I know what I’m tired of seeing

There were 16 rule change proposals at the owners meetings in Phoenix. Everything from altering the overtime rules to automatically reviewing plays that are short of the yardage to gain on fourth down. There were plenty of proposals that were ambitious, to put it mildly. That created some good discussion on what rules or sequences that could and should be changed.

With the amount of technology in today’s world, the NFL is still in the stone age with regards to penalties. I understand “that’s always how things have been”, but it just seems like in 2019 you should have more automated processes. It feels like it could clean the game up more.

My proposal

As far as what I would propose, it’s tough to narrow it down to just one. I’m not a big fan of the “Joe Flacco 50-yard throw it up play” offense. I’d alter the pass interference rules in some way. It wouldn’t bother me at all to see it changed to 15 yards. Your instance reaction is “what if a player is beat deep? He would just tackle the receiver.” How often do we see that happen in college football? In the NFL when a player gets beat on a double move by a wide receiver, how often do you see the defensive back trip/grab/tackle the receiver? That just doesn’t happen. Players aren’t wired like that. Also, the odds that they’ll be in position to even make the play down the field are slim. It would happen, of course. I don’t believe it would happen as often as we’d think. There should at least be some sort of middle ground here, though.

Full-time refs?

There are a couple other ones that drive me crazy. Seeing a punter flop his way into a first down gets me every time. Tough to blame the punter, though. Those are the rules. Everyone else would do the same if they were in the punters shoes. Simply another manual process that can be manipulated. What happened to the New Orleans Saints last year in the playoffs on that non pass interference call is a prime example of the flaws manual processes present. Getting full-time referees would help, too.

What are some rules that you would change? Or some that you know won’t change but still drive you crazy?