Thrill Shots

During halftime of NBC’s Sunday Night Football this week, a few snippets aired of an interview Bob Costas did with retired coach, video game mogul, and revolutionary color commentator John Madden.  A few subjects caught my interest, so I went on nbcsports.com and watched the entire interview (here).

One of Costas’ questions was in regards to the format of overtime in the NFL, and what Madden’s opinion is of the possibility of changing it, as has been talked about in recent years.  I’ve penned my opinion on the subject before, but I hadn’t considered the unique concept that Madden suggested.

While he said he’d rather the current format go unchanged, Madden said that if the league were to change overtime rules, he would like to see the overtime period begin just as the second or fourth quarter would.  In other words, after swapping sides of the field and a 2 minute timeout, the team with possession at the end of regulation would maintain posession at the same down, distance and field position in the overtime period.

This is interesting for a few different reasons:

1.  It solves the biggest problem that opponents have with the current system – the coin toss.  No longer would an arbitrary factor influence the outcome of the game as frequently as it currently does.

2.  It does not compromise the integrity of the game, as many other suggested solutions would.  The type of football that is played for the entirety of the game would remain the same into the extra period, without banishing use of the field goal, adding a possession, or sacrificing the element of sudden death.

3.  A team down by 3 points would have added motivation to go for the victory (touchdown) in regulation rather than the tie (field goal), because they know that their opponent will have the opportunity to have a complete, uninterrupted series of downs after the ensuing kickoff, without expiration of the game clock being a factor and essentially “saving” them from having to defend an entire possession.

It’s been a number of years since John Madden has consistently delivered relevant football commentary.  Toward the end of his broadcasting career, he seemed to become almost a parody of himself, without a hell of a lot of substance.  But this particular idea is a very good one, and I’m pleased that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recognized Madden’s value and added him in a football advisory role to Goodell’s office, even if Madden’s value became difficult for many of the rest of us to recognize in recent years.

Now THERE is the wacky-ass NFL we’ve all come to know and love over the years!  After a week 1 full of unsurprising results, week 2 was full of upsets and wild endings, the most monumental of which was the spunky New York Jets’ upset of the team many called the best in the league, the New England Patriots.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see the entirety of the Bears’ victory over the Steelers, as my cable went out during the first drive of the second half, and didn’t come back on until after the game had ended.  I will catch a replay on NFL Network or On Demand and do a write-up later this week.  Suffce it to say, I’m quite pleased.  Listening to only the radio was a pretty cool “throwback” feel.  There’s nothing quite like a game-winning play call with the home broadcast team, and just imagining it in your mind.  It was a nuisance that the TV was out, but I really enjoyed just focusing on Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer’s call on WBBM.

Here are some quick hit week 2 thoughts.

- Tom Brady is human!  Through that whole game, I kept waiting and waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Jets, and it never did.  No Brady magic this time.

- Wild one in Philadelphia.  Drew Brees was awesome again, but the Saints’ defense made Kevin Kolb look almost as good.

- I had a feeling about those Bengals.  Sadly, I went against my gut, and it cost me in my pool.  I love Ochocinco though, and I really hope Carson Palmer returns to form this year.  This was a good first step.

- Andre Johnson showed yet again – on several plays – why he is the best wide receiver in the game today.  The man is a ridiculous physical specimen.  I kind of hope Rex Grossman gets a chance to play at some point, because I’m curious to see what his production level is with a real WR (for once).

- The New York Giants – as I’ve said before – are the best team in the NFL.  They gave up a few too many points to a struggling Tony Romo however, and if Justin Tuck misses time with his shoulder injury, that could spell trouble for Big Blue.

- What the hell, Tennessee?  I pick you to win the AFC, so you decide to lose every AFC game you can get your hands on???

- Washington 9, St. Louis 7?  That game lived up to every last expectation I had for it.  I may be agnostic, but I’m going to thank a deity that I wasn’t forced to watch that thing.

- Chris Johnson, my fantasy team thanks you for your contributions.  May “God” bless you and yors.

Starting this week, I will post a Top 10 power ranking as I see the NFL.  I figure if they let any idiot who writes for a sports site do such a thing, why wouldn’t I be as qualified?  And again, Bears wrap later in the week.

That is pretty remarkable statement to make, but Denver Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels is a pretty remarkable young man.  And it’s true, he’s the worst coach in the National Football League.

As of yet, of course, we don’t know whether or not McDaniels will ever be a revered X’s and O’s strategist or decision maker; whether or not he is the wunderkind you’d expect of a man getting such a prestigious job in his early 30s, with no head coaching experience and nothing, essentially, on his resume other than serving as understudy to the vaunted football mind Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots.

What we do know is that as a direct result of McDaniels’ tactless pursuit of quarterback Matt Cassel (a show of disrespect and distrust toward incumbent and 2008 Pro Bowler Jay Cutler), McDaniels started a chain reaction (and aggravated it along the way) that led to Denver altering the course of history for two franchises by trading the superstar to the Chicago Bears for draft picks and a journeyman-type passer in Kyle Orton.

Make no mistake about it, nearly the entire reason Jay Cutler is wearing navy and orange on the Chicago lakefront is Josh McDaniels’ laughable incompetence, and will lead to not only his demise as Denver’s coach, but could easily set the Broncos’ franchise back several years.

There are certain NFL truths that cannot be escaped.  The biggest one is this: quarterback is the single most important player position in team sports, and in order to be an elite franchise and a championship contender year in and year out, a franchise must have an elite quarterback.  McDaniels failed to recognize that Cutler was exactly that.

Without coaching a single game, Josh McDaniels has sealed his legacy in Denver, and the damage he has done to their franchise will haunt them years after McDaniels is gone.

This is an ongoing series in which I examine elements of the mechanics of professional sports that could use modernization or improvement

-

The National Football League has set a pretty fine example over the years on how to be a flexible enough sport to adopt changes and morph into a more modern form as time goes on. It was the first sport to adopt video replay on a wide scale, and while the system is not totally perfected, it is far and away the best in sports, and has helped the league become what I believe to be the most well-officiated major sport.

While the only changes I would make to modernize the NFL are small ones – broadening the reach of instant replay, establishing a far greater number of cameras and angles at which the official can see replays, etc. – the league is in a constant state of change when it comes to rules and policies, and you can expect major changes coming soon to the NFL.

Current changes that the league is discussing include expanding the regular season schedule to 17 or 18 games per team while reducing the preseason to 2 or 3, and modifying the overtime system to make the coin-toss less significant a determining factor in the game’s outcome.

As for the schedule expansion, I’m fairly indifferent to this change. There are solid arguments on both sides of the fence. Opponents suggest that more regular season action would cause a greater number of injuries to star players, thus diluting the quality of the entire schedule. Proponents cannot stand the current slate of four (or, in some cases, five) preseason games per team, and if those were reduced and the season expanded, everybody who currently makes money from football would make even more, and fans surely wouldn’t complain about having more games to enjoy.

The most interesting schedule expansion proposal that I’ve read has been to go to a 17-game format, with each team having eight games at home, eight at an opponent’s home (“away” games), and one neutral site game. We’ve seen the NFL take it’s show on the road to London’s Wembley Stadium for a couple of regular season games now, as well as Mexico City. Exhibitions have taken place in Asia, Europe and Mexico as well. The NFL has done a spectacular job marketing its game internationally, and it seems that there are numerous hotbeds of potential NFL fanbases to cultivate all around the globe, and adding sixteen potential internationally-located match-ups per season would only enhance that growth. In my lifetime I expect to see NFL franchises located outside of North America, and I truly hope that is the case, because it would be incredibly fascinating to see how America’s game is received and consumed in various other cultures around the globe.

As for modifications to the league’s rules on overtime, I do not like the idea at all. Complaints have arisen because of the disproportionate number of games that end on the extra period’s first possession, thus making the coin toss an overly-important element. In my opinion, the root of this problem can be traced to a number of rules changes over the past two decades that have overwhelmingly favored the advancement of offensive-oriented football. Because a high-scoring contest is considered more marketable and palatable to a wider audience, the league has instituted a number of strict penalizations on aggressive defensive football.

The fact is, football is the only sport where you can score points while on defense. If the league tampers with one of the most exciting elements of its product – sudden death overtime – it will be a tragedy. If they really want to do something to make overtime more “fair”, they should loosen up pass interference and defensive holding penalties, and let it get a little more rough and tumble in the defensive backfield. Finesse offenses won’t march right down the field nearly as often if that were to happen. And who knows, maybe those coveted “casual fans” will learn to love defensive-minded football like some of us die-hards.