"What The Hell's Going On Out Here?"

Vince Lombardi's timeless quote is often perfect for the actions and ideas of NFL chief Roger Goodell. From the ludicrous deflategate investigation and punishment to his belief that he has a clue as to what the fans want, Goodell often governs like a man looking for the glasses that are sitting on his head. In advance of next week's NFL Owners' Meeting, Goodell and the Competition Committee are parading around their annual proposals for tweaking the rules of the game. Several of this year's proposals are intended to streamline the viewing of the games. From centralizing replay reviews to doing something about all the damn commercials, the NFL decision makers want to shorten the game without touching the play on the field. Sounds great. The league is also trotting out a proposed rule change that they say is with the player's safety in mind. That's a stretch. The Competition Committee will propose reducing both preseason and regular season overtimes from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. Postseason games will keep the same 15-minute overtimes. The committee believes that there's a real disadvantage for a team to play a full 15-minute overtime period before having to turn around and play a Thursday night game four days later. The league's decision-makers see this severe turnaround as a competitive disadvantage and a safety risk. Ok.

From NFL Research:

There have been 83 regular season overtime games in the last five seasons.
22 of them (26.5%) featured an overtime period that lasted 10+ minutes.

How many of those 22 games included a team that had a Thursday night game later that week? Probably very few. This proposed rule change impacts so few games that it's kinda nutty that it actually made it past the discussion stage. I can't help but think that it's simply window dressing. Something to show that the NFL actually cares about the well-being of the players. If they truly cared about player safety they'd simply get rid of the Thursday night games. Those games have always put money over the risks of playing two NFL games in four days. It really is amazing that Goodell and the boys would even consider a rule change that's so unlikely to happen. Even if it did happen, how are five minutes of game time putting a team at a competitive disadvantage four days later?

"What the hell's going on out here?"

I do like the idea that the NFL might do away with those asinine commercial breaks following a kickoff. A teams scores a touchdown and kicks the extra point. Go to a commercial. Come back for the kickoff. Go to a commercial. Why? It's enough to take ten years off the life of a serious football fan. The NFL is looking to streamline the games and eliminating one of those commercial breaks after a score is one of their ideas. That's a good idea. Maybe Goodell really does have his fingers on the pulse of the fans. Imagine that.