FOOTBALL: THE 3 POINT CONVERSION
Let’s say a team scores a touchdown with only seconds left in the game, but are still 3 points behind. To get a chance to tie the game, they must score a touchdown from the line of scrimmage . . . at the 50 yard line!
FOOTBALL: BOWLING FRAM OVERTIME
Similar to college football, but diferent. Each team gets 4 downs. The team that scores the most points, or GAINS THE MOST YARDS if no points are scored, wins the game. Teams start the first down from their own 40 yard line. A teams gains are automatically ended if there is a turnover. (I heard some high school games in Montana are settled this way)
BASKETBALL: THE 3 POINT DUNK
Any dunk by a player under 5-5" counts as 3 points.
HOCKEY: MAKE IT 4 ON 4 THE ENTIRE GAME
Since 4 on 4 overtime is so exciting, why not make it that way the entire game? I would allow for larger rosters for more lane shifts, of course.
BASEBALL: FOUR FOULS AND YOU ARE OUT
To cut down on the ridiculous amount of time it seems to play a game, call a player out after 4 fouls. A third out cannot be scored by this rule, and this rule would be waived in the ninth inning.
Basketball: Body-Checking
You can run into anyone who isn’t in the air. This just makes sports more fun to play and watch. Bigger, shorter people would be good at the sport.
Waterpolo: You can swim underwater with the ball as far as you want, you must still surface to score. This will make it harder to ref, but much more tactical.
Soccer: You can hit the ball with your hands, like a puck in hockey, you just can’t carry it.
Eliminate offsides. “But it’ll lead to cherry picking and fast-break offenses and cheap goals and blah blah blah.” My question: What’s your point? The game right now is extremely low-scoring, so it’s not like defenses need any more help. Besides, I’ve always been of the opinion that if you allow an attacker to blow by you for an easy goal, it’s really no one else’s damn fault but your own.
Faking an injury results in an red card with a minimum two-game suspension. Every time I see someone use this unsportsmanlike, cowardly, childish, and utterly reprehensible tack to get an opposing player carded, it just tears my guts out. The fact that this doesn’t draw even a yellow now is scandalous. For crying out loud, throw the bums out!!
Any yellow card results in a penalty kick; any red card results in the same and a corner kick if the penalty kick misses. I’m tired of seeing players do something dirty and only give up a lame free kick which leads to nothing. Let’s make the penalties penalties, all right?
A win is worth one point plus the margin of victory (draws are still worth one point). More emphasis on offense, less sitting on one-goal leads. 'Nuff said.
In playoff games, overtime is to be unlimited and played without goalkeepers. With no bleepin’ bleep shootouts.
Basketball
Permit hand checking, forearm checking, chest checking, belly checking, thigh checking…heck, any kind of checking so long as it doesn’t push the ball carrier back (and the defender always gets the benefit of the doubt). Holding, tripping, striking, etc. should still be illegal.
Two free throws for all fouls. I think the game’s progressed enough that we don’t have to worry about boring “free throw wars” anymore.
Furthermore, if the foul’s on the defense, the offense keeps the ball. Make the defenders a little more honest and prevent tiresome foul-fests in the final minutes.
Eliminate the backcourt violation. Again, we’ve come far enough, and it’s superfluous with the shot clock anyway.
Eliminate “illegal defense”, whatever the hell that is.
Either call travelling the same for everyone or simply don’t require dribbling anymore. Hell, it’s not like most teams aren’t finding scoring difficult enough as it is.
Hockey
Permit two-line passes. If hockey was meant to be a showcase for “pinpoint, laserlike, sharp, precise, stop-on-a-dime, atom-splitting, subatomic accuracy”…HOCKEY!..then Ernie Els is a defenseman. Let’s open the game up a bit. Besides, this is the only reliable way of foiling “turtling” strategies like the neutral zone trap that doesn’t involve adding some insane mutant rule that’ll never be enforced.
Other than that, just enforce the rules that already exist. Lord knows I’m not the first one to suggest this.
I fully expect violent disagreements. It’s okay, I’m used to it. Thank you.
I don’t agree with removing offsides. I see your point, DKW, but IMHO it’ll just lead to a world of tedious long-ball goal-hanging matches - each team playing six at the back who just hoof it up to four strikers over 6’ tall so that they can nod it in or knock it down to another striker to tap it in.
I’m not bothered either way about faking injuries, but I think referees need to crack down even harder on booking players for it and for diving.
You’d be happy for a yellow to lead to a penalty?? Blimey, nobody would ever risk tackling anyone!
I like your idea of including the margin of victory in a win: but to be realistic (a couple of 6-0 wins and you’re running away with the league) I’d say one point for a draw, two for a win plus one extra point for every two goals scored (maybe even for the losing side?).
My own rule I’d like to see brought in is an end to defenders shielding the ball by blocking forwards out. I don’t see how that’s different from any other kind of body-block, and it would allow strikers to put a lot more pressure on defenders.
Basically I don’t think there’s an awful lot wrong with the rules of the game…I don’t like low-scoring matches, but I think allowing penalties left, right and centre would make it a bit bizarre.
College Football: If you make the team, you must have a 2.5 GPA on your own, without grade inflation because the teacher shows favoritism to football players, or the undue pressure put on them by unscrupulous coaches who think that sports are more important than academics.
If DKW’s soccer suggestions ever came into effect, I’d probably stop watching the game. The only one I agree with is that penalties shouldn’t be used to decide crucial matches. Two 15 minute overtime periods (without Golden Goal, which has led to some of the most boring half-hours of football I’ve ever seen) and after that if there’s no winner it goes to a replay.
If, during the Olympics you fuck up and put the bar, board, mat or whatever at the wrong height, place or whatever, your home team is automatically disqualified. And the Russian team, lead by the most arrogant blond twit in the Universe, gets to go again but is automatically called “shithead” and everyone BUT her gets to go again.
I think that’s only fair as the Russian gymnastic team leader was such a fucking asshole that she not only deserves an automatic disqualification she also deserves a sharp, hard and unmitigated slap to the face for being such a poor looser.
Spitting on ANY Olympic medal is an immediate case for casting this person as a massive, stuck up asshole that isn’t worth the very spit she flung on ANY medal. I’d turn the bitch into fertilizer but she only weighs 80 pounds or so and isn’t worth her weight in shit…
Basketball: Years ago, MAD magazine did a bit in which after every play, they stopped and explained what just happened to all the wives and girlfriends sitting in the bleachers.
Figure skating: I would like to see a rule prohibiting the use of current Top 40 hits in the freestyle competition. It’s bad enough I have to listen to Whitney or Maria or Britney belting it out on the radio–do I have to watch some 16-year-old emoting passionately to it, too? Classical music or Oldies only, please (“Oldies” being defined as “old enough to be taken out of the charred oak barrel and bottled”).
Hockey: Anybody caught deliberately body-checking gets kicked out of hockey forever, permanently. I remember watching the Chicago Black Hawks back in the 1960s with my dad, and guess what? They actually set up plays, and passed the puck, and aimed it at the goal. They didn’t just charge around like demented warrior robots. I had to stop watching hockey a while back, when it got to be just Battlefield Earth.
Bass fishing: I would like to see a “maximum size” rule for outboards. It’s not fair that the guy with the biggest, fastest engine can cover more territory and have a better chance of catching fish. A level playing field, please (so to speak). And I think the size ought to be about half of what they’ve got now. Where’s the sport in using a jet engine to cover the entire 500-square-mile reservoir?
Bicycle Racing:
All riders will be issued American-style football pads and helmets. All riders will also be issued broomsticks. This should make the Tour de France much more interesting!
Baseball: No charging the mound. It never used to be allowed, could get you tossed out of the game and still should.
Hockey: Knock off the brawling. Whack someone deliberately and start a fight and you’re out for the rest of the game.
Football: No foreign substances on one’s person. No spraying PAM on the uniform to make it slippery, no gob of bengay in the belt to smear under an opponents eyes and things like that.
Basketball: Raise the hoops. It’s gotten too easy now. Make 'em work for their millions.
In Football, if BOTH sides commit a penalty on a play, the play is scrapped, and doesn’t count. “Offsetting penalties” is the call, and the play is done over.
I HATE that!
Hypothetical Example:
The Rams are playing the Titans. Kurt Warner throws a touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce, but there are multiple flags. The referee announces, “Holding on the offense; facemasking on the defense. Penalties offset. Repeat the down!”
This rule rewards the team that screwed up worse! The team that performed better (apart from the penalties) is punished. The Titans are jumping for joy, HAPPY to replay the down! The team that scored is the only one being punished.
My proposal: if penalties offset, THE PLAY STANDS! Touchdown Rams.
Football. Add firearms. give the QB a small caliber hand gun, with only 4 shots or so, for the whole game. He can use it on officials if he likes. maybe a couple of others to be distributed and concealed as left up to each team. Give each team a team Sniper, somewhere in the stadium, with a limited number of bullets. Snipers can take each other out, so the will want to try to conceal themselves. Snipers also have the option of taking out the officials, sportscasters, and team mascots, as well of course as the players on the field.
This would cut down on player salarys, and olympic marksmanship shooters would have a way to go pro.
Body armor could be worn by players I suppose, but that may take the fun out of it.
In any violent sport (hockey in particuluer), the players have to stop beating on each other and bashing each other’s teeth in every fifteen minutes. Then they should sit on the (ice, field, whatever) and tell each other how they feel, and share their emotions or whatever. It would look good on national television.
