Rules That Are Ruining Football

[Axe Elf]

1) For a catch to be legal, a receiver has to maintain control of the ball through the process of the post-game shower.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once famously said that he couldn't define pornography, but he knows it when he sees it. The same sort of rule should apply to catches in a football game. So many obvious catches have been overturned upon review because somebody hadn't taken two full steps prior to "securing the ball" or "making a football move"--two very subjective criteria in their own right.

Two of the most egregious examples:

2) If a player's head moves perceptibly during the course of a tackle, it is a personal foul against the tackler.

I get that they are trying to protect players from concussions, but it's getting ridiculous. The whole point of the game is to bring the ball-carrier down to the ground, but now you have to cradle their head to the ground in the process, because any tackle that involves forcible contact to the head is illegal. How do you bring someone to the ground without forcible contact to their head?? It's like the whole point of the game is now illegal.

And if the ball-carrier is a QB, you can't even land on top of them any more--you have to pull them down on top of you to cushion their fall, all the while protecting their head and neck.

It's just silly.


3) The college rules about unsportsmanlike conduct are starting to get pretty ridiculous too. Apparently you have to be a robot and show no emotion when you've just scored the game-winning 70-yard TD reception (or intercepted the same) unless you want to have a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called against you.


Any other NFL or NCAA rules that are getting out of hand?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Any other NFL or NCAA rules that are getting out of hand?

Yes, and its the rules allowing huge profits and trade deals where players are traded. I have an objection to college football, and its that its fun but has become bad for students. There are good aspects to it I know, but the money is ruining the sport. Its not a sport. Sports are what normal people have. This has students going on special diets and skipping classes and tempts them to use dangerous enhancement drugs. End player trading and charging for tickets. Bring this back to being a sport instead of a pony show.

 

[Augustus]

How do you bring someone to the ground without forcible contact to their head?

Hit them anywhere in the body below their head. Rugby players manage it 99% of the time

Some the rules are dodgy, but this one is fair enough. It's easy to coach them to avoid this as it's just a question of technique, and would result in fewer missed tackles too.

 

[Axe Elf]

Hit them anywhere in the body below their head. Rugby players manage it 99% of the time

Some the rules are dodgy, but this one is fair enough. It's easy to coach them to avoid this as it's just a question of technique, and would result in fewer missed tackles too.

But even when you HIT them below their head, their head usually comes slamming to the ground along with the rest of their body. It used to be getting your bell rung; now it's unnecessary roughness.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

If it helps you (perhaps not) we've gone through a lot of rule changes in Australian Football recently, too.

If you bump and hit someone in the head you'll now miss games.
If you tackle and sling the opponent, same thing.

This would have been a good tackle until last season.

Sling tackle? Yeo says no - AFL.com.au

 

[Watchmen]

The rules drive me nuts, especially those that protect the quartback (specifically, Tom Brady)!

 

[Axe Elf]

If it helps you (perhaps not) we've gone through a lot of rule changes in Australian Football recently, too.

If you bump and hit someone in the head you'll now miss games.
If you tackle and sling the opponent, same thing.

This would have been a good tackle until last season.

Sling tackle? Yeo says no - AFL.com.au

Jeez, is that a mouthguard, or does that guy have a Bugs Bunny overbite?

I bet if he bit on a carrot, he'd just crimp it.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

N

Jeez, is that a mouthguard, or does that guy have a Bugs Bunny overbite?

I bet if he bit on a carrot, he'd just crimp it.

Heh...mouth guard.
Teeth don't tend to last long otherwise. It's not that the hits are harder than other contact sports. It's more that it's a 360 degree game, so you can get hit from any direction.

Rugby hits are probably harder, but you end to see them coming.

 

[Augustus]

But even when you HIT them below their head, their head usually comes slamming to the ground along with the rest of their body. It used to be getting your bell rung; now it's unnecessary roughness.

I've never seen a penalty given because a ball carrier was tackled normally and hit his head on the ground. Contact with the head is what draws a penalty, and rightly so given how harmful it is.

The roughing the passer ones, while inconsistently and often overzealously applied, also make some sense as people want to watch Brady v Rodgers, they don't want to watch Brian Hoyer v Deshone Kizer chucking pies around the field.

American football is played by unusually large humans pumped full of PEDs. 280 pound men who can run 40 yards in 4.7 seconds are not normal, and modern players are significantly bigger and more athletic than those in the past. It's just a question of physics, your bones and ligaments can only take so much worse before they snap.

Big hits might be fun, but so is watching the best players face up to each other. The more of the former, the less of the latter.

The NFL assume that the latter is what affects viewing figures the most, and I'm pretty sure they are correct.

 

[Axe Elf]

I've never seen a penalty given because a ball carrier was tackled normally and hit his head on the ground. Contact with the head is what draws a penalty, and rightly so given how harmful it is.

The roughing the passer ones, while inconsistently and often overzealously applied, also make some sense as people want to watch Brady v Rodgers, they don't want to watch Brian Hoyer v Deshone Kizer chucking pies around the field.

American football is played by unusually large humans pumped full of PEDs. 280 pound men who can run 40 yards in 4.7 seconds are not normal, and modern players are significantly bigger and more athletic than those in the past. It's just a question of physics, your bones and ligaments can only take so much worse before they snap.

Big hits might be fun, but so is watching the best players face up to each other. The more of the former, the less of the latter.

The NFL assume that the latter is what affects viewing figures the most, and I'm pretty sure they are correct.

We can agree to disagree on what draws a penalty for unnecessary roughness these days--I maintain that it doesn't require direct contact to the head, but whatev.

But yeah, today's players seem a lot more likely to miss four weeks with a bruised rib or turf toe or something than they did in the past. Jack Youngblood played the SuperBowl with a fractured left fibula, for Pete's sake. I suppose if the players are going to act like nancy boys who aren't getting paid 6,000 years worth of minimum wage pay just to take those risks, then we'll have to treat them as such--but all of that is just making football less interesting for me.

Bring back the gladiators of the gridiron!

 

[Augustus]

But yeah, today's players seem a lot more likely to miss four weeks with a bruised rib or turf toe or something than they did in the past. Jack Youngblood played the SuperBowl with a fractured left fibula, for Pete's sake. I suppose if the players are going to act like nancy boys who aren't getting paid 6,000 years worth of minimum wage pay just to take those risks, then we'll have to treat them as such--but all of that is just making football less interesting for me.

Bring back the gladiators of the gridiron!

Things always change, and fans get used to it and forget things were ever different. That's probably what they said when they introduced helmets and pads or allowed the forward pass though. "These Nancy boys demanding their protective gear and fancy dan rules just because a few people died. Ruining football I tell thee. Bring back the gladiators"

Anyway, players play hot all of the time. Deshaun Watson had to be driven to a game as his lung was so badly damaged he wasn't deemed fit enough to get on a plane yet still was fit enough to be pummelled by exceptionally large humans.

Although seeing as teams care nothing for the players and will cut them in a second if it's in their interests, you couldn't really blame them for putting their long term money making potential and long-term health first. When RGIII played through a knee injury and ruined his career the Redskins didn't exactly repay his loyalty.

Bring back the gladiators of the gridiron!

And many of these gladiators died poor, lonely and mentally destroyed from brain damage. These gladiators were also generally small, slow and weak compared to modern players meaning they hit with far less force and caused far less damage.

While I agree they have gone too far at times, as a general principle, protecting players' heads and trying to reduce the number of times the star players are injured meaning we have to watch some pie chucker at QB instead isn't going to 'ruin football'.

In the other football, 'soccer', a common tactic was to try to break the legs of the opponents' star player. When the rules were changed to prevent this, some people grumbled about the game going soft and pretty soon everyone forgot about it because the games were more entertaining as the best players were available and able to be skilful without having their legs snapped.

In the NFL, watching a bunch of gladiators pound the ball relentlessly for a 6-3 win is probably better in people's memories than it was at the time.