Photo:Chris J. Nelson, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Brooks_Foster.jpg/300px-Brooks_Foster.jpg
by John Hirschauer
Why is the NFL so insistent on protecting the
pass?
Callously hailed by some fans as the “National Flag Football League”, the rules of professional football have encouraged the forward pass to the degree that passing has approached “dominant strategy” status in the game theory circle. Why?
I assume to the masses it’s clear: quarterbacks are the shoulders that carry the supposed nationwide yearning for inflated scoring that Roger Goodell works so assiduously to protect.
But, as a few fans pause to ask, at what cost?
I find it precarious to assume that the overwhelming majority of the population desires a flag football like environment that encourages passing so much that games are simply an unabated shootout. That type of thinking eliminates so many crucial tenants of what it means to play American gridiron football. Frankly, it eliminates much of the chess match that is professional football.
Football is a sport best played with an arsenal of various potent and competent weapons at your disposal. However, when the game is reduced to pure passing, a game strategy so encouraged by the league, the amount of strategy teams employ is dwindled down. Know the route tree, mix in a screen or draw to keep the defense honest and take shots down the field. "Establishing" the run has diminished in effectiveness, given that even if a team can’t run the football an inch, the rules allow even the most pass-heavy defensive sets to be torched. The game is now a personnel game: how fast is your receiver? How quick is your pass rushing specialist? Scheme holds little relative weight in the outcome of a defensive possession. It’s as if the defense is flipping a weighted coin.
Football has become a compromised game, a virtual shell of its roots that promoted physicality, potency in the run and
pass game and clichéd smash mouth attacks. For better or for worse, the physicality aspects of the sport have been reduced to what happens between the members of opposing lines. The skill positions, when not blocking, receive little contact other than the seemingly inconsequential tackle. Running the football seems more of an antiquity than a viable strategy. Is this the sport, or is this evolutionary product of a game merely comparable to football, stained
with foundational compromises of the game?
There is certainly another side to this coin. These decisions were not made in a vacuum; the devastating effects of professional football from concussions on the brain can be debilitating if not regulated. Look no further than Brett Favre,
who has shown amnesiac symptoms as a 40-something. It seems that any work environment should seek to promote the general health and well-being of its employees. But is football a different animal?
It’s difficult to say. By engaging in the multimillion dollar profession of football, players should proverbially get what they sign up for. On the other hand, these players are people. Should anyone, regardless of income, have to grow old with various physical and mental ailments that prevent them from engaging with their children?
The NFL has to find some way to balance these polarized ideals. And I think the ultimate answer may come across as blasphemous, but no more profane than the brand of football purported by today’s NFL.
The defensive team should be allowed a 12th player while maintaining many of the rules that propagate passing. This will create a greater equilibrium between offense and defense and likely increase the feasibility of running as a competent strategy. It will solve many of the league’s seemingly split desires.
Like a band aid, it is an attempt to heal the wounds of professional football but is in no way the same skin of unregulated play.
As the NFL is essentially telling its fans now, take it or leave it.
by John Hirschauer
Why is the NFL so insistent on protecting the
pass?
Callously hailed by some fans as the “National Flag Football League”, the rules of professional football have encouraged the forward pass to the degree that passing has approached “dominant strategy” status in the game theory circle. Why?
I assume to the masses it’s clear: quarterbacks are the shoulders that carry the supposed nationwide yearning for inflated scoring that Roger Goodell works so assiduously to protect.
But, as a few fans pause to ask, at what cost?
I find it precarious to assume that the overwhelming majority of the population desires a flag football like environment that encourages passing so much that games are simply an unabated shootout. That type of thinking eliminates so many crucial tenants of what it means to play American gridiron football. Frankly, it eliminates much of the chess match that is professional football.
Football is a sport best played with an arsenal of various potent and competent weapons at your disposal. However, when the game is reduced to pure passing, a game strategy so encouraged by the league, the amount of strategy teams employ is dwindled down. Know the route tree, mix in a screen or draw to keep the defense honest and take shots down the field. "Establishing" the run has diminished in effectiveness, given that even if a team can’t run the football an inch, the rules allow even the most pass-heavy defensive sets to be torched. The game is now a personnel game: how fast is your receiver? How quick is your pass rushing specialist? Scheme holds little relative weight in the outcome of a defensive possession. It’s as if the defense is flipping a weighted coin.
Football has become a compromised game, a virtual shell of its roots that promoted physicality, potency in the run and
pass game and clichéd smash mouth attacks. For better or for worse, the physicality aspects of the sport have been reduced to what happens between the members of opposing lines. The skill positions, when not blocking, receive little contact other than the seemingly inconsequential tackle. Running the football seems more of an antiquity than a viable strategy. Is this the sport, or is this evolutionary product of a game merely comparable to football, stained
with foundational compromises of the game?
There is certainly another side to this coin. These decisions were not made in a vacuum; the devastating effects of professional football from concussions on the brain can be debilitating if not regulated. Look no further than Brett Favre,
who has shown amnesiac symptoms as a 40-something. It seems that any work environment should seek to promote the general health and well-being of its employees. But is football a different animal?
It’s difficult to say. By engaging in the multimillion dollar profession of football, players should proverbially get what they sign up for. On the other hand, these players are people. Should anyone, regardless of income, have to grow old with various physical and mental ailments that prevent them from engaging with their children?
The NFL has to find some way to balance these polarized ideals. And I think the ultimate answer may come across as blasphemous, but no more profane than the brand of football purported by today’s NFL.
The defensive team should be allowed a 12th player while maintaining many of the rules that propagate passing. This will create a greater equilibrium between offense and defense and likely increase the feasibility of running as a competent strategy. It will solve many of the league’s seemingly split desires.
Like a band aid, it is an attempt to heal the wounds of professional football but is in no way the same skin of unregulated play.
As the NFL is essentially telling its fans now, take it or leave it.