1. Only 46 players eligible on game day.
There are 53 players on an NFL roster. Only 46 get to dress on game day. This stupid rule is intended to level the playing field. The wise men of the NFL figured that no team has a 100% healthy 53-man roster ready for a game but some teams might be closer to that than others. Eliminating seven from the rosters of both teams for the game insures that each team has an equal number healthy players for the game. After supposedly making the roster and practicing all week it's unfair that a handful of players are forced to sit. The players that are regular healthy scratches become nothing more than glorified practice squad players. I say let them all play. All football teams have to deal with injuries. It's part of the game. Let all of the healthy players dress. A game day injury forced the Atlanta Falcons to play a tight end at tackle against the Minnesota Vikings last year. It would have been nice to have one of the healthy linemen strolling the sidelines in street clothes. Football is so specialized these days that coaches really do need all of their healthy players. Coaches probably think that 53 isn't enough but you have to draw the line somewhere.
If the NFL didn't eliminate the rule calling for seven inactive players the greatest uproar might come from fantasy football players. The announcement of the inactive players go a long way in helping those maniacs set their rosters.
2. A fumble into and out of the endzone resulting in a touchback for the defense.
The first time that I ever saw this rule in action I nearly lost my mind. I didn't understand it as an itty-bitty tyke. I don't understand it now. It dates back to the old days when a lot of happenings on the football field were dealt with in a funky manner. NFL.com touches on this stupid rule like this:
- A fumble that goes forward and out of bounds will return to the fumbling team at the spot of the fumble unless the ball goes out of bounds in the opponent’s end zone. In this case, it is a touchback.
If the football is fumbled out of bounds anywhere else on the football field the team that had the ball keeps the ball at the spot of the fumble. This makes sense seeing as the defense never recovered the ball. The last team to possess the ball should keep the ball. For reasons that elude nearly everyone this rule changes when the ball goes into the endzone and out of the endzone without a recovery being made. This is the only instance in all of football in which the defense can grab a turnover without ever possessing the ball. A simply stupid rule. The team fumbling the football should keep the football at the spot of the fumble anywhere in the field of play.
3. Football Inflation
This has become a huge issue recently for all of the wrong reasons. The NFL has supposedly tackled the issue of the pregame handling of the footballs. If football inflation is really as important as they've made it out to be this offseason they haven't done anywhere near enough. All footballs should be checked pregame, at halftime, and postgame. The league blew the importance of football inflation way out of proportion this offseason. One would think that football inflation was the greatest threat to the integrity of the game. At most it's a minor issue. If it's truly as important to them as they've made it out to be they should do so much more. They should make time for proper monitoring of the football. They should check all of the footballs before the games and after the games. They should add five minutes to halftime to allow for the football inspections. They aren't going to do any of this. They are changing the pregame process but they aren't doing much else. They are only going to do random checks. That isn't even close to the changes one would expect from the emphasis put on it this offseason.
The 12.5-13.5 football pressure range has been an actual thing for about 80 years. You wouldn't know it. In fact no one has even mentioned how long this minor rule has been pretty much ignored. No one has ever paid much attention to this rule. Teams brought it up at times when some teams got a little big for the britches, like the Patriots now, but no one ever cared enough about the rule to do much about it. Let alone enforce it. That's because football inflation is not that big of a deal. It's more of a personal preference. One quarterback likes the football one way. Another quarterback likes it another. Still another quarterback simply throws whatever football is snapped to him. It really doesn't matter. The 12.5-13.5 range was simply a manufacturers suggested range over 80 years ago. And the manufacturer that originally suggested it isn't even the manufacturer that currently manufactures the footballs. The entire football inflation issue is a joke. It's a rule that popped into an old NFL rule book simply because football specifications should be included. Someone, maybe George Halas, saw the range on the side of a box that contained a slick new football. Every change to the football since it left the round shape of a soccer ball has been to make it easier to handle. Those changes really started happening when our football fathers decided to try throwing the thing. Every single change to the football since the forward pass became legal in 1906 has been to make that football easier to throw. Inflating the football to the preference of the thrower is right in line with those intentions. It's not for a competitive advantage. It's a personal preference. This is such a minor issue that no one cared about it for 80 years. No one would've cared much about it now if Roger Goodell hadn't made it a personal war.
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