Robots, RedZone for (almost) all and Fan Wire? Reimagining NFL in 2020s

We demand term limits

Why do we regulate the term of our head of state but not for the NFL commissioner?  George Washington would have been disgusted by America’s top sport being run by an emperor-king, ruling like a tyrant and answering only to the league’s House of Lords (the owners). Instead, follow the same rules as the U.S. does for president: no more than two terms (eight years), which can be non-consecutive, like the stints of Grover Cleveland, founder of the Browns. (We kid.)  Also the NFL commissioner should not be immune to impeachment, with a two-thirds vote of the players (two-thirds of the offensive players AND two-thirds of the defensive players; kickers don’t get a vote).

Let's get real

Contract reports have more fake numbers than an Al Capone tax return. Agents want to report the highest possible number, no matter how unrealistic the performance incentives or how easy it is to cut a player halfway through the deal. Teams don’t mind, since they look more generous than they actually are. And reporters want to get scoops, so they dutifully report what the agents say, as if the information won’t be all over Twitter 10 seconds after they report it. It’s football; you shouldn’t have to have a degree in “capology” to understand what players are getting paid.

How about an ax-throwing mascot? 

Too often an NFL mascot is just a guy in a slightly exaggerated team uniform, with a creepy, oversized synthetic head. Compare it to the NHL, where the Philadelphia Flyers Gritty became both a civic and socialist icon, and the NBA, where mascots are doing acrobatic dunks and brawling with Robin Lopez. Football has a ton of downtime for commercial breaks and long halftimes. Let the improv and gymnastic communities of these towns cut loose with a real mascot! The Bears should have a guy in a huge bear suit, and the Vikings' mascot should throw actual axes. In Detroit? An actual lion, jumping through hoops and dueling with practice squad players during timeouts. At least the fans could see the Lions win for once!

More men in motion, eh?

In the NFL, one player can be in motion at a time, but he can only move laterally or backward. But in Canadian football, anyone in the backfield besides the quarterback can be moving forward at the snap. That would open up even more avenues for trickery and misdirection for offensive coordinators, increase big plays and give more opportunities to smaller, quicker running backs. Who doesn’t love a scatback? Besides, every new NFL rule change benefits the offense — why should this be different?

Make Brits forget about their 'football'

The NFL knew that attendance in Jacksonville was a problem when 90 percent of its games were blacked out for poor attendance in 2007 — a year the Jags made the playoffs — and almost 10,000 seats were covered with tarps. People in Jacksonville prefer college football, NASCAR and the music of Limp Bizkit to the NFL. The Jags are playing two of their eight games in London in 2020, and it may as well be all eight. Sure, we’d lose the long tradition of Jacksonville football, with the Jags' seven playoff appearances in 25 years, but they can commemorate it with a Blake Bortles statue outside the stadium. The London games have been a big success, and they’d be even more successful with a real home team. There could be some Brexit-related travel issues to deal with, but we are confident that the Jaguars could become so popular that they’ll start calling that other sport "soccer." And while we’re at it, they might as well move the Chargers to Mexico, since San Diego hates them and no one in Los Angeles cares.

Bend these college rules

The NFL has adjusted overtime rules over the years, but no one is satisfied, mainly because a coin flip is way too consequential when a team can end the game by scoring a touchdown on its first possession. Plus, shortening games is a great way to reduce injuries. Since the NFL has been trying to diminish the impact of kickoffs anyway, why not adopt a modified form of the college rules, where each team gets a possession from the opposing 25-yard line? That seems too easy for NFL players, given how much better the kickers are, so we’ll have teams start at the 35 instead. Americans hate it when games end in a tie anyway, so let’s make overtime shorter, more explosive and more definitive.

RedZone channel for the masses!

The NFL RedZone channel is a glorious way to survey the entire landscape of Sunday NFL football, hopping constantly from scoring drive to scoring drive, distilling football down to its most exciting elements. It’s an incredible showcase for the league, but it’s unfortunately relegated to a paid tier of cable programming. Put RedZone on basic cable and add a constant on-screen ad so it can remain commercial-free, like with they do for soccer games. The public deserves to experience the joy of the Quad Box!

Add sizzle to the humble extra point

The new XFL has eliminated extra-point kicks, and the NFL should follow suit. The NFL already pushed back extra points to make them less automatic, but the result is simply added randomness and not a difference in strategy. The XFL is offering a one-point attempt from the two, a two-pointer from the five and a three-point attempt from the 10, with no kicks at all. Making a touchdown potentially worth nine points might be too strange for NFL purists, but having to earn the extra points with an actual football play will make the aftermath of a touchdown far more interesting strategically, even if the league just takes the first two-thirds of that proposal. After all, the kicker didn’t contribute to the TD drive; why is he getting involved in the bonus?

Imagine Andy Reid doing THIS!

The former “No Fun League” greatly loosened up about scoring celebrations, generally allowing anything that didn’t threaten the integrity of the goal posts. But coaches are still not permitted to join in the merriment, and that needs to change. Not only should head coaches be allowed to celebrate after a score, but it should be mandatory. Imagine Andy Reid in a human pyramid or Belichick scowling his way through a game of duck, duck, goose. Football bosses are the most humorless in all of sports, so why can’t we let them enjoy a celebration that doesn’t involve a vat of Gatorade being dumped over their heads?

Restore sanity of fans

In response to the blatant missed call in the 2018 NFC Championship Game that robbed the Saints of a Super Bowl trip, the NFL let coaches challenge pass interference calls. But officials were hesitant to overturn calls — at one point coaches had lost 33 out of 34 straight PI challenges — and the result was simply more stoppage of play. So let's clean up this mess. No more reviews of PI. Fans don’t want to waste time watching super-slow-motion replays of inherently subjective calls, and the Saints got burned by a pass interference non-call in the playoffs anyway!

Fine-tune the Rooney Rule

The Rooney Rule was intended to increase representation of minorities among NFL coaches. But 17 years after the Rooney Rule was implemented, in 2003, we have the same number of African-American head coaches: three. Some of that is due to the current fad for offensive-minded coaches, which excludes many black coaches by the same biases that kept black players out of the quarterback position for years. But there’s also been a fair amount of token interviews simply to satisfy the rule. An imperfect solution? Expand the Rooney Rule to cover coordinator positions as well, because the representation problem goes all the way down the pipeline.

Let's talk about 'protection'

On punts, there is an understanding that not all forms of illegal contact are the same. If you clobber a punter or dangerously drill his plant leg, it’s a 15-yard penalty for roughing the punter. But if you simply run into the kicker, with no intent to injure, it’s simply 5 yards. We need to extend this to roughing the passer calls, where there’s a big difference between spearing a quarterback long after he releases the ball and lightly tapping his face mask while trying to bat down a pass. A 5-yard “running into the passer” call would still protect QBs, but it wouldn’t be such a draconian punishment for pass rushers who become victims of their own momentum.

Romo! Romo! Romo!

The "Madden" NFL video game, named after legendary color man John Madden, is a classic, but there’s a new superstar color man now: Tony Romo. We need a spinoff featuring Romo, where the goal is to predict the play that the actual Madden players will choose, just like Romo does during every telecast. 

The Man must spread more wealth

The NFL has a fund of around $140 million for players whose playing time and excellence far exceeds their salaries, and the Players Association separately awards benefits. Because of how much a player’s salary is based on his draft slot, and how short an NFL career is (3.3 years on average), it should be more. A player shouldn’t lose out on money simply because of the rookie scale and because scouts didn’t realize how good he was in college.

Stop this and show pets chasing toys

According to SeatGeek, the average price of an NFL ticket is $151. The average parking pass costs $94, and a beer and a hot dog will cost $14 combined. So is it too much to ask NFL teams to stop making fans watch commercials on the Jumbotron? It feels like exploitation for the captive audience, already enduring long commercial breaks for TV telecasts, to have commercials blaring at them in their high-priced seats. Show some entertainment! Make players answer trivia questions! Film a bunch of dogs catching Frisbees! Anything but showing a beer ad, considering that beer is going to cost 10 times what it does in the outside world.

Invent Fan Wire, but forbid its use in this city

If we can invent the technology to put a camera on crisscrossing wires over the field, a la the SkyCam, then surely we could build one to shuttle lucky fans over the field of play on a zipline. They’d have to go pretty high, and you’d have to ban them on punt plays, but if you’re looking to make the in-game experience more exciting, what could be more fun than a heart-stopping journey from end zone to end zone on a wire? (Note: It is far too dangerous to allow Philadelphia Eagles fans to participate.)