One of the rare benefits of waking up too damn early and not being able to fall back to sleep is that, with nothing on TV but informercials, I can hit the DVR and catch any details I may have missed during the Sunday pregame shows.
Here’s one that barely got any notice.
Charley Casserly of CBS reported during The NFL Today that, as part of the league’s ongoing effort to enhance player safety, the NFL will consider the possibility of widening the field and the hash marks. The thinking is that opening up the field could make the game safer.
Steelers safety Troy Polamalu likely would disagree. He said last week that the use of wide-open, field-stretching offenses gives defensive players a greater opportunity to build a head of steam before delivering a hit.
Regardless of whether the game would end up being safer, the change would drive up scoring by giving offenses more room within which to operate — and by forcing the defense to defend more lateral territory.
Casserly explained that this and other recommendations could come from a player safety committee, which possibly would include folks like John Madden, Willie Lanier, Ronnie Lott, Derrick Brooks, Anthony Munoz, and possibly a game official.
Such a committee would look at issues like consistency in calling penalties based on safety violations, educating players on safety measures, and making certain padding mandatory.
Also, the league will be meeting later this year with helmet manufacturers regarding possible options for enhancing safety, including making helmets lighter and placing padding on the outside of the helmet.
At the end of the day, the game is about tackling people. People will get hit, no matter how wide the field is.
Football has been a violent sport since its inception, and was even banned due to deaths.
It glorifies the violence….they just did a top 100 NFL players and a top 10 tacklers show on NFL Network, and when they talk about Dick Butkus, they talk about how he just wanted to destroy whomever he hits.
What is it he says in that famous footage? He visuals violent things happening, and not to him?
Finally….by widening the field, they will be hurting the pocket book of defensive players. At some point, no matter how good your defense is, the offense will have at least 1 more player to throw to, so in the end, teams will try to outscore one another to win, rather than limit the scoring of the opponent ( last year’s Super Bowl comes to mind). What I mean is, since the object is to outscore your opponent, teams that played great defense like the 2000 Ravens or had ball control offenses like San Fran in the 80′s or Dallas in the 90′s, which limited the opponent’s chances to score will become a rarity as teams that can put up 40 points a game become dominant.
So why play defense if you can have more glory, and make more money, as an offensive player? Why pay a top cornerback big money, when the opposing teams throw against your other db’s with ease?
The NFL needs to quit messing around with the rules. Enough is enough, people love the game the way it is NOW, leave it alone. People have always gotten hurt playing football, this is not new information. If they really want to prevent so many injuries they need to seriously look and completely overhaul the design of the helmets and pads, not changing something that is and has been as much a part of football as blocking and tackling. 100 yards by 53 yards… if anything they need to lessen the width by 3 yards.
It sure sounds like it’s about increasing scoring to me, in the name of “safety”, of course.
DB’s already aren’t allowed to cover WR’s as it is, breath on them and it a PI penalty.
Why don’t they just eliminate defenses altogether, that will increase scoring. :rolleyes:
How about 30 yard deep endzones too? Let’s bring back the dickerod and yellow footballs while we’re at it.
This would do nothing relative to safety.
Instead of this why don’t “they” do something really needed in pro sports – raise the basket in basketball so that actual skill can finally creep back into the game?
But leave the gridiron as it is.
i wholeheartedly agree with brasho.
QUIT MESSIN WITH THE RULES!, before you ruin it.
political correction sux!
Another step closer to ruining pro football in America. If the NFL goes to 18 games and the NCAA adopts a playoff system, college football will be king.
An NFL field is actually 160 feet wide, and I believe adding another 10 feet could create more seperation lessening immediate hits more often
this is stupid, i will not like the 18 game schedule!!
and p.s this is FOOTBALL!! they know the chances of getting clobbered, thats why they make so much money!!!!! if this league becomes like flag footballl( which thats where its heading) i will no longer watch! hockey is the last true hitting sport!!!
Any estimates on how many owners will need new stadiums to accommodate the wider field? I’m guessing around 32. After all, to keep the sidelines the same width to accommodate the players, trainers, coaches, TV cameras, field crews, etc., etc, they would have to remove the first couple of rows of seats. Those are top dollar seats! Can’t lose those! “A new stadium is the only way (fill in team name here) will be able to stay competitive in this new NFL landscape and the only way (fill in team name here) will be able to stay in (fill in city name here).” See – I already wrote the first press announcement from each owner after the rule change!
I swear….the league wont be happy and wont quit messing with the rules until this sport is totally screwed. Never have I seen anyone so adamant and so focused on ruining a good thing. Their greed for our dollar will be their down fall, 18 games? and from 14 weeks to 5 weeks of offseason voluntary workouts. C’MON who’s do’in the thinkin up there Dr. Ruth
Polamalu has diagnosed a real part of the problem. You can, and should, teach proper tackling, but the openness of the game clearly plays a part in this.
Can we honestly expect that when a WR goes up for a ball that a tackler can precisely determine where they’re going to connect? Accidents are bound to happen unless speed is placed under control. Widening the field would be the worst option!
If you’re serious about safety, and not just about tilting the field even more towards the offense, there are better ways to go about it. Eliminate intentional grounding, fine QBs that lead receivers through zones, let DBs play real pass defense, renew emphasis on the running game.
What ever happened to the Don Bebbe concussion helmit?
In my mind you have to slow the scoring – I couldn’t even watch the Monday night game past the first quarter. I’d be shocked if the game didn’t lose a huge % of it’s audience at that point and as the beatdown continue. High scoring football just isn’t interesting.
BREAKING NEWS:
According to anonymous sources: the league wants to outlaw tackling all together. they are not in favor of putting flags on players either. word is, defenses will have to surround the ballcarrier, sing ring around the rosie, at which point, the ballcarrier will fall along with the defenders at the end of the song
This would be idiotic. If you widen the field by, say, 5 yards…you aren’t just adding “5 yards of space” to cover. You’re going from a 50 x 100 yard field to a 55 x 100 yard field, adding 500 SQUARE YARDS of additional space to cover. That’s 4500 square feet. Why not just go 7 on 7 or make the defense all line up 10 yards downfield and not be allowed to move forward?
I like the idea of widening the hash marks, but widening the field under the pretense of player safety is a joke. It’s high school physics, the hardest hits are coming from linebackers and DB’s flying around at full speed and colliding with WR’s and RB’s running at full speed. Widening the field gives more running room, true, but also more room to run and get to full speed. More full speed hits means more injuries and concussions.
The NFL doesn’t need more scoring (see MNF this week). More space gives you less athletic players.
Look at the CFL: lots of space and lots of small, quick not fast guys that can get open.
I don’t think anyone wants the NFL to be that.
Yeah, I’m going to stop watching the NFL. I know I sound like a crybaby and it won’t matter to the NFL that they lost my whole family as an audience, but I just can’t stand the league anymore.
It jumped the shark.
It didn’t smell right when the league banned the sale of Ron Mexico jerseys.
But I’ve always disagreed with the notion that the players and coaches can’t criticize bad officiating. I’ve been sick of the preferential treatment that Brady and Manning get, while players like Aaron Rogers and Ben Roethlisberger, along with the last 12 Cleveland quarterbacks get no protection.
The change in the league’s enforcement of safety rules hasn’t been remotely consistent, and Goodell arbitrarily imposes fines of varying costs as a window dressing, to make it look like the league is doing something about player safety. I know of at least 4 concussions in the past 2 weeks that have come on allegedly legal hits (the one hit wasn’t legal, but there was no flag and Goodell won’t fine him.) So one has to ask how well those measures work. I don’t even disagree with the change–I only disagree with the notion that it is making players safer. They also want to at 2 more games to the season—not safer!
The NFL is a totalitarian league. Media outlets are afraid to criticize the league or Goodell because they might lose their contract or something. As a result NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN never offer any dissent, and their “insightful analysis” amounts to a proverbial cheer-leading of the league’s actions. Say nothing of the ridiculous cartoonishness of it all; FOX has a dancing robot; ESPN actually had a segment called “Desperate Franchises;” NFLN lets Rich Eisen talk about football.
This isn’t a player safety measure. It’s a monetary measure
This is fairly easy to verify or debunk.
The CFL has a wider (and longer) field. Are there more or fewer injuries in Canadian football?
For what it’s worth, the Canadian version of the game is a lot more exciting. If they had the talent that the NFL has, it would be a superior sport to watch.
I thought Polamalu had a point last week, until I watched the game on Sun night. The spread offense is the offense Pittsburgh cant stop, that is why they are outspoken about this kind of thing…..
“Charley Casserly of CBS reported during The NFL Today that, as part of the league’s ongoing effort to enhance player safety, the NFL will consider the possibility of widening the field and the hash marks. ”
It sounds like they might be headed in the CFL direction in terms of field size.
Here is a comparison, Mike:
http://www.sportsknowhow.com/football/field-dimensions/canadian-cfl-football-field-dimensions.html
The Canadian Football League field is 20 yards wider. Maybe the NFL should look into their safety records. I tend to agree with Troy on this one. Bigger field bigger hits.
I believe the hash marks were narrowed after the 1972 Super Bowl when Dallas kept running to the short side of the field and Miami was unable to stop them. I don’t know if that was cause and effect, but it certainly seemed that way.
The college sport gets along fine with wider hash marks. It seems to me NFL rule changes are driven by business decisions. I like the college game a whole lot better and wish the NFL would emulate it.
Speaking of rule changes, what was the reason to not have someone over the center for extra point/field goal attempts? The real reason, not what the NFL said?
Hey GODell go ahead and widen the field a few yard, while your at it lengthen it by 10 yards and take away a down. Then we can watch the CFL every weekend instead of just friday nights on NFLN. Yea!
The NFL needs to stop knee jerk reacting to every little thing the media decides they need to start a hysteria about. This season it’s concussions. next season we’ll read almost nothing about it. They will have moved on to something else that will get readers attention.
heybeerman95 said: ”
Hey GODell go ahead and widen the field a few yard, while your at it lengthen it by 10 yards and take away a down. Then we can watch the CFL every weekend instead of just friday nights on NFLN. Yea!”
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Then the NFL and CFL can merge together and the NFL can add a couple of divisions as a result.;-)
I really did not think that Goodell could stoop to new lows, but he has done just that. This could be the final straw for me. This is really starting to get ridiculous. Football is a violent game. If the players do not like it tell them to take up knitting. Maybe it will filter out the wusses, so the game won’t be full of a bunch of babies like Payton Manning.
Goodell needs to fine himself 75 large..
Can we stop with this? Enough of this nonsense. Changing the way people are hitting and stuff is one thing and now your gonna start changing the field dimensions. This is really just sorry. Its a physical and violent game where people get hurt a lot. If you don’t like it, don’t play. Or watch.
Every week Goodell is on to the next thing. First it was an 18 game schedule, then it was concussions and fines and now it’s widening the field.
He’s ignoring the one thing that would make this game better: consistent officiating.
Back in the day….Football players tackled…they wrapped up and tackled. Now (And I think PED’s have a lot to do with it)…they launch themselves like a missile head first…hitting players with the crown of the helmet to the head of the ball carrier. I applaud the league for doing this…now the other crap….QB protecting by acting like they are sissies…that’s stupid.
The games been favouring offense for a while but this is getting out of hand. Shoot-outs are boring when it essentially comes down to who has possession last.
The only rule that needs to be looked at is the penalty for pass interference. With so many WRs drawing flags because of route running (or simply running into CBs) a potential 40-50 yard penalty is harsh. 15 should be enough.
All IMHO of course
This would be the last straw for me. I’d step off the NFL train if they ever do this. A’m already considering it over this stupid 18 game season and because of the manipulative and dishonest dictator controlling this league nowadays.
Make all players have to wear stepups and they won’t be able to get to full speed.
The NFL should not change anything. People love the game the way it is… Look at the numbers. By changing things we move further away from keeping the way they record records. Ex. If the size of the field changes then players will debate who is on top of the record books. To me, is seems much easier for an offensive player if the field opens up/ harder for defenses. We like it the way it is… Its too bad the people’s voice doesn’t really count.
Wow! They really are just hell bent on totally destroying the game. I hate Canadian football and never watch it and wouldn’t watch it here. People fell in love with a great game and their going to do everything in there power to ruin it. It really can just leave you speechless.