As this Sunday's championship match - the Super Bowel - for the Professional League of American Rules Football stalks ever closer, I note that the Commissioner of the PLARF recently mooted the subject of potential rules changes for upcoming seasons. Unlike playing rules for the National Pastime which were perfected nearly 100 years ago and are now under assault by the tyrannical and illegitimate A. Bartlett "Bug" Selig [sic], masquerading as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, the PLARF has made habitual practice of fundamentally changing the rules of their game every season. It is under this rubric that I propose the following changes in order to improve professional American rules football:
1) Abolish the concept of Forward Progress. This principle unfairly penalizes superior performance by a defensive player (or players) and is just one of the rules which gives undue favor towards the offense in a modern game which already tilts too far in favor of that side of the line of scrimmage. If Forward Progress is to be permitted, it renders American Rules Football no different from so-called flag or touch football. The ball carrier (whether runner, receiver or quarterback) is down on the spot wherever the defender drives his opponent's pathetic carcass into the frozen tundra.
2) Remove the goalposts altogether. Following a play in which one team pushes the ball across the goal line for 6 points, that team should then have the option of running the ball for 1 point after touchdown (a phrase all but forgotten) or passing the football for 2 points after touchdown. Kicking for a field goal is an abomination against the sport. Nothing in all of American sportsdom is as unsatisfying and anti-climactic as watching a hard-fought battle waged in the line-of-scrimmage trenches with battering runs and daring down-field passes end when some 100-pound, single-bar face mask wearing specialist in a pristine uniform prances out onto the field and performs a balletic flourish which determines the ultimate outcome. Weak. If immediate removal of goalposts is a bridge too far because fans are desirous of tearing them down after a stirring victory in the college game, at least prohibit Field Goal attempts in the final 5 minutes of the game and for whatever might pass as next season's iteration of overtime. Or, as another half-measure, do not permit Field Goal attempts from inside the 40-yard line at any point during the game. Require teams to win by pushing the ball over the goal line and not though the uprights.
3) Get rid of helmets and shoulder pads. These are unnecessary accouterments which foster the violent collisions and resultant devastating - sometime lifelong - injuries that are turning American Rules Football into nothing more than a triage of debilitating attrition. While at first seeming counter intuitive, this will force defensive players to re-learn the masculine art of tackling and end the battering ram, human missile hits which are causing so many head injuries. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't watched professional rugby recently enough for it to have made a lasting impression.
4) Eliminate the forward pass. American Rules Football was a better game when so often its games ended in a 0-0 tie. This too will dramatically reduce the number and severity of injuries when you no longer have receivers and secondary players colliding at maximum speeds when simultaneously attempting to perform some variation of aerial gymnastics. Regarding the prospect of a Super Bowel ending in a 0-0 tie; just imagine how great that outcome would be for the sportswriters, commentators and fans. It would give them unlimited fodder for off-season columns and radio call-in programs! This proposal has the ancillary benefit of rending obsolete such penalties as intentional grounding, pass interference, and illegal man down field to name but three.
Roll the credits!
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