This weekends NFL games summed up my opinion about the league: it can be fun to watch for pure entertainment. But don't live and die by the outcomes and don't actively root for a team - you will always be disappointed.
Unless you're a fan of the patriots, of course. Nearly 2 decades of winning; honestly its embarrassing - for the rest of the league. New players, new coaches year after year and yet having Bellicheat and Brady is enough.
Some day, we may learn how they continue to win. Maybe there's a system of cheating or bending the rules. But maybe not. In the meantime, the one thing we know is that Bellicheat understands the rules better than anyone. He plays just to them, and gets his players to take advantage of the little things that are quirks or not well defined. And, he gets in the officials ears and as a result, they are less likely to call things on him. And rather, favor him.
Back in the 80s, the dolphins had a string of seasons where they were the least-penalized team. Shula had everything to do with that: he stayed in officials ears, kept his team disciplined, and used rules to his advantage. I think it's fair to say that they did actually commit infractions, but they were just this side of legal, and not called on plays. I see Bellicheat as Shula 2.0 in that way.
And then there's the rules themselves. On Sunday, we saw on full display how confusing it is to call almost anything. Pass interference. Roughing the passer. Holding anywhere on the field. Whether a ball was touched. Helmet to helmet hits. First downs. And what's a catch, anyway?
And there's some older guy making a determination at game speed on a call. It's silly. You have technology. It would be easy to implement some solutions to solve for some of this. Tennis can decide if a ball is in our out. Soccer can decide if it's a goal. First downs touchdowns should be simple matters.
For catches, it would seem they could come up with a simpler rule and augment the ball to decide if it's being gripped and/or hits the ground. Done and done. No decisions to be made by observation.
Helmet collisions could be monitored by devices in the helmets themselves. If there's a collision, and two helmets show a sudden impact it's contact. Penalty, and the guy making contact is ejected. No judgement calls.
You could also use it to see if a guy makes contact with players head using a hand, eliminating questions about whether he hit the helmet.
The notion that they want to make a passer interference penalty reviewable is laughable. Allowing plays to be reviewed which are or aren't penalties is going to create more chaos and not help the game.
Instead, they need to come up with a simpler rule for what constitutes interference or holding, and have a referee in a booth who can radio down if the ones on the field missed something. And they can confer with him/her much like they do on the field. And use replay in those conferences. Get it right rather than leaving it to simple judgement.
And then there's overtime. In one game the system mostly worked. Both teams touched the ball. In the other, it most certainly did not.
The rules are more-or-less the same in the regular season.
And you saw coaches opt to go for two at end game in the regular season, because the odds of getting the two are something like 60% success rate. While the coin flip is 50% that you'll get the ball and then you have to drive the field or stop the other team. Overall, there's a 55% chance if you win the coin toss you win the game.
You are better off going for the win in regulation.
In our situation, New England wins the toss and Kansas City never saw the ball.
Why not implement either a full quarter of overtime to play it out and give an opportunity to both teams. Or allow for the college rule to come to the nfl. Both teams get a possession and have an opportunity to win.
It's not perfect but it's better than what we saw, and certainly would help generate interest.
And in the 48 hours since the game, people cite an obscure rule that allows the commissioner to replay the game, the quarter, the situation, or simply change the outcome. It's silly that this would come up - and just when would a rematch happen?
It was wrong. And silly. The fact that the nfl got it wrong just sums up the absurdity of the sport.
So as I've said before, the nfl can keep its product. I'll watch a little and enjoy the entertainment. But I am not getting too worked up about it. They love that the ratings were through the roof. They love that now there's a storyline.
And so in their own way they keep winning.
