NASCAR: With X laps to go, put out a competiton yellow and remove all cars not on the lead lap (X determined by length or race). I don’t really care about Paul Menard and J. J. Yeley battling it out for 28th place at this point, and all they can do is wreck it for someone else.
Green-white-checker: I agree with this change, but don’t like the “race is over” rule when a yellow occurs. So I’d add that every race must end on green; if an accident occurs, restart green-white-checker. Yes it extends the race, but NASCAR finds planty of reasons to make the racing longer, so I’d think they’d be OK with extending the most exciting part of the race, the finish.
MLB: Replay to confirm HR calls; really, why not? The farce of seeing the umpires huddle to “discuss” whether or not a ball was a HR is just silly. I’d extend this to challenge whether a ball called fair is really foul.
Formalize player/bench warnings, something like yellow cards in soccer. A certain number of warnings would result in a suspension (e.g. third warning in 15 games = autoimatic ejection and 3-game suspension), but a player who hasn’t been warned cannot be immediately ejected. I’ll admit this would need a lot more detail, but right now the umpire’s only recourse against a player–even over trivial arguments–is ejection, and at times it’s like using a chainsaw to cut a steak.
A very minor change: A ground-rule double with less than 2 outs advances all runners 2 bases, with 2 outs it clear the bases. Currently it’s in the umpires’ judgment to decide position of baserunners, but usually they just award 2 bases even on deep 2B’s. In short no judgment is really exercised, so why not make a hard-and-fast rule that more closely reflects how the game is played.
I was talking about offense specifically, although ISTM that defensive players (and the team) might benefit more from spending the time getting ready for their assignment rather than showing their ass…
Of course the offense has 30 seconds to huddle up and have the QB tell them what play the coach says to run, so it doesn’t appear to be a problem because these days the “huddle” really only takes about 5 seconds.
But if players are spending 20 seconds doing the latest dance moves and then getting back to the huddle, then there’s a good 5-10 seconds blown on every play where that happens. That adds up to a lot of time that a lot of coaches would prefer to be spent making plays rather than celebrating them.
I’m not saying they should be a bunch of Spocks out there, but there is significant inefficiency happening here. The fact that you don’t hear about coaches fining players for it tells me that the league must be encouraging it.
My point was that offensive players don’t do this, at least not in any game I saw this season. Maybe you could refresh my memory with a specific example?
Somehow fix officiating. Hand coaches x number of challenges for video review. Maybe have an off-court booth of refs who watch the stream and can overturn calls. It’s just ridiculous for bad calls to pile up when they can be spotted and corrected by the television announcers in less than ten seconds. Give fat rewards to the most accurate refs.
Call traveling and double dribbles.
Somehow, someway, stop the flopping. The fans don’t like it. The players don’t like it. It’s a mockery of basketball. But good floppers give their teams a competitive edge so it is getting worse and worse every year. It must be done away with.
A shooter who leans into a defender to “pull a veteran move by drawing contact” will be awarded an offensive foul.
No more music during the actual game. If there must be music, it is not allowed during the fourth quarter or overtime.
Whoever thought it would be funny to have “sexy fat men” as a half time show will be summarily executed by having Shaq sit on his head.
I wouldn’t mind seeing major changes to the playoff system. This Bill Simmons’ article had some intriguing ideas. Or they could do away with conferences altogether. Top 16, reseed after each round.
Sorry, I’m at work. If you have the audacity to contend that no offensive players celebrate after a routine play, I think you’re the one making the extraordinary claim here.
In Union, if you score a try, the other team has to kick you the ball again. This seems unfair. In Sevens rugby, they do it like American football, with the scoring team kicking off.
Win or Die Trying rule: teams that tie the game in the last two minutes will forfeit the coin toss for overtime, giving the opposing team possession to start.
[ul]
[li]Move hashmarks out to college/high school width. Why should pros have it easy?[/li][li]Eliminate most of the namby-pamby quarterback protection rules. They’re players, just like the other 21 on the field.[/li][li]Mandatory pre-game steroid testing for all players.[/li][li]Create a trust to care for severely injured players. I’d fund it via a tax/fee on all teams.[/li][/ul]
NCAA Football:
[ul]
[li]Institute an 8 team playoff immediately.[/li][li]Revamp the reward scheme for games; penalize teams that play above/below their level.[/li][li](this one will be controversial) Require a certain percentage of roster players to be from that school’s home state. I’m tired of seeing “Oklahoma” teams where 99% of the players are from Texas, California or somewhere else.[/li][li]Require the SAME admission standards for athletes that are required for all students at that same University.[/li][li]Accredit schools’ academic requirements so that East BFE College doesn’t end up a powerhouse because they let any moron who can walk and chew gum in.[/li][/ul]
More MLB
The Mound - give the pitchers back a few inches
Two bags down the first base line, one for the runner, one for the fielder.
Bigger dimensions - home runs are boring. The most exciting play in baseball is watching a sharp line drive split the outfielders and roll all the way to the wall. The sight of someone trying to stretch a double into a triple (or triple into an inside the parker) should be at least a daily occurrence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Dee
My point was that offensive players don’t do this, at least not in any game I saw this season. Maybe you could refresh my memory with a specific example?
Quote:
Originally posted by An Arky
Sorry, I’m at work. If you have the audacity to contend that no offensive players celebrate after a routine play, I think you’re the one making the extraordinary claim here.
On second thought, I would like to actually get some kind of indication of how much time is possibly wasted by the offense per play, not just celebrations, but also sauntering up to the line to get set, etc. It’s just that it’s kind of hard to google something like that up. The point is, we all see exciting two-minute/one-minute drills at the ends of games and think, wow, that’s cool. But what about if that team hadn’t spent as much time celebrating and futzing around prior to getting set all game long? The two minute drill might not have been necessary. Then again, clearly, there can sometimes be a strategic advantage to eating the clock and keeping the other team’s offense off the field, or to score at the last possible opportunity and leave no time for the other team to reciprocate.
Seems like this is the type of thing to ask Dr. Z. He’s always putting a stopwatch to things…maybe I’ll write in and ask him.
I thought about paying attention to it during this weekend’s games, but playoff games are a different animal entirely and teams that get this far usually aren’t the biggest hotdoggers, anyway.
College Football.
I suspect absolutely no one will agree with my changes, but what the hey…
Schedule: Regular season: 10 game schedule. Spread over 15 weeks. Games on Saturday afternoons only.
Return to the Division I, Division II naming system. No more Bowl Championship Subdivision nonsense.
All teams organized into 12 team conferences. Each conference split into 2 6-team divisions. Each conference has a championship game. Only the conference winners go to a bowl game. Each bowl game has the same monetary payoff. Winners and losers get the same amount of money.
The Pac 10 and the Big 10 play in the Rose Bowl. Other conferences always play the same other conference in the same bowl, i.e., the ACC champion would always play the SEC champion in the Orange Bowl, for instance. These bowl games happen between Christmas day and New Years Day. The final bowl game is January 1st, at 7pm Eastern time. It is the Rose Bowl.
No one who holds a job with an NCAA program can vote for Top 25 lists. That means no more coaches polls.
No national champion. No individual awards like the Heismann.
Players cannot play their freshman year. They must be academic sophmores to be eligible to play. They will still have 4 years of eligibility, however. After his playing eligibility is over, the player will have 3 more years of free schooling.
The whole point of these changes would be to reintroduce amateurism to college football. Destroy the way schools can make gobs of money.
The BCS stays, in my dictatorial format, in 3 parts:
Part 1: Combination of the coaches/writers polls. History and all that. They’re usually pretty correct in the top 10 (how hard must it be to figure out who’s #16 or #19?). But the polls are not voted/released until October. The voters will be required to justify their top 8 before the playoffs.
Part 2: Strength of schedule. 2 non-conference games a year. They must be from teams from major conferences. No Division I-AA teams or directional schools. You shouldn’t need 8 home games to keep your program in the black.
Part 2a: The teams still have control of scheduling, but the penalties and rewards are severe. If you’re Wisconsin and you schedule a Big XII team, losing to Oklahoma will help your SOS more than beating Baylor. It will be possible to be #1 with one or two losses and be ahead of unbeaten teams with riskier scheduling.
Part 3: Oddsmaker’s poll (to replace computers). The oddsmakers do the research and are usually right. Give them a component: if teams A & B played on a neutral field, who would you favor? A is then ranked higher than B. And so on. (Keep it secret, so they can still fool their clients into betting for both teams in a game, of course).
Take the results and:
Eight team playoff at the end of the season. The top 8 teams play, period. If three Big XII teams are in the top 8, and the ACC champ is #9, the ACC champ will not be invited. If your conference is not as strong as another, too bad. Don’t think of it as punishment, the teams in the other conferences worked harder than you. It’s about them, not you.
Eliminate all ties and tie-for-losing points. All games have unlimited overtime and teams have just wins and losses and nothing else; if you lose in overtime you get nothing for it. Awarding points for overtime losses is a disgrace to sport. If you lose a game you have lost and deserve nothing for it, and there should not be ties in sport. If this means a team has to suck up a triple overtime, well, so be it.
Reduce the schedule to 72-76 games, cutting out as many back-to-back games as possible (which will help with #1)
Olympic ice surfaces.
No-touch icing.
All players wear CSA or UL approved helmets, with full face shields, also UL or CSA approved. No exceptions, no grandfathering.
Automatic penalties for contact to the head with a stick if the player touched is on his feet, irrespective of intent.
Massive league restructuring, with failing Southern teams such as Florida and Nashville moved to northern cities like Hamilton, Seattle, or Milwaukee.
Enforced limitations on the size of goalie equipment, to be inspected prior to every game; violations result in the goalie being suspended for ten games and the team fined $250,000.
In the NFL, I can’t believe nobody has suggested this: THE TEAM WITH THE BETTER RECORD HOSTS THE SUPER BOWL. Yeah, it confers some advantage. That’s what you get for having a better record. Let the home fans see the big game!
NFL:
A flying kick to the head will be an acceptable form of tackle, with an extra five yard bonus for actually kicking the helmet right off the ball-carrier’s head. Kicks to any other part of the body will be illegal, though.
At least half of all crew members must voluntarily forfeit one limb and/or eye of choice, to be replaced by steel or oak prostheses.
All crews must include at least one giant shaven-headed swarthy Malay, one raffish gentleman adventurer with soiled lace cuffs, one freed black slave, one dusky temptress with low-cut bodice and heaving bosom, one salt-of-the-earth Devon bosun who speaks incomprehensible West Country gibberish, one wholly deranged ancient castaway in rags, a drunken sawbones and a powder monkey, belike.
Dialogue coaches, with penalties for not using exchanges such as, “Them as dies’ll be the lucky ones” and “Take a cutlass, him as dares, an’ I’ll see the colour of his insides.” Wi’ cannikins o’ rum, by the powers!
Mandatory cannons, belike, wi’ raking broadsides, damn yer eyes, and stand by to come about, an’ board the poxed Dutch dogs, wi’ a curse an’ the Devil blast yer eyes, an’ ye may lay to that.
All boarding actions to feature pistols, rapiers, cutlasses, spontoons, axes, dirks and krisses. An’ there be no quarter, look’ee, for we hoist the black flag an’ sup in Hell tonight!
A race ends when one boat is crippled and/or sunk, wi’ a-topplin’ o’ masts an’ a somersaultin o’ the lookout into the briny deep, sa-ha, split, rend an’ sink me else, for there be no quarter asked or given {see above}. An’ nary a plank to be walked, for they be a 19th Century Invention.
Spectator boats be plump doves a-ripe for the pluckin’, d’ye see, wi’ bloodsome slaughter an’ then moidores, doubloons, an’ jewels o’ price for the takin’, an’ ravishment an’ sport o’ the dainty maidens, unless the Governor be payin’ a hansome price for the ransom o’ his daughter’s virtue, look’ee, else the crew will draw lots for her an’ be damned.
Compulsory looting and torching of any yacht club. An’ be damned else.
Rum, canary, madeira, baccy an’ laudanum are not performance enhancing stimulants and as such are exempt from random drug tests.
Why all the votes for an 8-team playoff in college football? A 16-team playoff would stretch from the end of the regular season culminating in the championship game on New Year’s Day. The Big Four bowls would rotate the championship game. The rest of the bowls have the option to either sign on as a playoff site sometime during the playoffs or go on as usual on New Year’s Day as an exhibition game (which is really no different than they are now). But absolutely, positively NO COLLEGE FOOTBALL AFTER NEW YEAR’S DAY!
Sorry for the shouting, but I feel very strongly about it.
And I love the idea of the Toilet Bowl. That could actually end up being very entertaining.
I agree with 99% of this. The only problem is that hockey, like soccer, can lend itself to extraordinarily long overtimes if there is no way of finally deciding a game. I’d keep a full 4th period, then the shoot-out. Other sports don’t have as much as a problem as hockey and soccer in neverending ties (they can happen, but it is just rarer). Quite frankly, watching 2 exhausted hockey teams playing the 3rd overtime period mid-season, both not trying to score, only keep the other team from scoring, is not my idea of compelling play. Playoffs are much, much more different - too much urgency on every game to let a shoot-out be the deciding factor. Let them play until they start dropping dead on the ice.
No more instigator rule. I’m of the mind that it will cut back on half the crap that goes on. The number of straight up goons will be kept down by the increase in the speed of the game. You will get players that can skate and fight and the fans will love them.
Shrink the league and put a hold on expansion. Florida and Atlanta can go in the East. Nashville and Phoenix in the west. Players will be distributed via a contraction draft run similar to the regular draft (last in the league picks first).
Any attempts at expansion will be done via the minor league teams. That will allow for a broadening of the farm system (to find the diamonds in the rough) and give a low cost way to expand interest in the sport.
Anyone caught even mentioning ways to increase scoring will be taken into an alley and beaten with a bag of pucks. The save is just as important and exciting as the shot.
Speaking of being beaten with a bag of pucks. Craig Leipold (former owner of the Nashville Predators and now current owner of the Minnesota Wild) will be forced to sell the Wild, will not be allowed to own another NHL franchise, and will be taken into an alley where a beaten will go on for the same amount of time as the NHL strike lasted.
Another vote for shortening the season. It’s hard on the players. It’s not a summer sport. It’s up against the NBA playoffs. There is no good reason for the season to go on for as long as it does.
Any healthy player who misses the first month of the season (see Scott Neidermayer) while under contract will not be allowed to play for the rest of the season. If you want to retire, do it. Don’t screw your team over by sitting on the fence.
I’m sure I’ll think of more, but that’s it for now.