Revenge of the Birds
The NFL season just keeps rolling along. Things change every year.
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I interviewed halfback Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers once in Las Vegas at a Hall of Fame show for the Beckett Football Price Guide. One of my questions was how different football was now versus in his playing days. He said one major thing he noticed was the rule about the ground not being able to cause a fumble. He said in his day, a ballcarrier had to be down for three seconds. In that span of hitting the turf, defenders could punch, gouge, hit, spit, and grab at the ball, and if it came out, it was a live ball.
Some of the original rules of the pro game were very odd. Originally, a punt could be recovered by either team. If the ball was fumbled out of bounds, whichever team brought it back into the field of play had possession. A field goal was worth five points because it was attempted straight back from the point the touchdown occurred, making some difficult angles.
The universe of professional football has also attracted some unusual stuff. Here is what’s on my mind.
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1. The United Football League fired the GMs of all of its eight member teams. The league stated that this move was part of a larger restructuring plan. They also announced that all of their head coaches would now be full-time employees of the league instead of seasonal. Also, they abandoned the two-conference setup and now all teams are in one division with the top four advancing to the playoffs. The ACC in college football did the same this year.
All of this is confusing to me. I never understood what their GMs did in the first place. The league owns all eight clubs, so there is no draft to be concerned about or scouting. All players are paid a set amount, so no agents to deal with or haggling with contract numbers.
All players are on a one-year deal anyway. The rosters are a revolving door of player nameplates each year, as some get picked up by NFL and CFL teams. With players coming and going, there isn’t really a need for a coach to be on staff all year long. No scouting is done, no college All-Star games to attend, or college games to watch.
The league has already cleared out of the three cities it is abandoning: San Antonio, Memphis, and Detroit. Leases are in place for their new digs in Columbus, Orlando, and Louisville. Both Texas teams have moved to soccer stadiums as the Houston Roughnecks changed their team name to the Houston Gamblers, an old USFL moniker.
St. Louis draws really well in their domed stadium and has proved they should be on the short list for the next round of NFL expansion. The rest of the league does poorly at the gate, with most games under 15,000....
