Call them the Assistant Commissioners of Everything. (And has it occured to you yet that I really like that title?)
The readers were asked last month what they would change in sports if they had the authority to do so. In Friday’s paper we relayed some of their suggestions for fixing baseball (including some things that might not really need fixing). Today, we tackle the NFL and NBA. In Tuesday’s editions we’ll cover everything else.
So let’s get to it.
ALSO READ: Readers react: How they’d change Major League Baseball
Many of the responses regarding the NFL involve the rules and their effect (or lack of same) on player safety. It is, to be sure, a violent sport and has gotten even more brutal.
Dennis Arntz of Laguna Niguel noted: “Blocking and tackling seem to be a thing of the past in the NFL replaced by smashing and grabbing. Tackling used to be grabbing your opponent and forcing him to the ground, now it’s body smashing and head butting to the body or worse to the upper shoulder and head, or grabbing his face mask.
“Head butting and mask grabbing should carry an immediate penalty of time off (the) field, automatic first down and maybe extra yards. The definition of what constitutes a tackle needs to be redefined because the way it is now many tackles are nothing more than full body smashes at high speed.”
Additionally, Arntz suggests that fumbles “should be called as downs at the point of the fumble. No turnovers.” Interceptions would be considered turnovers “if the ball is caught in the air, not after the offense has clear possession of the ball.”
I’m sure that old-school football people could have some issues with this, as well as his next suggestion: “Stop playing football games in snowstorms and heavy rainstorms.” That would likely involve putting domes on a lot of stadiums in the Northeast that don’t already have them.
I can guess the reaction, especially among those who live in those cold climates and consider a ticket stub of a game played in a snowstorm as a badge of honor.
There also seems to be agreement, among this audience at least, that the league’s (i.e. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s) international obsession is going too far.
“Get rid of international games,” George Conlisk wrote. “They’re awful and who’s watching them at 5 a.m. (on the West Coast)? I’m sure all players and coaches hate them.”
However, there’s this alternate view: “If a Euro league is ever created, make it a true secondary league with everything the same as we see in the NFL,” Marc Levine wrote. And if a team stinks for a couple of years in a row, he wrote, “relegate them to the Euro league and promote the Euro league winner to the NFL.”
I think the European fans would go for that. As for, say, Jets or Cardinals fans, maybe not so much.
Randy Goeken of Newport Beach suggested that field goals should be valued at two or even one point, and extra-point tries should always be from scrimmage. “Who wants to see a chip shot after every TD?” he wrote. Meanwhile, Jeff Perkins of Huntington Beach wrote that instead of an onside kick – which is no longer a surprise thanks to the new kickoff rule – a trailing team that is successful on a two-point conversion in the final minute would get the ball back on their own 20.
(But shouldn’t that be the other team’s 20, perhaps? That would certainly add to the late-game suspense.)
Tad Ludes would make pass interference penalties 15 yards, as in college, rather than a spot foul. And he would have teams kick off from their 30-yard line, rather than the 35. (Then again, Conlisk said he’d prefer to “have somebody explain (the) kickoff rule because nobody understands it.”
And Tom Pence of Huntington Beach would outlaw tinted visors on helmets. “The players should be able to read the eyes of other players, and to hide behind a darkly tinted visor takes away the opponent’s ability to do that,” he wrote.
Now to the NBA. And maybe the first order of business should be … uniforms?
We’ve gotten so deep into the marketing aspect of what players wear – thanks, Nike! – that you can turn on a televised game and, if you don’t already know, have no idea which team is the home team. Mario Palladini would change that by returning to making white (or light) uniforms for the home team and dark for the visiting team mandatory.
“Even if you watch the Lakers, they wear their gold uniforms more on the road than they do at home,” he wrote. “The playoffs (are) the same way. They have the opposite, dark at home and white on the road. Just stick with the old method that has worked and works for college teams, high school, etc.”
(At least for the final two games of the NBA Finals, the home team did wear white. I suppose that’s progress. But as the self-proclaimed Commissioner of Everything, I would limit alternate uniforms in all sports – and ban them if they’re especially garish, like those Padres City Connects of the last couple of years. Sell them at the souvenir stands but keep them away from the game itself.)
But most of the response from our Assistant Commissioners regarding NBA games involves the way certain rules have been liberalized (i.e., ignored).
“Eliminate the so-called ‘euro step,’” Mark Diamond wrote. “It’s obviously traveling. … Instruct referees to call palming.”
“I would enforce the rule against traveling, or simply drop the rule and let players run without dribbling,” Pence wrote. “To watch players take 3 or 4 or even 5 steps without dribbling, with no traveling called, is beyond infuriating.”
And, as Conlisk observed, “Since Michael Jordan came on the scene the refs don’t call traveling. Have the refs start calling that penalty because at time it looks like they are running like a football back versus a basketball player.”
Other potential fixes: Goeken would widen the floor, extend the 3-point line further from the basket, eliminate the center jump and increase the number of officials, “maybe put two in great spots in the stands who can override floor calls. How can the ref under the basket watch for calls right in front of him involving 7’5” players? If you’re watching the upper body, you can’t see what’s happening below.”
Are there too many 3-point attempts? The analytics folks don’t think so, but this subset of average fans tends to think so. Ludes would extend the 3-point arc to eliminate the corner threes. Perkins would count the 3-point shot only in the final minute of the game.
Other changes: Steve Geary of Corona del Mar would eliminate fouling out in both pro and college basketball, with a player’s current disqualifying foul not removing him from the game but giving the other team two free throws and possession. “That way, there is still a significant penalty, but fans aren’t deprived of seeing star players finish the game,” he wrote.
And how about the court itself? “The players are too big for the court they play on,” wrote Dana Roth of Pasadena, who suggested that rather than making the court bigger the sport instead reduce the number of players on the floor to four rather than five.
Roth also says he’s “not a fan” of the NBA’s 24-second clock, and thinks the college length of 30 seconds “seems much more reasonable and might help reduce the current ‘street fight’ that seems to be the norm in the NBA.”
Marc Levine would “revisit the dimensions of the court. Lengthen it, widen it and raise the rim. By default, modify the lane and free throw line accordingly and shot clock accordingly. The players are just too big and cover just too much court. (James) Naismith didn’t invent the game with 6’6” point guards, 7’ wings and 7’+ centers in mind.”
David Jones, meanwhile, would raise the baskets to 12 feet, and also would fine players for “pushing and shoving” and for questioning referees. I just want to know where all this fine money would go.
Other rule changes and tweaks: Diamond would get rid of the possession arrow in college basketball and would “reward the team that created the held ball” with possession. He’d also prohibit a team inbounding at midcourt from passing into the backcourt, to reward the defense “for creating the situation.”
And Tim Bowman and Doug Dunlap both take aim at another irritant by eliminating all timeouts in the last two minutes. Bowman puts it this way: “If you’re often behind the last two minutes, score more points earlier.”
And Dunlap, noting the elongated nature of close games because of those timeouts, wrote: “I record games so I can zoom through all the timeouts … (and) of course the reviews, which are endless.”
We have a fix for that, too. See Tuesday’s column.
jalexander@scng.com