NFL: 6 Rule Changes That Should Have Occured for 2011

It’s been a depressingly realistic past few months for the NFL. So much of the off season discussion has focused on lawsuits, concussions, salary caps and labor agreements that it’s easy to forget that football is a game.

Just like beer pong or poker, the game of football has rules that can be changed to make it more fun.  

Next year kickoffs will be shorter, QB blows to the head will be subjective and illegal hits will be even more incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, none of these changes approved by the owners will do anything to make the game more enjoyable for fans, which is what the rules should be intended to accomplish.  

Instead, here are six changes the NFL should have made to the rule book for 2011. 

Two Types of Pass Interference

Pass interference is the most influential penalty in the NFL, yet it is parsed out with the judicial subtly of a hand grenade.

If a defender is beat on a double move and drags the receiver to the ground to avoid giving up a TD, spot of the foul and automatic first down makes sense.

But if a DB is in position and inadvertently bumps the wideout, who then flops to the ground like a European soccer player, awarding a penalty that could amount to forty or fifty yards is excessive.

The NFL should take a page from the old facemask rules and allow refs to call two different types of P.I.

One would be for excessive contact that clearly prevents a receiver from catching the ball, which would result in the current spot of the foul, first down penalty.

The other would be when the DB makes subtle or inadvertent contact with the receiver but doesn’t clearly prevent a catch. These flags would result in 15-yards from the line of scrimmage and automatic first down.

I realize this creates another judgment call for refs to potentially screw-up, but it’s better than having ticky-tack interference calls continually decide games. 

Only Ice the Kicker Early

Waiting for the clock to run down on field goals and then calling a timeout just before the snap is bush league. It just is.

Sure sometimes it works, usually it doesn’t, either way it’s stupid and obnoxious.

There is nothing more annoying than having the momentum build to a crescendo for a game winning field goal, then break for a Cialis commercial.

Moving forward, the rule should be once the offense and kicker is set for a second, no more timeouts.

If you want to give one of the Gramatica brothers a few more minutes to think about going wide right, do it before the teams line-up.

Different Types of Touchbacks

Personally, I think the NFL’s decision to move kickoffs up five yards makes zero sense. Touchbacks are maybe the most boring play in football, kick returns are one of the most exciting.

It seems like shortening the running start for the coverage team and eliminating the wedge should be sufficient to reduce the injury risk.

The only good news is now with commercial breaks you have a good five minutes after every score to check your fantasy team, grab a cold beverage, or pretend you’ve been paying attention to what your significant other was saying.

But we wouldn’t have to resort to these measures if the NFL elected to make the shorter kickoffs and resulting touchbacks little more interesting.

I propose any kickoff that bounces into the end zone results in the receiving starting on their 15 yard-line (instead of the usual twenty). This would breathe new life into the always interesting squib kick.  

If the kickoff goes out the back of the end zone, either on a fly or a bounce, the receiving team starts at their own 10.

If the kicker can knock the ball through the uprights on the kick, the other team starts at their five. Or if you want to get real crazy, a kickoff through the uprights means the kicking team gets the ball back.

Might seem a little hokey but it’s a lot more interesting than a bunch of guys taking a knee and starting at the 20.

Official Team Dances

I think we can all acknowledge that end zone celebrations got a little out of hand a few years back.

When players started breaking out cell phones and sharpies, the NFL was right to crack down.  Everyone knows prop comedy is hacky.

Where the NFL went too far was with outlawing group celebrations. The Fun Bunch High-Five, the Dirty Bird, the Bob and Weave, those were points of pride not just for the team, but for the city.

Ask any Broncos fan how juiced they got watching Terrell Davis and Rod Smith do the Mile High Salute.

If the league wants to keep Ochocinco from doing the River Dance that’s fine, but don’t throw the dancing baby out with the bath water.

What the NFL should do is allow each team one pre-approved celebration.  

It could be a throwback, like the Oilers can do the Funky Chicken or the Bengals can do the Ickey Shuffle. Or it could be region specific, like the Raiders doing the Thizz dance or the Falcons doing the Bernie.  

The celebrations would bring the excitement back into touchdown dances and create terrific headlines like “Falcons scrap Dirty Bird for Electric Slide after four game losing streak.”

5-Yards for Offensive Holding

I freely acknowledge this is the opinion of a bitter 49er fan, but I think 5-yards is too much for holding.

For an awful offense like the one San Francisco has put out the last few years, gaining 20-yards on three downs is a herculean task.

The ref should just call out the punt team on the loud speaker after he’s done announcing who the holding call is on.

What makes holding so frustrating is that it’s so arbitrarily enforced. It’s like traveling in basketball, if you look closely holding is happening on every play, so it seems random when refs decide to call it.

Given the subjective nature of the enforcement and the fact it’s so common, I say make it a 5-yard penalty.

At least that way I can just slam my remote on the couch instead of throwing it across the room next time it kills my team’s drive.  

Challenge Roughing the Kicker

Theoretically replay shouldn’t be used for calls that involve fluid contact and are therefore difficult to judge in slow motion.

Plays like roughing the passer, pass interference or holding are tough to assess on a tiny screen with players moving half-speed.

The rampant outbreak of flopping by NFL punters should create an exception to that replay rule.

As it currently stands, anytime a defender lands in the general vicinity of a punter the punter drops like he’s been buzzed with a cattle prod and proceeds to roll around like he’ll never walk again.

Too often the ref isn’t watching the entire play and only sees the punter’s reaction, which results in a flag and a crucial new set of downs for the offense.

In these situations coaches should be allowed to throw the challenge flag and force the ref to review if the kicker was actually hit or not.

If it’s obviously a flop I say not only should the roughing penalty be nullified, an unsportsmanlike conduct should be given to the kicking team for unmanly behavior.