As you’re probably aware, offenses in the NFL have been scoring at historic and increasing rates in the past several years. The 5 highest-scoring NFL seasons since 1965 have all occurred in the past 6 seasons (including the current year, which is on pace for an all-time record).
What, if anything, should be done about this? Personally, I think the balance has swung a bit too far. It feels like any team with a dynamic passing offense (of which there are maybe a dozen at any given time) just has an inherent edge over even the best defenses. I had a few ideas about what might be done to stem the tide. I like the first two below:
Cap defensive pass interference at 15 yards. Yes, this incentivizes defenders who are beaten to grab and hold, but they do it this way in college and it works fine. Moreover, even aside from concerns about overall scoring, these 50-yard penalties sprinkled throughout the game – that basically come down to a ref’s judgment call – have an outsized impact on the game, and it kinda sucks.
Ban gloves for eligible receivers. Or, at least ban any gloves that provide a measurable increase in friction or stickiness. The NFL long ago banned stick’em (or however it’s spelled), but the modern receivers’ gloves seem a lot more effective. I don’t get why the league allowed them in the first place; it would be as if kickers were allowed to wear shoes with little explosive charges in the toe that increased their distance by 25%.
Call offensive penalties more strictly. This I don’t care for, but the league could decide to tighten the standards for, say, offensive holding, which would provide a counter-weight for their decision to call illegal contact more strictly.
Other ideas? Is this even a problem?
High scoring is a function of moving the ball quickly, which means that to slow it down you have to curb the passing game. Your suggestions are OK, but if you really want to do that you have to repeal the Mel Blount rule and let the corners jam the receivers a lot more, which will take a lot of the speed out of the game and return the running game to relevance.
The rebalanced offense will have to grind out the yardage, which will have the added effect of fewer bonecrushing hits on “defenseless” receivers. It will also make play-action passes more effective, because currently, outside of Adrian Peterson and maybe a few others everybody knows that the pass is coming.
Kicking has gotten too good and scoring with field goals has become too routine. So restrict field goal opportunities.
No team can score on a field goal unless:
It’s within the final two minutes of a half, or
The other team has a higher score, or
They have the lead but it’s by five points or less, or
The team’s last score was not a field goal. (And this one is open to debate.)
Sounds complicated but the basic idea is to prevent teams from marching up and down the field and kicking field goals. The primary scoring means should be touchdowns. Field goals would basically be an equalizer; they would be a means for a team to stay within range of defeating an opponent that’s in the lead.
As my wife and I were watching the Packers / Ravens game this afternoon, she noted, with amusement, that a 45-yard field goal was referred to as “routine”…when she and I were growing up in the 1970s, such a kick was something less than routine.
Yes, kickers have gotten tremendously better over the past 20-30 years, and the NFL has already, once before, taken steps to rein in field goals, with the “K-ball” rule (forcing kickers to use brand-new balls, which are more difficult to kick). At that time (mid-1990s, IIRC), the concern was that kicking had gotten so good that teams were opting for field goals, instead of going for touchdowns (which the NFL considered to be more exciting). Frankly, it doesn’t seem like it’s done very much to reduce field goal accuracy (it probably had a bigger impact on kickoffs, as did moving the kickoff line to the 30, but the NFL did an about-face on that last year, when they decided to try to limit kickoff returns out of concussion fears).
The thing is, teams don’t generally march up and down the field and kick field goals…they march up and down the field and score touchdowns. Restricting the field goal would likely just force teams to go for it on 4th down more often, and probably yield even more touchdowns.
How about pass interference requiring more than incidental contact past 15 yards (or some distance)? Set a standard of egregious contact as the requirement for interference.
Too late to edit / add: last year, the average NFL team attempted 2.0 field goals (making, on average, 1.7 field goals). Year to year, NFL teams have averaged between 1.8 and 2.0 field goal attempts per game for the past 20 years or so (BTW, the K-ball was introduced in 1999, and had no impact on frequency of FG attempts). If you go back a generation, to the 1980s or 1970s, field goals were attempted slightly less often (you get an average of 1.6 or 1.7 attempts per game in that era), but it’s not a huge swing.
All in all, if your goal is to throttle back NFL offenses in general, restricting the field goal seems like an ineffective way to do it, IMO. Coaches don’t choose to kick field goals; they settle for field goals when they fail at their primary goal (scoring touchdowns).
I think it ought to be left alone. The NFL’s far and away the most popular sport in the U.S. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Mess around with the rules too much, you end up like arena football.
The NFL has changed the rules to enhance scoring. I think it has gotten out of hand. I guess I’m with the OP. There are some things that I think can and could be changed.
1.) I don’t understand why the QB can throw the ball away when he is out of the pocket. Intentional grounding should be intentional grounding. I’m all for protecting the QB but some of what goes on is ridiculous.
2.) You could let the defense defend a pass attempt without having to turn to face the ball. Currently, a defender can knock down a pass but if his back is to the ball it is interference.
3.) Narrow the goal posts. This will probably have little effect because the kickers have gotten so skilled that most kicks go near dead center.
3.) This will never happen but it should. Make the goal posts a target for the kickers. Put a bar across the top of the goal posts and the kick has to go through the square. This would allow the defense to have a greater chance at blocking a field goal because oftentimes the kicker would have to kick it lower. With that change I would say that a missed field goal turns the ball over to the spot of the kick, not the scrimmage line. To make it more onerous, make it the spot where it was kicked plus ten yards.
4.) Make the after point conversion meaningful. Move the kick back 20 yards or more. If the team elects to go for two the have to make it from the five yard line. That would add more strategy to the game.
I don’t mind the gloves. I guess you could make a rule that if the temperature is below 45 degrees at game time gloves are allowed. Trying to catch a football with cold hands is not easy. Give the receivers a bit of a break.
As an aside, one of the (apparently intractable) flaws in Asssociation Football/soccer for the US demographic is the low number of goals scored and now we’re proposing a raft of regulations to reduce the number of goals kicked in gridiron? D&R
I don’t think this is really a problem. I plotted the scoring averages per year (since 1970) here. Yeah, there’s an overall climb, but it’s been relatively slow and steady. I’m not really that bent over what is basically a 3-4 point increase. Heck, it’s not even clear if it’s due to the changing rules, or just the changing offenses (while Chip Kelly gets a lot of press for his hurry up style, guys like Brady and Manning have been running the hurry-up for years now).
Capping defensive interference? Sure, wouldn’t make a huge difference. College does it, it’s fine.
Ban gloves? Nah, I like seeing cool catches. And to be honest, gloveless receivers look weird to me.
Call offensive penalties more strictly? Definitely not. Well, maybe offensive pass interference gets called less than it should - but if you’re telling me you think we need more holding calls, you’re nuts. Yes, I think there’s holding on every play (or at least the vast majority of plays) but I think the way the game is now, defenses would probably be unstoppable. Clearly you didn’t see the Chiefs-Raiders game today in which Terelle Pryor got sacked 10 times his makeshift offensive line. And a holding call is such a drive killer as is.
R.P. McMurphy’s ideas are more strategic, and could be a possibility. Another one I’ve seen bandied about is that before any kick or punt, the player kicking has to have participated in the previous play - so you have to decide if you want your field goal kicker in on an important third down play, or decide if you just want one of your wide receivers to punt.
I say take away the extra point and have every touchdown followed by a two-point attempt. When something like 99.97% of extra point attempts are successful, it’s not really a “play” anymore. The two-point play would be far more exciting, and scoring would be more interesting. Plus, we’d start to see teams get pretty good at the plays required of that situation, which would would help redzone play in general (defenses too, as they learn to stop it). Anything that encourages more varied play is a good thing in my book.
I’d like that. It’s not automatic, but a defender with his back turned to the ball gets *zero *leeway: any contact is DPI. In general I think DPI is called too often, regardless of how big the penalty is.
Yeah, I think a lot of it simply strategy: teams are realizing that a “run first” offense is basically a bad offense.
But even if the increase looks moderate in absolute numbers, it *feels *like a big shift, like there are no great defenses anymore. There are plenty of teams that dominate with their offense, that move the ball up and down the field at will almost every week, and there are plenty more who are just a rung below that level. There are no more teams that dominate the game with their defense. It seems like a great defense today doesn’t stop other teams, just slows them down and holds them under 21 with regularity. Or maybe it’s a defense that gives up their share of yards, but gets a ton of turnovers.
:shrug: Obviously it’s very subjective, and an aesthetic preference.
It didn’t used to. But even if we don’t want to ban gloves entirely, I think it’s totally reasonable to rein in the technology. It’s like golf: there are some club/ball designs that provide too much of an edge and throw the game out of whack. Just set a limit for the coefficient of friction relative to a football.
Looks like something happened in about 1980 and in 2005 - the graph went from being mostly below 20 PPG to being roughly 20 in 1980, and in 2005, it went from being around 20 to a steady climb since.
What would have happened rules-wise or innovation-wise that would account for those changes?
There were several rule changes in the mid-to-late 70s which opened up the passing game (most notably, not allowing the defenders to contact receivers after 5 yards). I imagine that was a factor in the first area on the graph.
That’s the point. They have been messing around with the rules and its all been in the favor of the offense. Yesterday Malcolm Jenkins made the perfect hit on Thompkins and knocked the ball out. They called him for a 15 yard penalty even though he did everything right. He hit with his shoulder right at the ball. But because the receivers head moved when Jenkins back hit the facemask he was called for a helmet to helmet hit. Its getting very one sided on the part of the offense.
Hereis a picture. If it is not clear, Jenkins is going away from the camera not to the right. The hit is shoulder to the ball. The receivers facemask hits the nametag on has the hit is being made. How can the defense play effectively if that will be a 15 yard penalty?
It does seem to me that we’re seeing some personal fouls called because the hit looks bad, or looks like it must have been a helmet-to-helmet hit, when seen in real-time (which is the only way that the officials can see it when throwing a flag, of course)…but, when a viewer has the benefit of slow-mo, or better camera angles, it’s clear that there was nothing illegal about the hit.
I think that this may be a situation in which the officials have been given rules to enforce which aren’t entirely clear, or they’re reacting more to what looks like it must be an illegal hit, based on how the ballcarrier’s body reacts, versus the visual evidence of how the defender hit him.
Along those lines I’d change the PAT rule by making it optional. The scoring team can either take a 7-point TD, or else take a 6-point TD with the option of going for 2 points. I’d also add the college rule that defenses can run back the 2pointer and score points themselves.
As for scoring in general, scoring is way way up in college football too. Passing has gotten too easy. I’d make the football a bit bigger and harder to throw.
Passing offense is getting out of hand, and the biggest change leading to this was the 2005 (?) change in enforcement of the rules regarding defensive contact. After the Pats kicked the shit out of the Colts by beating up their receivers, the NFL was afraid that was going to be a new trend. But enforcement became way too tight - defenders can barely touch receivers. This has created a difficult and boring to watch scheme of pass defense. These rules should be reverted and defensive players should be able to get more handsy with receivers.
I think there should be two grades of pass interference - incidental and flagrant, kind of like the old facemask penalty. Of course since the NFL did away with that, they probably wouldn’t be receptive to this. But I think flagrant pass interference (like pulling a receiver down to the ground as the ball is in the air) should be a spot fowl, but incidental should be a 10 yard penalty and automatic first down. So much of the pass interference calls are so ridiculously ticky tacky… and shouldn’t be called in the first place… that at least we’d give them an option to limit the damage of these weak ass calls while still not setting up an incentive for a beat defensive player to just tackle the receiver 40 yards down the field.
And here’s my big shocker:
Eliminate forward progress rules. Spot the ball where the ball was when the carrier was downed. If a defender can hit a carrier so hard that they fall backwards, then that’s where the ball is spotted. If a well-coordinated gang tackle carries a guy a few yards back before he can down himself, reward them. The refs can still blow plays dead when the carrier is clearly in control of the defense - like when you see a gang tackle turn into a blocking sled where they drag the carrier for 5 seconds. But if a receiver gets 1 inch past the first down line, and then gets blasted by a defender with a textbook hit that knocks him back 2 yards and downs him, that shouldn’t be a first down. This would be a massive change, I realize, but for the better. It would allow for hard hitting defenses to dominate a game again. It would generally slow down offensive progress and scoring. It’s more satisfying to watch.
The NFL needs to relax its attempt to keep injuries down. They need to acknowledge it’s a violent game, and while they will do what they can through protective technology and enforcement against legitimately dirty plays or dangerous plays very likely to cause injury, sometimes shit happens. The players are very well compensated and know the risks. Violence is a core part of the identity of football.
They’re never going to adopt that kind of attitude. They’re worried about lawsuits and that the head trauma issue is going to erode their business in a very big way. So the last thing they’re going to do is change the rules to encourage huge hits.
I think the NFL needs to relax in its attempt to keep injuries down the way they’ve been doing (by penalizing big hits, etc.) I think they’re missing the real causes of injuries, which are 1) everyone’s on HGH and growing too damn big for their bodies, and 2) helmets/pads are just as much of a weapon as armor and probably responsible for the high concussion rate.
Basically, instead of looking at penalizing everything, look at the equipment and supplement use.
