Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The 1-Point, 3 Seconds of Yawn, Football Relic

Once upon a time, I hated Bill Belichick.

His lying arrogance, the spygate taping scandal, his mind-numbingly boring press conferences, the childish and classless non-handshakes after losses.

But I'm starting to actually like the dude.

Perhaps I've been softened up by the fact that he's just so damn good. He plays chess, while almost every other coach in the league is playing checkers. I think when he went for it on like his own 30 on 4th and a couple against Peyton Manning and the Colts - and lost - I really became a fan.

Of course that was the right call. And it almost worked. Yet many lunkhead armchair fans still ripped him for it.

You make that yardage, which they almost always do, and almost did anyway, and it's three knees and a victory shower. Right call. Screw the cowardly conventional wisdom of punt and hold and hope. In that one move, Belichick both flipped the finger to "conventional football wisdom" while simultaneously showing the utmost respect to an opposing QB.

Bravo.

Now, The Hoodie is speaking truth about something I've said for years: the extra point is worthless.

From Yahoo's Shutdown Corner Blog...
"Philosophically, plays that are non-plays shouldn't be in the game. I don't think it is good for the game. Extra points, when the odds are 99 percent range in extra points it is not a play. Let's move the ball back to the 15-20 yard line and not make it a tap in. Let them kick it. Same thing with the kickoff return, if you're just going to put the ball on the 20, put the ball on the 20."
Damn straight!

Extra points exist only to give snappers and holders nightmares. It's a 99.5% certainty. And a waste of time. And worse, yet, if you kick the XP, then any subsequent camera angle that shows a player was down, fumbled, or out of bounds negating the touchdown, is legally INADMISSIBLE because LA DEE DA, we just kicked the MAJESTIC EXTRA POINT, SO THAT'S LIKE THE FUCKING SUPREME COURT WEIGHING IN ON THIS PLAY! CASE CLOSED. CUT TO COMMERCIAL!

MJD on Shutdown Corner has it nailed. Touchdowns are worth 7. You want 8? Go for two, and if you fail you get 6. There's at least 8 minutes off the length of games right there.

Other sports have jettisoned things that were too cumbersome, or pointless, or time consuming, or unfair years ago. Figure skating nuked the "compulsories" where you had to slavishly trace perfect figure eights as part of your overall score. College basketball eliminated jump balls except to start the game. Baseball got rid of the... um... well.. okay, baseball never gets rid of anything. Except the bullpen car shaped like a helmet to ferry relievers into the game.

Time to get with it, NFL. Eliminate the boring plays - or "non-plays" as The Hoodie dubs them - and keep the exciting ones. It's not that hard.

7 comments:

  1. And this year we get Foreplay for the 1-point play in the form of the ultimate boner-kill, the every TD Instant Replay Review. Yay, NFL innovation!

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  2. simple solution: whichever player scores the TD is forced to attempt the kick from placement...if an injury permits the player from trying the kick, the team must go for two...this would plummet the percentage of makes down into the 70's and be more fun than a barrel of monkeys

    i'll ignore the latest uncalled-for veiled cheapshot at baseball...however, that is why a lot of us want to fucking puke whenever you PRETEND to slobber over mike morse, bryce harper, espinosa, strasberg, etc;

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  3. Does this mean the little league no pitch intentional walk is okay?

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  4. If they eliminate kickoffs then they will also eliminate the onside kick

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  5. Might as well get rid of the knell down at the end of games too, right?

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  6. Well, baseball did get rid of the "one ball" rule in 1920 where they only used one ball and had to retrieve it after every play - like a freakin' sandlot game where the ball flies into Mrs. Kravitz' yard.

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  7. Instead of doing away with extra points completely, just do away with the current format. No holder is allowed- teams can either drop-kick the ball for one point, or go for 2. The drop-kick is far from a sure thing, and it would bring back an old-school part of the game that has been dormant for years while also making the game more exciting. I know it's radical, but it would make things much more fun.

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