EVEN PRO FOOTBALL HAS ITS FLAWS

This article forms a sister piece to the one published earlier which focused on modern baseball’s observed shortcomings, at least from our private point of view. Although our list of gripes about football is somewhat shorter, we feel that certain rule and announcing amendments merit consideration.

The football played on American fields prior to the advent of the forward pass would be barely recognizable today. Back then the game featured nothing but raw, bonecrushing, man-to-man contact, with bloody faces, players wearing head bandages resembling war wounded, and unhappily, fatal injuries. Changes soon became mandatory so as to prevent wholesale mayhem.

By necessity, therefore, the roughness element has been curtailed on a very gradual basis over the century and a quarter-plus of gridiron combat. Not only are players now equipped with more protective field attire, but rules have become somewhat over-restrictive. Dozens upon dozens of blocking, tackling, and other tactics have been outlawed to a constantly increasing degree. Avoidance, well at least major reduction, of serious injury stands paramount today.

Despite additional safeguards being written into grid law with the start of each new season, football is still a mighty rugged game, and hopefully will always remain so. Player casualties can never be totally eliminated, no matter how hard the rule makers try.

Keeping that last point firmly in mind, we feel compelled to ask the question just where does optimum player protection end and the road to virtual sissification begin? Have the field officials become overcharged with penalty assessment duties which seem to be approaching a stage of overkill? Although we strongly endorse legislation against meddling with face masks, roughing the kicker, and other subhuman acts, we can’t quite grasp the need for these ever-increasing limitations on basic blocking and tackling methods. There are moments when watching our space age contests that we tend to wince at flags thrown for what seem like reasonably legitimate means of knocking opponents off their feet.

At the risk of sounding a bit on the exaggerated side, could we possibly be heading toward the day when all a defensive player had to do in stopping an enemy ball carrier was touch him with two hands below the waist? Furthermore, might blocking be limited to merely getting into an opponent’s way, forcing him to take a circuitous route in pursuit of the man he seeks to bring down?

We all realize, of course, that not every player performing on every field every Saturday or Sunday throughout every season has been endowed with the gentlemanliness attributed to an English aristocrat. There’s a pretty fair sized band of fellows with inbred cravings to blow those guys wearing opposite color jerseys to kingdom come. Moreover, they often tend to get by with their excessive roughness without being caught. Obviously, no rule restrictions will ever be adequate to keep such rage in check, and the sissification process we’ve been observing lately won’t help.

Our second subject of concern deals with sudden death overtime, whose provision was written into the rules before the 1958 season. At the time, this writer stood among the loudest applauders of the change. As many football players could be heard to say prior to such enactment, finishing a game with a tie score is like kissing your sister.

Said marked improvement notwithstanding, we’re not exactly thrilled with the rules applied to the overtime period. In our opinion, the game’s extended result is way too reliant upon which team wins the coin toss following the fourth quarter close. This accords them the chance to gain possession right off, with the opportunity to execute a quick score, while the opposition holds no retaliatory option.

We would prefer to see an overtime session not to be considered complete until each opponent has been allowed at least one possession. Causing the game to proceed even longer for this reason should certainly pose no hardship. Meanwhile, the fairness level would be raised to a point where we believe greater satisfaction may be achieved.

Another rule which has remained in effect from the very beginning is that a regulation game must end after sixty minutes of play while the clock is officially running. Football strategy as we know it today thus requires effective time utilization, especially as the fourth quarter is nearing its end. Last instant field goals or touchdown runs can be witnessed on many current era occasions, resulting in extremely thrilling cliffhanger finishes.

Nevertheless, we have often wondered if the clock should really be such a vital controlling element. Might it not be at least as equitable to base a game’s action span on a specified number of plays executed within each quarter instead?

As in baseball, with its nine unclocked innings, plus extras if needed to settle ties, would undue harm result from eliminating time control as an essential element?

Final quarter game-stalling tactics by the team ahead would continue to prevail. On the other hand, a trailing opponent frantically seeking a last-minute score could no longer rely upon incomplete pass plays or stepping out of bounds to stop the outmoded clock. We’d clearly be in line for a number of key strategy alterations. A few abuses might arise as well, but with such matters resolvable through rules enactment, none of which would put the game any further under the sissification umbrella, as defined earlier herein.

On the other hand, such a break from entrenched tradition would admittedly call for careful review before taking a step of such magnitude. A thousand or more objections, logical or simply manufactured to preserve the past, are likely to be raised. Our sole intent on this point has been to lay open the question of play quantities vs. the all-powerful clock as a topic for conjecture.

Moving further on, we wish to register the same gripe addressed to baseball earlier, regarding the never-abating flow of meaningless statistics generated from game to game by the boys sitting near the press box with their computers. Their sworn task is to keep the announcers forever supplied with chatting points between plays.

It’s a well-known fact that new records are being set every year, a few of which do warrant public mention. However, this doesn’t give due license to dwell upon yardage gained, pass completion percentage, number of sacks, and the like from every conceivable angle week after week. We urge cutting out these boring stat concoctions, so the announcing crew may focus more pointedly upon the game at hand, not just the latest comparison with inconsequential past history.

Our final disgruntlement deals further with the two or sometimes three man crews up in the box, supplemented by pretty ladies down on the field offering closer exposure. We have no objection to the girls and their color-providing efforts. What we grit our teeth over is the men, who all too frequently seem to consider themselves as reincarnations of Abbott and Costello or the Marx Brothers. Once again, Lads, please restrict your descriptive dialogue to the purely physical aspects of the game before you. In addition to knocking off the senseless stats, quit trying to prove how immensely funny you are.

That’s it, Folks, for the game of football. You may or may not agree with our feelings. Just remember, the door is always open for argument.