By: Martin Rand, III
Date: September 20, 2011
The NFL is one of the few sports that do a lot of things right. When it comes to honoring the the past players and protecting its employees from harm, they usually make the right calls; but, the NFL also do things that are wrong.
 |
| When asked if they agreed with my rule changes, all the refs raised their hand in agreement. |
One of the things it gets wrong are the rules. After watching week two of the NFL, I can't help but feel like some the rules need to be changed or done away with altogether.
There are four rules in particular that need some refinement; and no, neither my New York Giants nor my Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell victim to one of these rules I propose changing. These rule changes will make for a better product on the field.
In no particular order, here the rules that need to be changed immediately:
- Roughing the Passer
- Offensive Holding
- Defensive Pass Interference
- Roughing the Kicker
This weekend, John Abraham, an Atlanta Falcon defensive end, lightly pushed the QB milliseconds after he threw the ball. The QB barely moved but, just in case, Abraham still caught him to prevent him from falling. The referee still called roughing the passer! The spirit of the rule is to prevent defensive players from hitting QBs long after they throw the ball, but NFL refs act like they can't see the intent of a player and throw their flag on whim. So, this rule needs to be taken out the rule book. Until refs smarten up and see most times a player is falling into the QB or the QB is faking like he got hit hard, take it out. It's disrespectful to the other football players who actual get hit on every play.
An offensive player shouldn't hold back a defensive player from tackling someone. The problem I have with this rule is the penalty. Moving the line of scrimmage back ten yards is way too costly for a simple mistake like holding. The thing about holding is that it happens on every single play. The only time it gets called is when a defensive player gets dragged to the ground, or when the defensive player is in the open and an offensive player obviously grabs him. The penalty should be five yards.
Once again, I have a problem with the penalty for committing this infraction. When pass interference is called, whatever yard line the wide receiver was attempting to catch the ball at automatically becomes the new line of scrimmage for the offense. The offense also gets a new set of downs. This means, an offense can start a series on their own 15-yard-line, throw the ball 60 yards down the field, the wide receiver could not catch the ball and force the defensive back into an interference call and the offense can now move 60 yards up the field. This is unfair. A defensive hold should be penalized with a simple replay of the down.
This is one of the most frustrating calls in the history of sports. A kicker or punter kicks the ball and doesn't get the kind of kick he wanted. Meanwhile, a defensive player jumps trying to block the kick and barely grazes the kicker; but the kicker falls down like he just got hit by a truck and the ref throws a flag. The penalty is the offense gets the ball back with a fresh set of downs. This call needs to go. So what if kickers and punters are smaller than other football players. When they're on the field, they can get hit too. These are grown men out there not little boys. There's no need to protect them like this.
NFL, make the adjustments. The league will be better for it; and you won't have to put refs in tight situations late in games on whether they should make a call or not because of the penalty.
| Tweet |
