Right; there’s a natural limit to what you can do after a play, elsewise, you get delay of game. But you don’t have to take the entire 30 seconds to get up to the line and snap the ball, time saved is timed saved.
I’m just wondering if there’s some wasted time involved that could conceivably contribute to teams running short on time at the end of the game; if it adds up to amount to a possession or a set of downs more or whatever.
We’ve all seen games where a team’s driving, but there’s simply not enough time left to get down the field and score. What if they had been more clock-efficient earlier on?
I don’t know, it’s kind of like being upset about a last second long field goal missing…if they had got it done earlier, they wouldn’t have had to rely on the kicker to win the game in the first place.
But I certainly wouldn’t stop at celebrations and sauntering; coaches certainly could manage the clock better sometimes. Didn’t the Jets under Edwards have a Clock Guy and still had bad clock management?
I heartily concur with Scissorjack, excepting the mandatory injury. I especially concur that spectator boats may be boarded and plundered, allowing the race yacht crews to balance the booty from the spectators vs. the purse from winning their race.
NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB: All players shall teach a two-week seminar in their home market’s public schools, during their sport’s off season. Such seminar shall be free of charge and on a legitimate academic subject.
More NCAA (I only really watch football, but other sports can play too):
No post-season play if your team’s graduation rate is more than one standard deviation from the undergraduate population as a whole. College transcripts of all players will become public domain knowledge. You get 4 years of eligibility and 5 years to graduate. In other words - bring back the student athlete.
NCAA football & basketball: All players shall take mandatory classes in communication studies and public speaking.
Since I’m a dictator, I’m going to take it a step further:
All coaches who answer legitimate press questions with coachspeak shall be boiled in oil.
Liven up these press conferences and interviews. You should not lose a game because another team reads a bulletin board.
All players who hint their team does not get enough “respect” will be subjected to the rack. The iron maiden if the team is heavily favored. Like NCAA tournament favorites who cry “keep hating”.
I’ve long proposed a game like this, and furthermore, it should have been played in Shea Stadium, because it’s located in Flushing.
Unfortunately (for that plan) Shea is a year away from demolition, and I don’t know that its replacement, Citi Field, is capable of being used for football even temporarily.
I’d make sure that wrestling was actually broadcast on a regular basis, not just the NCAA finals once a year on ESPN 17. And even then it gets preempted for badminton half the damn time.
I forgot the most important one: accusations of cheating, incessant appeals over the rules and lengthy legal wrangles will be avoided entirely, since they will be replaced with quarterdeck swordfights to the death. Belike.
Baseball salaries are so high, driving ticket prices up to the point that normal people have a hard time going to a game. This is the biggest problem with the sport IMO.
Salary caps fix that. Lots of people don’t like it, but I think it’s time for the regular Joe Schmoe to be able to take his family to a game again.
You have cause and effect reversed. Ticket prices and other revenues are high, which leads to high salaries. Ticket prices are determined by supply and demand only.
[ul]
[li]The Super Bowl is to rotate between ALL NFL stadiums!!! Football is meant to be played in the elements and it’s not like they’re going to fail to sell the Super Bowl just because it’s cold in Lambeau.[/li][li]Game clock stops to reset the chains after every first down (NCAA style, makes for great final drives).[/li][li]Eliminate the “horse collar” rule. If the shoulder pads are the nearest thing to grab, you should be able to grab it. An NFL players’ uniform is surprisingly streamlined and had to find something to grab otherwise.[/li][li]Revamp Defensive Pass Interference to give DBs a fighting chance.[/li][li]Change PI to a spot foul within 15 yards and a 15-yard penalty thereafter. Always an automatic first down.[/li][li]Full time referees who will make no less than the veteran player minimum.[/li][li]No blackouts. PERIOD.[/li][li]NFL Network gets added to basic cable.[/li][li]Require a ball carrier to have TWO FEET out of bounds before a “late hit” penalty is called for. I’m seeing too many penalties for hits that happened only fractions of a second after he stepped out. In many cases the DB had already committed to the tackle.[/li][li]All team names, records, identity, etc. belong to the city in which the team played for that period of time.[/li][/ul]
Make the Washington franchise (FKA The Bullets) get rid of those god-awful uniforms with the gold jerseys and black trunks. Yer supposed to be playing basketball ferchrissakes, not entering an Austin Powers GoldMember look alike contest!
Batter that hits foul with two strikes must, for the remainder of the at-bat, either bunt or let it go (and if the bunt goes foul, it’s an out like any other time). Or place one foot in the back of the batter’s box. Or swing one-handed. Or choke up on the bat. Something. That a batter can hack and slash and flail and thrash an unlimited number of times with no penalty whatsoever (and wearing out the pitcher in the process) is ludicrous. No wonder golfers have no respect for this game.
You enter the batter’s box, you stay there for the duration of the at bat. Putting one foot out gets a warning; putting a foot out again or completely leaving the batter’s box is an out.
Pitcher is allowed one…repeat one…here, a little more emphasis, ONE…unsuccessful pickoff attempt per at-bat. Second failed attempt advances batter and all baserunners one base. Keeping 'em honest is fine and good, but if you want to waste everyone’s time going for a cheap out, you’d better make it count. NOW. Again, I find it ridiculous, if not completely insane, that a pitcher can literally play catch all he wants, all he freakin’ damn wants, without the slightest penalty. Oh yeah, if the runner advances a base, it’s a successful steal and not subject to pickoff restrictions. So if he really, really wants to play catch all day, all he needs to do is give up lots of unearned runs.
Bigger fields. Never mind how or why, the home run has gotten too easy. Make 'em earn it again. And at the same time increase triple and even the-hard-kind-of-home-run chances.
Oh, and also make a ball that bounces of the wall a triple. A bounce-over is almost a home run, right? Makes sense, right?
No one is allowed to discuss the 1986 World Series or Bill Buckner without answering a questionnaire demonstrating a rudimentary knowledge of game 6, the Series, and baseball in general. Questions include:
Even if Buckner fielded that grounder cleanly, what might have prevented him from making the out?
What was the big blunder that ensured that the Red Sox would not win game 6 in the 10th?
Give the complete box score for Game 7 (you know, the game that decided the series, you freaking monomaniacal morons).
Soccer
How about this…a line, even or about even with the edge of the penalty area. Or one-third up the field. Whatever is sensible. Offensive player without the ball crosses the line without at least one defender besides the goalie behind it, bang, it’s offsides, whistle, opposing team gets free kick. A hard, definite, easily-enforcable barrier for offsides which also effectively eliminates that asinine “offsides trap”, which as far as I’m concerned is nothing but an abuse of the rules that shouldv’e been closed ages ago.
Yellow card penalties with teeth. A penalty in a player’s own half of the field should be penalized with a corner kick at the least. In the opponent’s half, a free kick from the offsides line will suffice.
A player that flops, overacts, or otherwise acts like a total jerk one time gets only the usual penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. Nobody’s perfect, and I understand that there’s a lot of pressure to win. However, any player who makes a habit out of this crap will face stiffer penalties…first multiple game suspensions without pay, upward to complete prohibition from postseason and championship play, and all the way up to a complete ban from the sport (though with the other punishments it should rarely go that far). Furthermore, any and all documented evidence of said garbage, even if it was not penalized at the time, can and will be used to assess future punishments. Throw the bums out!
Division I-A football
No playoff.
No ANYTHING. The Division I-A football championship is the biggest joke in college sports, with slightly more credibility than a pairs figure skating gold medal (and almost as much prestige), and it’s far too late at this point to slap a Band-Aid on it, assuming that all the entrenched power brokers are even going to let that happen without clawing the sport to shreds.
And even if you allow 8 or even 16 teams, how is that even going to make a dent in the howls of outrage? That’s still a tiny fraction of Division I-A. The 64-team college basketball championship has at least a dozen teams every year that clearly don’t have the slightest prayer, and it’s not completely free from controversy. Anyone who thinks a playoff will “settle” anything is deluded. If anything, the first time an undeserving team wins or even finishes runner-up in what’s now supposed to be a legitimate championship will cause a national uproar.
The hell with it all. No freakin’ Division I football championship. Let’s put the focus back on where it should be…ferocious rivalries, traditions, bragging rights, bowl game pageantry, the search for future NFL stars, and of course great athletes giving their all every game and rallying an entire university behind them. There’ll still be plenty to debate about, and the opinions of a coach or sports writer won’t matter more than anyone else’s.
Anyone who wishes to offer an alternative to the way Division I-AA, II, and III championships are decided is free to do so. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
ALL sports
There is no asterisk, there never was an asterisk, and there never will be an asterisk. Either the record stands or it doesn’t. So I don’t wanna hear about it no more, all right?
All racing of two-year-olds would cease. All stock horse futurities for two-year-olds (cutting and reining) would cease. All age-based competitions in those sports would be pushed back by a year to allow bones, tendons, ligaments, and musculatures to mature enough to handle the demands being placed on them.
All saddleseat horses would be ridden only in keg shoes or barefoot. There would be no hoof pads allowed. No action chains, and anti-soring rules would be rigorously enforced by a body administered by a nationally recognized humane group and completely unaffiliated with the industry.
Any golfer who doesn’t respect a baseball player should be compelled to bat in a hostile stadium against a pitcher throwing 95 mph. None of this, “I was distracted by a twig breaking or someone in the crowd blowing his nose” 100 yards away crap.
No comparisons of any kind, at all, whatsoever, any reason, period, 100%, this means you, to Supreme God-King Eldrick.
No comparing Vijay Singh to Tiger. No comparing Annika Sorenstam to Tiger. No comparing Ernie Els, David Duval, Mike Weir, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Michelle Wie, or that kid who looked totally awesome in Q school to Tiger. No comparing Roger Federer or Michael Jordan to Tiger. Hell, no comparing Babe Didrickson Zaharias to Tiger.
He’s in a league of his own. He’s otherworldly. He took a game that’s endless frustration and pain and horror for roughly 99.9% of everyone who’s ever tried it and made it look like kindergarten. He’s accomplished things no human being should ever be allowed to even boast about.
There is no other golfer like him on any level. Every other golfer in the world stinks compared to him. He’s making Phil Mickelson…Phil Mickelson!..look like a rank amateur. Even when he doesn’t win (which, admittely, happens more often than you’d expect), he’s up there: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th. Think Jeff Gordon can claim as much?
And there’s no end in sight. The guy hasn’t turned 40 yet, for crying out loud. Every time there’s a setback, the tiniest little setback (which invariably has the idiots bleating that the nightmare is finally over), he invariably roars back twice as strong as before. There is absolutely no such thing as a “slump” for him (unless finishing slightly worse than the top 10 every fourth tournament or so counts as a freakin’ slump). No down. No trial and tribulation.
How the hell can you compare anything to this? It’s like asking who the “other Superman” or “other Chiyonofuji” is. No such thing. No basis for comparison. Nothing.
So let’s all just watch and be awed week in and week out and cut this nonsense about someone else on the planet even beginning to measure up to him. All right?
P.S.: Anyone who cites Tiger to decry how lousy the LPGA is gets a 3 wood in the face.
