I was watching the World Series of Poker when they had to stop the action and look at the replay. After sixteen minutes and twenty-nine different angles an official announces, “The ruling on the table stands, the bald guy who keeps picking up and dropping his chips has a pair!”
Turns out I had dozed off and was dreaming that poker had become the NFL.
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.
Did you catch the game that the NFL televised almost completely using the SkyCam? Companies like the NFL do these kinds of things from time to time in the name of progress. They experiment with their product, in essence, change the recipe, hoping that a handful of people who wouldn’t normally be interested might buy or watch. When the NFL decides to change the way it televises games, when Coke decides to change the ingredients in its cola, what they’re really saying is “getting new customers is more important than satisfying my existing customers.” That’s a miscalculation.