NFL Rules Changes Good Or Bad?

Okay NFL we know the rules. We know how you operate. Every single off season the NFL goes into it with question. Whether it be player based, officiating based or even from a league operations standpoint there's always ways the NFL can change things to make the game much better.

Last season it was allowing teams to bring players back from IR. Giving them the option to either be on season ending IR or putting them on IR designated to return after week 10. Thus making things more flexible for the teams. And so far so good because sometimes a plaster gets injured and could come back later in the season. Not a bad rule change. Another rule changes was the FG experiment. Moving it back to the 15 yard line and kicking a 33yard extra point. Now I was one of the people at first that really was against this rule. I didn't like it. To me it was like going against tradition. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement "He wanted to make it a little more challenging for kickers who were making kicks at an all time high. The regular extra point was a automatic unless it was blocked and inside of 40yrds kickers were sitting at over 94%. So Goodell wanted to ask some excitement to the game and moved it back to a 33yrd extra point. I will tell you. It has made a dramatic difference in the game. Placekickers are still kicking at a high rate but now your getting more misses and because of those misses now your getting to see the 2 point conversion. So again I give Roger Goodell credit for that rule change. It did make the NFL game more exciting.

Now lefts fast forward to this week we had a rule change put into place that to most, Doesn't make any sense at all. Changing the NFL overtime rule to 10 min in stead of 15 and the reason for their decision are you ready? They said the reason behind that rule change is because they are looking out for player safety. Player Safety? Well it's not like players aren't already playing 4 qtrs before that. It's not like players aren't playing in Thursday night games after playing on Sunday's right. It's not like players love playing on Thursday nights just 3 days after Sunday's and maybe nursing injuries that had they played on Sunday. There's good chance that they play a little healthier. So NFL if you really cared about player safety and do what's best for them. You would take away the Thursday night games?!.. Their not working and If you could please go back to the old way of TNF (Thursday Night Football) when it was just the last 8 weeks of the season and you could handpick what teams to get the better match ups. So with the new format just to many games. To many under qualified teams playing in prime time who don't deserve it. The taxing on the bodies are not good and it's ruining the quality of the product. So, I wouldn't be going out on a limb if I said that Thursday Night Football isn't working. But, their doing it anyways right. Isn't that a player safety issue?

Next and last I want to bring up something that Roger Goodell needs to address but keeps refusing to do so and that's the officiating. Something has to be done because year by year it seems to be getting worse, a lot of these calls are based off their judgement and they're not looking at the technique that's being applied. For instance holding. Well from a little kid you are always taught when blocking from an offensive linemen standpoint to always keep hands inside the pads and if your hands are inside the pads then its a good block and you can move the defender any way you want. Even drive them to the ground and it's considered a pancake block. Offensive lineman love pancake blocks. And in today's NFL if an official sees a player going to the ground they automatically assume it is a holding when it's not. Just bad officiating. Another thing is the pass interference on the defense. It's to ticky tack. There has to be a way they can better make this call because not all contact is pass interference. Defender is allowed to the ball as well and a lot of the time it's the defender who's being clutched and grabbed. All he's doing is trying to get the receiver hands away from him. But defense gets penalized for it.

One last gripe about the officials Personal Fouls. What is a personal foul and what isn't when we looking at big hits. These are big plays at bug moments in the game. Maybe it's a 3rd down stop and it's a legal hit but the impact is so hard that the official assumes. That happens a lot doesn't it. Now, this season the NFL has adopted the college football targeting rule. I don't like this rule because these are professional athletes and us as fans pay their salaries to an extent. We would like to go into a game knowing that our best defensive player is going to finish the game. With this rule one hard hit can be the end if they say it's targeting. Sure they can go to the video and review it but you can see intent on video and even in college they go to the video and still come back and upholds the call. So in my eyes this rule doesn't work and it's going to have a impact on someone's game this season and watch the outcry. Rodger loves to be transparent when someone include the players but when it come to owners and officials he keeps everything bottled up. Maybe these officials need to be put on blast publicly. Hold them to the same standards you hold everyone else to about controlling these games. Hold them accountable. Suspend them for games. Give them a reason to be on point out there. These games mean to much to have mistake that cost teams games every single week.

Moral of this article NFL you must do better and trying to improve in areas where you really don't need to every yr is insane. Don't fix what's not broken. Fix what's broken. Okay Rodger Goodell time to step up to the plate. Surprise us