Chicago Bulls and New England Patriots. It’s early, but in this case I’m going to begrudgingly agree with the consensus that this could be their year.

  I’m glad to see LT playing well. He looks a lot like he did about 4 years ago when he was everybody’s fantasy league hero. When gambles like that pay dividends for teams, it’s a sign. Think Patriots and Corey Dillon, or Cowboys and Charles Haley.

• The Giants suck. Love it.

• The Pats are looking tired. They need a major infusion of youth. I think the Colts are in the same boat. It’s a long season and pride will only get them so far.

Mainly, the season is long, this is week 3.

Have patience.

The answers are coming.

The 18-game proposition, which from everything I’ve read appears to be a done deal, prompted me to think of some other possible rule changes. Here’s 2 other changes that I think have merit:

1. Eliminate the divisions and reduce to 2 conferences. The schedule would consist of 1 game between all teams in a conference and then the schedule could be filled out with several inter-conference games. As of now, each conference has 16 teams, so that’s 15 games intra-conference leaving the opening for 3 inter-conference games. Playoffs take the top 6 teams from each conference and the playoff format remains identical with the top two teams getting a bye-week.

   This preserves rivalries, perhaps augmenting them since teams only get 1 shot at one another each season. Plus, this makes crystal clear who the cream of the crop are. Mainly though, I think this augments the playoff scenarios. No more crappy division winning teams when there are better teams in a more competitive division. Or rather, we no longer have that argument because it’s all settled on the field.

2. Make field goals worth points based on distance. I think there are 2 scenarios:
   1. Field goals are worth a minimum of 2 points up to 30 yards, and then increase by 1 point for every 10 yards further. So 17-30 yards worth 2, 30-39 worth 3, 40-49 worth 4, 50-59 worth 5 and 60+ worth 6.
   2. Makes field goals less than say, 40 or 45 yards worth 3 points (I’m not sure what a good dividing line is, my sense is 45. Looking at league stats would make it pretty clear.) Make anything beyond worth 4 points.

   Mainly, this affects the ends of games and keeps teams in a game even longer. Basically, the minimum safe lead becomes 2 touchdowns (14 points). For instance, under scenario ‘A’ a team down 10 late has a new path to tie, or even win the game. To tie, they need 2 50+ yard field goals. It’s a lot easier to move the ball to the 35 or so than to score touchdowns. Less time comes off the clock for each drive as well.

   Arguably there are also new strategic considerations that come into play. Does a team down 10 immediately settle for a 50+ yard field-goal to preserve time on the clock, or do they try to finish the drive and score touchdowns? When inside the 10, does a team settle for 2 now, or go for it on 4th down because 2 points isn’t worth it?

Of the 2, the variable-point field goal is more interesting, IMHO. But I like both and don’t think either is so crazy as to be dismissed without merit. I’ve had other thoughts, but these 2 I think are simple and enhance the game in interesting ways.

Michigan State beats Notre Dame in overtime last night using a fake field goal. The significance here is that Michigan State was down by 3, so if the play hadn’t worked, they would have lost and chances are the coach would be second-guessed into resigning.

Looking around at the games, I’m seeing a lot of really good, competitive and entertaining games that were played yesterday. The Clemson-Auburn game went into overtime as well; Umass almost pulled an “upset of the year” against Michigan; and the Iowa-Arizona game was a good one.

That seems to be the pattern for now- there were a lot of good games last week as well.

… is that anyone ever thought he was the second coming of Gale Sayers.

There’s really only 1 thing you need to know at this point: half the league is undefeated and half the league is winless. Being Week 1, speculation much beyond that is silly.

I will say, however, that I hope Rex Ryan’s portion of crow was tasty.

Couldn’t Calvin Johnson’s non-touchdown-catch been ruled, in fact, a catch by virtue of his being tackled immediately while in possession of the ball in the endzone?

The ball didn’t come out until well after he was down. In any other circumstance I can think of a play is ruled a touchdown and the play is over immediately. So if the ball crosses the goal line while in an offensive players possession, it’s a touchdown and their can be no fumble- even if there is no tackle. If the player is going out of bounds but is able to get the ball across the goal line prior to touching down out of bounds, it is a touchdown.

Some may object on “football move” grounds, which is the standard for field-of-play catches. But I don’t see how this can apply in the endzone since there is no football move- the offensive player is in the endzone with the ball which is a touchdown. Period. And anyways, in this case, Johnson was tackled immediately after catching it- so even if this was the normal field-of-play, there was no opportunity for a football move. He was down by contact.

Seems like an arbitrary change from the standard end zone possession rule interpretations.

Let the record show that the Saints won last night for the 2010 opener. However, they did it in lackluster fashion. Which probably means we’ll be treated to brilliant opinions about what’s wrong with the Saints and everything they had better get straightened out before it’s too late and the usual post-Super Bowl malaise type stories.

As for Favre, he had a rough night so now everyone will pronounce him too old to play anymore and that the Vikings made a huge mistake going to the lengths they did to get him back.

Until the story changes next week.

While reading this QB ranking column from Bill Simmons (which is leagues better than the silly one John Clayton wrote up. For starters, he’s got 14 different categories and he actually makes the list interesting. But I digress…) he mentions that David Tyree hasn’t caught another ball in professional football since his famous “helmet catch” in SB XLII.

For whatever reason, I found this unbelievable. My recollection was that Tyree was an annoyingly effective receiver that year- especially down the stretch where he suddenly became Pro Bowl caliber. Even if he wasn’t on the Giants now, surely he must be somewhere else, right? So I checked it out and sure enough, it’s true- injured in the 2008 pre-season and never played again.

So the final catch of his career is a “football lore” moment, immortalized and over analyzed for the rest of time. The flipside is that, he was a young receiver and it was basically his final play as a professional.

The football Gods are an interesting bunch.

This QB ranking list from Clayton is basically silly. He divides QB’s into 3 categories: elite, Chad Pennington, and hit-or-miss. So who’s “elite,” you ask?

Pretty much half the starting QB’s in the league. That’s all.

The word “elite” refers to the highest achievers of a group. You can’t throw half of the group into a category and call it “the elite.” I mean, a category that has Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning also has Tony Romo and Donovan McNabb? Really?

He needs a list-making lesson from Bill Simmons.

I suppose the title says it all. His season last year was much better than I thought him capable of. The man does seem to be made of different stuff than any other quarterback I can think of. So I guess I’ll leave it at wishing him luck for the coming season. Having the Super Bowl as the marker for success or failure makes for a long road.

But I have to admit, he’s probably the one guy you’d want for the job.

In general, I’ve always held holdouts in professional sports with disdain. My view, based on circumstance, will fall along familiar lines of honoring the contract terms or what does these athletes need more money for. So I guess, another way to say it is that I’ve never really thought about it much, but just didn’t have any sympathy for the athlete.

Having read this article by Bill Simmons, I realize there’s a lot more to it. Simmons is usually more of a humor writer, but this time around he does a nice job of presenting an argument. Highly recommended read for sports fans.

I remember the big hullabaloo when Urban Meyer resigned for health reasons from Florida. As I was reading through some blurbs about pre-season college rankings, the one on Florida mentioned him as the coach.

Huh?

Some quick searching revealed that his assistants convinced him to “un-resign” and take a leave-of-absence instead. Since then, he found out he had a crappy diet and he’s been spending more time with his family. He’s fixed the diet thing and he’s back from the leave. Apparently, his family time is also a permanent fix as well.

Of course, this is all well and good. I’m just wondering how the heck I whiffed on this particular news in the first place.

UPDATE: While on the subject, good for Nick Saban and Urban Meyer for telling agents and scouts to take a hike for the time being. If their kids can’t be disciplined enough to stay away and the agents, particularly, won’t practice some decency and stay away, then this is a good step. At least they’re sending the message to their players that they really do need to think twice about contact with agents. Especially considering the penalties that the program can face as a result of violations.

So Alabama is the number one team in the country, according to the preseason coaches poll.

So, given the accuracy of past college preseason polling, I guess that settles it. No need to play the games. It’s all been figured out already.

The Kickoff Classic is roughly a month away. Yes, I’m rounding down. So sue me. Would you rather it were farther away?

Thought not.

So now Boise St. joins the Mountain West while Utah joins the PAC-10, leaving the Mountain West. That leaves MW with 9 teams and no automatic bid to the BCS bowls. The Utes, on the other hand, now have a direct shot at the BCS.

Added Colorado’s jump to the PAC-10 and Nebraska’s shift to the Big-10 and I think it’s safe to say more changes are on the way. At some point, the Mountain West is going to make a bigger stink that they don’t get an automatic bid to BCS games. Now they can argue it’s cost them a team. If Boise St. is successful within the conference, how long before they decide to jump ship?

I’ve never bought into the notion of a playoff in college football. I think how teams matchup against one another are too important to have a playoff result in a satisfying outcome. The notion that the BCS is better than what it replaced has been shown to be false. The argument has just changed from who was more impressive in their bowl win to how the BCS shorted a team of a better ranking. My prediction for a playoff is people will argue that the best teams met early in the bracket, instead of the championship game.

Of course, the payout will be huge for a playoff. And that’s what will count in the end.

So the Big-12 remains, but only with 10 teams. Meanwhile, the Big-10, with the addition of Nebraska, has 12 teams. Got it?

Being a father of 2 kids who ask these sorts of questions, I sure hope that it gets straightened out before they’re old enough to become aware of this stuff.

When Pete Carroll left USC, I wrote that his seemingly inexplicable departure foreshadowed problems for the USC program.

Boy, was I right.

Given what happened with Urban Meyer, I wonder if Florida is next?