I can pretty much fix the things that are wrong with football. It just takes a little tough love and enforcing a few rules, using some common sense. Football is just like life and sometimes you get into a rut and continue to do lame things out of force of habit or because everybody else does it or because change is too hard. It’s not too hard, in fact, when I clap my hands all the fixes outlined below will magically happen.
No More Replay
Instant replay is killing football. Nobody knows what a catch or possession of the ball is anymore. Replay takes too long and us guys watching see what the right call should be hours (seemingly) before the officials do. The original calls are almost always correct and if a game gets decided by a bad call, who cares? Besides, most male viewers are married, so they’re used to living with bad decisions. The Upside: doing away with replay would allow fans to celebrate or get really pissed off in real-time without having to see what the replay official says. The flow of the game will be saved and because we won’t have to spend hours watching replays from every possible angle, they can televise more fights in the stands or capture more footage of coaches arguing with players.
No More Awkward, Meaningless Interviews
We’re banning on-field football interviews. At halftime, after the game, on the sideline, they all have to go. Occasionally cute girls asking inane questions to pissed off coaches or sweaty, tongue-tied players … what’s the point? It’s embarrassing and cliché. It’s not journalism or breaking news or on-the-spot reporting, it’s just a tired sports practice that wastes everyone’s time. The people broadcasting these games are sheep, all following the sheep in front of them and making every televised game a scripted, crappy rerun of the game played the day before. Now, I know this decision is going to cost some people their jobs, but there’s just way too many analysts and sideline reporters and rules interpreters and former players in funny-looking, pimped-out suits. Oh ya, and we’re canceling the interviews after the game where the player or players come out in their underwear and talk to seventeen ex-players who are freezing their asses off and hugging each other like long-lost friends. The Upside: with some time now freed up at halftime we can either, A) watch the bands perform or enjoy more tight shots of the cheerleaders or B) watch more funny commercials with Peyton Manning or people saying Dilly-Dilly.
No More Little Guy Big Guy
There are ten football conferences in the FBS. Have a college football playoff with the champions of those conferences. You take the lowest ranked four teams and have them play a wildcard round and the winners get into the eight-team playoff bracket. The Upside: more teams in the playoffs equals more fun, bring back the days when winning your conference meant something, create the Cinderella stories everyone loves by including the MAC and the Sunbelt and other conferences you didn’t know existed.
No More Fun
Group touchdown celebrations are pretty funny and fresh, so we’re gonna continue to allow those, but we’re gonna eliminate almost everything else. The turnover chain/necklace? It’s outlawed. We’ve seen few things in life dumber actually … unless it’s the turnover trashcan. The turnover trashcan? It’s outlawed. Hand gestures that suggest a player needs to eat, sticking up fingers at the beginning of the fourth quarter, pounding your chest with your fist after an ordinary tackle, running to midfield and motioning that you got the first down? Outlawed, outlawed, outlawed, outlawed. The running, jumping chest bump? We’re through with that. Dumping Gatorade on coaches? It’s not fun or funny and the fat old farts might catch a cold. It’s out. We will continue to allow an old-fashion high-five and patting a player on the ass as he runs by. The Upside: with less time celebrating and less time practicing secret handshakes, maybe these teams can work on blocking or tackling? I know, figure out a way to execute a successful onside kick or a way to get a first down on fourth and inches.
No More Avoiding The Teams In Your Conference
Conferences don’t need divisions or championship games just mandate that every team in a conference has to play every other team, every year. It’s just dumb that teams like Georgia and Alabama don’t play every year. The conference championship games are mostly redundant, really just staged for Dr. Pepper and it’s dumb that other schools like USC and Stanford play each other twice as they did this year, making their regular season meeting meaningless. The Upside: maybe we can eliminate out-of-conference games altogether? That would mean no more USC vs. Notre Dame, but it would also mean no more Alabama vs. Mercer. Sounds like a fair trade to me. Putting the focus back in-conference could mean a shorter regular season and a longer playoff season.
No More DB Discrimination
Everything is stacked against the defensive back. There’s too many pass interference calls and too many defensive holding calls and the penalty for these infractions doesn’t fit the crime. Last night a QB launched a pass from his own forty yard line, downfield a DB and receiver are running stride-for-stride when their hands inadvertently touch. The defensive back was called for interference and it was a forty-five-yard penalty! Seriously, these penalties are changing games. We’re ending that. We’re instructing referees, as of today, to allow a lot more pushing and shoving. Any interference call in the end zone has to be flagrant. Defensive holding is a five-yard penalty, but NOT an automatic first down. Pass interference is no longer a spot foul, just ten yards from the line of scrimmage. The Upside: with fewer penalties, we won’t have to watch officials fumbling to turn on their microphones, in fact, we can just take their microphones away altogether and make them use the penalty hand signals that they were born to use. The fact that we know some of these fuckin’ official’s names and that we recognize them on sight should be a clear indication that these games have become too much about officiating and penalties and rules interpretations and not enough about the plays and the players.
No more rugby-style punts, no more holding plastic cards in front of your face to keep people from stealing your plays, no more calling a timeout right before a guy kicks. No more football coaches who wear visors.
There’s more, but not today.