Windy City Gridiron
Hello, Chicago Bears fans! I have a beef with the NFL Competition Committee. In fact, I think that name is one of the most oxymoronic labels I’ve ever seen. If it was called the Kill the Competition Committee, it would at least be truth in advertising. Every year they make changes to the rules that make NFL officiating more opaque, more subjective, more offense-oriented, and with just enough of a dash of arbitrary capriciousness to confuse both NFL players and NFL fans. With that, here are ten things I hate about NFL rules and officiating (yes, I have more, be patient young padawan).
Defensive holding used to be something you only saw on passing plays and it wasn’t called all that often. Now you are just as likely to see a defensive hold on a run play as you are on a passing play. As for random holds on offense – holding calls on offense are drive killers. Refs need to see a clear and obvious hold at the point of attack, or on a take down of the defender in range of a rush of the quarterback, or they should swallow their whistles.
OK, we can all agree that some teams were abusing this (looking at you Jawaan Taylor). But the league responded by making it a “point of emphasis” which almost always turns an under-called rule into an over-called rule. It is being over-called.
These and nearly every other rules change designed to protect the quarterback in the last fifteen years has taken the aggressiveness out of defense and essentially placed a red shirt on the quarterback. No one wants to see a quarterback, with their leg extended, hit low by a crashing defensive tackle. But football is a physical sport, and injuries are part of the game. We are approaching flag football territory with how we molly coddle NFL quarterbacks, and the next time I see a called roughing the passer that really was a roughing the passer will be the first in a long time.
Yes, I do like the fact we are seeing more actual runbacks compared to the no-play kickoffs that had become the norm in football. And the data is clear this has reduced injuries on the kickoff return substantially. But it has eliminated one of the truly surprising and game-changing plays in football (the surprise onside kick), and the average field position is creeping much too close to the 40 yard line. Teams should NOT be starting with just over half of the field to go regularly.
Illegal Contact is an utterly superfluous and ticky tack rule that NFL officials struggle to call with any consistency. We already have...
