I turned 30 last month. It was a sobering experience. Made all the more so because of how far I've fallen down the totem pole of birthday presents. When I was a kid, I got spectacular birthday presents that I played with for hours. Be it a G.I. Joe Hovercraft or Mike Tyson's Punchout!!, a birthday present offered tangible evidence that this year held all sorts of unique excitements yet to come. This year I got a lawn mower. Seriously, a lawn mower.
The other day, as I was in the midst of seeding an empty lot next door to my house so I'd have more grass to mow in the future, I decided that turning 30 brought with it all sorts of wisdom. Particularly as it pertains to sports. In fact, I decided that instead of receiving a lawn mower, I should have been given the right to remake all the sports that I watch through subtle rule tweaks. Clearly this makes perfect sense. In fact, if you're anything like me you've probably found yourself sitting around ruminating about how you could perfect sports as well. Here are my seven changes.
So what would I do to make the world of sports a better place? Here are my seven changes:
1. Extend college football overtime rules to the NFL: College football overtime is the single greatest event in all of American sports. Bar none. Each moment is exquisite torture, each play a gift from the sporting gods.
Contrast that with the NFL. Toss a coin and let one team take the ball and score without the other team getting possession. (As happens 60 percent of the time.) I just don't get this at all. The NFL, where equalizing the likely outcome of a game is the most sacrosanct of goals, allows a coin flip to make a twenty percentage point difference in the outcome? The NFL bases their entire draft on the premise of equality, sets up the salary cap to keep teams equal, restricts scoreboard noise so the home team doesn't get too much of an advantage during the game, puts headsets in the quarterback's helmet to allow visiting teams to get their play calls, and even limits the types of gloves players can wear lest they gain too much of a competitive advantage. The NFL does everything in their power to make the game as fair as possible. Yet get to overtime when two teams have been so evenly matched you can't decide it in regulation, and they let a coin flip make that big of a difference.
Unjustifiable.
2. Eliminate offsides in hockey and soccer: If you've ever played soccer, you know that calling offsides in soccer is one of the most difficult calls to make in sports. It's the same with hockey. But growing up in the South I didn't play hockey. I did play soccer. At fullback. So this rule has particular applicability in my mind. Because our high school coach decided our defensive strategy would be predicated on the offsides trap.
Just before the ball was struck, we'd all rush forward and "trap" the offensive player behind us. In theory this would make the pass illegal and we'd take possession of the ball. In actual practice, the pass would be ruled legal and we'd all turn and run as fast as we could in the direction of the guy dribbling the soccer ball with no one between him and the goalie.
The refs never made the right call. Why? Because it was a difficult call and because they have four billion other things that they're trying to watch. Even in the World Cup when there are are linesmen whose sole responsibility is watching for offsides, they still miss this call. In high school? Give me a break, it's a losing proposition.
So I'd turn to run as fast as I could (which my later 40 time would confirm wasn't that fast at all), cursing all the while. As an opposing player drilled the ball past our hapless goalie, all I could think was how stupid the offsides rule was.
Imagine if you couldn't complete a pass to someone in football unless there was still a defender behind them. You'd think this was one of the dumbest rules on Earth, wouldn't you? And you'd be right. Then imagine if a football defense consisted of rushing forward at the exact moment before the quarterback passed the ball just so you could "trap" the offensive player behind you all by himself. Even dumber, right? The premise of an offensive strategy is to leave an offensive player undefended? It's like Communism on grass.
Yet, I spent four years executing this exact strategy. And so do tons of other soccer players. The game would be so much better without it.
3. Bring the mid-court inbounds rule from the NBA to college basketball: The NBA mid-court inbounding rule is fantastic. Witness the LeBron James shot at the end of Game 2. I love this rule. How many college games end with one team futilely shooting a running one-hander after inbounding from their end of the court? Even if there are three or four seconds left in the game? That sucks for college basketball fans. If there is any time left on the clock and a team takes possession, provided they have a timeout, I think they should be able to get a shot up on the rim.
This rule also encourages NBA coaches to save their timeouts in the event this situation arises. So college coaches, who tend to call timeouts on every possession inside the final couple of minutes, would have to think twice before taking a timeout.
4. Let fans kick extra points: Admittedly, this is controversial. But in most football games the extra-point has become the equivalent of a gimme putt in golf, you only notice when the team misses. How much more amazing would it be if random fans got called onto the field to attempt them?
Teams couldn't rush at all. In fact, the defense wouldn't even need to be there. The ball gets snapped, there's a holder, and then a random fan from the stands runs forward and has to put the ball through the uprights.
How would they be selected?
Early in the season fans would sign up online if they were interested in being chosen. Then, right before the game, Price Is Right-style, teams would draw 7 or 8 names and take those fans down to the sideline for the game. You'd kick in the order your name was drawn.
5. Eliminate the one-and-one from college basketball. I despise the one-and-one with all my heart. It's so utterly arbitrary in its application. For the seventh, eighth, and ninth fouls, provided you aren't fouled in the act of shooting, you shoot the one-and-one.
Why?
Why select three (at most) free throw situations and arbitrarily change the rules? Why not just go to eight or nine fouls in a half before a team shoots and make them all two shots?
6. Make golfers carry their own clubs at the majors. They could still have their caddies, but the only role for the caddies would be to help with reading the greens and club selection. Golf is way too elitist as is. Then a rich guy gets to make a poorer guy carry around his clubs? Imperialism on grass.
Plus, and this is key, an awful lot of golfers are pretty effeminate. Why should Davis Love III get to be a professional athlete when all he has to do is hold a club for 20 seconds at a time? I want to see these guys struggling. I want someone to have to give mouth-to-mouth to John Daly as he climbs up the hill on his knees at 18.
I want a schmaltzy Jim Nantz sitting in the Master's cabin saying, "Hello, friends. Welcome to another edition of the Master's on CBS. We have some news to share with you today. Green-jacket winner Angel Cabrera withdrew from the tournament on the 4th green today because, and I quote, 'This sh-t is heavy.'"
7. Arena Football League quarterbacks do shots after touchdowns: I know the Arena Football League, God rest it's soul, is currently on a respite, but back in the days when Nashville had a team, do you know who their official drink was?
Jack Daniel's.
Seriously, Jack Daniel's.
After every touchdown the Nashville Kats would announce, "Another Jack Daniel's Touchdown." We decided that Arena Football League quarterbacks should have to do shots after each touchdown pass. Last week my friend Chad Withrow modified the rule such that every team has an official liquor and you have to do the home-team shot. So, if someone is sponsored by 151 they have a huge homefield advantage. On the other hand if Avalanche ponies up, guys are running around pounding their chests after each shot.
There are all sorts of questions about this. Would liquor shots make quarterbacks better for the first few? You know how if you have a few beers on the golf course, you end up playing better because your body is more relaxed? Would the same hold true for quarterbacks?
Imagine what the coaching decisions look like when it's 54-49 and the leading team is knocking on the door to score. Does the coach take a knee and attempt the field goal because he doesn't want his quarterback to have to do another shot?
Every single one of these rules would make sports infinitely better. You're welcome. Now I'm off to cut the grass.
