The Super Bowl and — with it — the full run of the live-game football season at all levels of competition (high school, college, and the pros) are over.
There are two times of the year when it makes sense to explore the question of how the NFL and college football compare to each other and should evolve in a given direction. One ideal time is the final week of August, just before the regular seasons begin. This is the other time, and what makes this a better time — in my opinion (and this is, after all, an opinion piece) — is that by looking back at a just-completed football cycle, ideas (and the flaws which inspired those ideas) are fresher in the mind. It’s easier to promote reforms and tweaks now than it is in late August.
Moreover, now is the time when football rules committees in both sports can genuinely consider changes to both the rule and policy structures. If we’re going to promote change, February beats August every time and twice on Sunday.
Here we go:
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5 – STAGGERED START TIMES
The NFL really needs to go here, and I’m quite surprised it hasn’t.
You would think that since this is America’s most popular spectator sport, the NFL would give Americans more of a chance to see more snaps from more of its games. Yet, when you have eight or nine games in the early 1 p.m. Eastern time window and just two or three games in the late 4:05-4:25 p.m. window, you’re forcing fans to have to watch RedZone or the DirecTV mix to the extent that they’re going to see very limited quantities of many games.
Why wouldn’t the NFL want to put in either a third game window — at 2:30 Eastern — for Central time zone starts? That much should be a no-brainer. What the league could also consider is having Mountain (Denver, Arizona) games at 4:05 and Pacific time zone games at 5:05, especially when Los Angeles gets a team, but that’s looking way ahead. The 2:30 start for Central time zone games — moving them from noon to 1:30 local time in those Central markets, such as Chicago — should have been done a long time ago.
RedZone/DirecTV viewers could get concentrated live look-ins on a stack of five early (1 p.m.) games, and then a stack of three to four mid-window (2:30) games before going to the late games in the second quarter. There would be more primacy placed on more games, instead of throwing nine of them into one TV window.
Second, from a network perspective, CBS and FOX would likely see better ratings in places such as Chicago and Kansas City for that 2:30 window. Moreover, networks could offer viewers a three-game viewing experience on Sunday, shipping them to the 2:30 game after the 1 p.m. game, and to the 4:05 game after the end of the 2:30 game. Liberalized TV rules for local markets (i.e., removing restrictions based on whether you can get a doubleheader network game if your local team is playing a home game) would obviously need to be included here, but that’s the point: The NFL needs to become more like college football in this respect.
4 – OVERTIME
Can there be any remaining doubt that college football’s overtime — while not perfect (the OT possessions need to start from the 50, not the opponent’s 25) — kicks the crap out of the NFL’s overtime? There’s no way Aaron Rodgers should not get his hands on the ball in overtime in Seattle, period. A coin flip shouldn’t decide who gets to play for the Super Bowl. This is ridiculous. Not much more needs to be said.
3 – WIDER HASHMARKS
The college game involves more creativity, though not more complexity, in part because a play can originate from more spots on the field. Every NFL play starts in a narrow section of real estate due to the closer hashmarks. Yes, a college play starting from a hashmark can place limitations on what a team can run to the short-side boundary, but coaches sometimes use that fact to exploit the short side and catch defenses by surprise. Bringing more geometry and freshness to the game? Why wouldn’t the NFL want that? This is a copycat league, and that’s not a feature; it’s a bug. Wider hashmarks would make the NFL less of a copycat league.
2 – THE COLLEGE REPLAY SYSTEM… MOSTLY
The college replay system has low-quality replay reviewers, so it’s good that the NFL has its officials making the calls on replays. However, the NFL’s challenge system has to go. One recalls the time a few years ago when the New England Patriots clearly converted a fourth and two at Indianapolis late in the game, only for the ball to be marked short. Since New England was out of timeouts and the play occurred before the two-minute warning (by which point it would have merited automatic review), Bill Belichick couldn’t challenge the erroneous call.
In college, that play would have been reviewed. The replay reviewer might have made the wrong call, of course, but the play would have been reviewed.
Warts and all, give me the college replay system over the NFL’s.
1 – REDUCE THE NUMBER OF PLAYOFF TEAMS
This is by far the worst feature of the NFL: Losing teams can make the playoffs. Nothing is more insulting to football players who put their bodies on the line for our enjoyment each autumn and winter. The dividing of a league into eight four-team divisions is absolute lunacy. In a four-team division, you invite the small sample size in which you’ll get mediocre division champions every now and then. In Major League Baseball, a similar dynamic exists with six five-team divisions, compared to the four-division setup which existed from 1969 through 1993.
The NFL won’t change its divisional setup, but what it can at least do is to not insist that divisional champions are automatic playoff teams. The NFL should really cut down the playoff field instead of expanding it. No team with fewer than 10 wins should make the playoffs, and a move to 10 playoff teams from 12 would likely weed out at least one 9-7 team on an annual basis. Moreover, division champions that fail to win nine games should be moved to the back of the line for playoff consideration. They should get in only if there are no teams above them in the standings. Furthermore, if a wild card team has a 12-4 record and a (qualifying) division champion has a 9-7 record, the 12-4 team should host the 9-7 team in a wild card game.
Thank goodness college football doesn’t have this particular problem. The NFL never looks worse in comparison to college football than when it allows losing or 8-8 teams to make its postseason. Talk about devaluing the regular season — the NFL does this far more than college football does.
Given the problems college football has on this issue, that’s saying quite a lot.