NFL Needs to Reinvest on the Field If Owners Want Game to Grow

As long as it is done in state-of-the-art stadiums and broadcast in high definition, the NFL seems content to leave the game itself back in the 20th century.

Think about it: Despite all the rule changes the NFL has made in its game in the past few decades, football is still basically the same game it was back when everyone played with leather helmets. While teams and their owners fight tooth and nail to control labor costs, they reinvest their millions and billions in stadium accouterments, video screens, fan-experience centers and high-end culinary offerings, as detailed by FCN.

Meanwhile, the game itself withers on the vine.

New York Giants president and co-owner John Mara hinted at this very tendency when he told Newsday's Bob Glauber that the league is resisting the addition of fixed goal-line and sideline cameras in part because of cost.

Really?

Doesn't the NFL have the money to do whatever it wants? "Costs" is a nice shorthand phrase for the maxim NFL owners seem to have lived by for the last generation: Invest as little as possible in the game itself, and maximize profits by investing in the stadium and television experience.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing put it best:

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For a league that literally takes in billions of dollars, billions!!, from its television contracts – how can something so simple and so important not be in place? Especially for something that, as Trey Wingo says, is such an easy fix it's hard to comprehend why the NFL hasn't taken this step. Furthermore, when there are over 30 cameras at use throughout the stadium why aren't there at least two stationary cameras placed at the goal line? Couldn't one of those cameras following around Rob Ryan every week be put to better use?

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Simply put: The game's biggest issues are easily fixed but at costs the owners appear unwilling to pay.

Love football? Great!

Don't want to see it change? Me either!

No one is asking the NFL to kill the goose who laid the golden egg, nor is anyone asking the owners to enter the poorhouse to make the game better. That said, it's completely naive to believe the game has reached some sort of idealized paradigm of football essence that cannot be improved upon.

No, rather, the NFL has had a number of both major and minor issues over the past couple of years which it could easily correct with relatively simple investments of varying costs.

Ironically, the owners seem more than willing to tinker with the game in ways that don't cost them any money. They do this every offseason in different ways both with rules changes and rules emphases. In recent years, we've seen kickoffs moved in the name of safety and defensive contact calls take over every single weekend.

Some fans complain. Others cheer. Either way, the game marches on.

In addition to the cameras the NFL could add but Mara says cost too much: Have you ever thought about the fact that the NFL is still measuring first downs by chain links? That's not even the 20th century. The Huns could've measured first downs that way.

If Fox could make a hockey puck glow on TV over a decade ago on a failed TV ploy, why can't the NFL put RFID or geolocation in a football so we actually know what's a touchdown and what's an inch short? Heck, strap a Fitbit to the thing and call it a day. Even that would probably be too much money for the NFL.

This isn't just about sideline cameras or technology, though.

The human element of the game could also use an upgrade.

Right now, we have NFL referees who are essentially the sporting equivalent of Civil War re-enactors. They do fantastic work. They take their weekends very seriously, and if one squints hard enough, they'll almost all think it's the real thing.

Bleacher Report's Jason Cole, then writing for Yahoo Sports, described NFL officiating as "an elaborate hobby."

We can sit here in the offseason and complain that this rule or that rule cost this team or that team a win here and there. In reality, it doesn't matter how complex and convoluted NFL rules are when those who enforce them are only employed on a part-time basis.

Yet, it was just a few years ago that the NFL locked out its referees rather than willingly pay them more.

Understand this: It's not about what dollar amount the referees make. They're compensated well enough by just about any referee's standards. In fact, the current referees likely don't want to be any more than part-time employees. They make incredible amounts of money on Sundays and in a few offseason duties here and there while they're also able to pursue full-time employment elsewhere in fields like law, teaching and officiating other sporting events.

That shouldn't stop the NFL from doing what is best for the game.

Former NFL director of officiating Mike Pereira told much of the same to The Associated Press' Barry Wilner:

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My personal belief is the 17 referees all ought to be full time. They need to explore that notion because having only one full-time referee and umpire and line judge and the others makes no sense. It would not achieve to me what having all 17 full-time refs would, because they should be involved with everything. Be involved in proposals of rules changes and teaching their crews and working with the teams in the offseason.

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The NFL should have full-time, year-round referees who make the officiating of football their life's work. Maybe it's some of the current crop, but does anyone really think it would take a whole lot to replace the Jeff Triplettes or Jerome Bogers of the world?

With full-time referees, rule changes could be hashed and rehashed by those who will be making the calls in simulated situations for months before things actually matter. Offseasons could be spent studying, testing and tape-watching. Accountability would be more direct in a straight-employment situation rather than the current arrangement because more would be at stake for both the league and the officials.

Another thing full-time referees could help staff and enable is a developmental league. Look around at the NHL, MLB, NBA and even NASCAR. There are minors and developmental leagues for every single major American sport except for the NFL, which relies solely on college football for its prospects.

Every year around this time, we talk about prospects who just need a little time to acclimate to the NFL game, but no time is ever available. The NFL simply doesn't have room, desire or ability to develop players in an atmosphere where every given Sunday is a job interview for employment the following week.

If the league wanted to, it could start such a league tomorrow. It would be more than feasible for the NFL to either create a league or co-opt an existing one and stock it with seventh-round draft picks and existing free agents. Big-armed Division III quarterbacks, speedy skill-position players with decades of poor coaching and linemen who never had a real strength-and-conditioning program might actually have a shot.

All it takes is an investment.

These just don't appear to be the kinds of investments the NFL wants to make.

The NFL seemingly wants to futz around with the Pro Bowl because that could eventually become a revenue stream. It seems to want to squeeze the very dregs of talent out of the veterans and hopefully turn its combine into a TV event just like the draftees. It'll push overseas games and over-the-top TV and digital offerings because it's apparently never met a dollar it didn't want to split 32 ways and stuff into its pockets.

It's time for the NFL to start paying to fix the game itself before the embarrassing moments become less of a novelty and more of a defining quality.

Michael Schottey is an award-winning NFL National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report and a writer for Football Insiders. Follow him on Twitter.