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I have a lot of respect for the guys from the Bad Ideas Department of the NFL. They do some of the finest work in the whole bad ideas sector. While the NFL is constantly bombarded with valid criticism of its crushed rulebook, of its social agenda that must not please both parties, and of its wheezing ignorance of the concussion crisis, the Bad Ideas Department is constantly seeking solutions to problems that no one thinks the NFL has.
Last week, the IDB presented its masterpiece. The league has long sought to extend the regular season to 18 games, although its current length of 16 games is not on the list of urgent football problems for most people. The reason is that more games would yield more money, and the NFL proved it would do everything in its power to make extra money. This push met with reasonable resistance from the players, who put their bodies in danger to earn money for the league. So the IDB found something out of the box: According to Andrew Beaton of the the Wall Street newspaper, the NFL is willing to offer an 18-game season in which each player can play only 16 games, relieving security concerns about the balance of the longer season on each player's body.
It's an objectively terrible idea. Nothing justifies it except to allow the owners to enrich themselves by diluting their product. You take 16 pounds of pure uncut NFL, you chop it with Bortles and Glennon, and boom! You can sell 18. The NFL wants to add games by making the management of the load mandatory. This idea is so bad that I guess it's not a serious proposition, but rather a distraction that the owners will bring to the bargaining table, so that their less silly ideas will look like compromises when they write the new collective agreement with the NFL. Association of players.
Anyway, Twitter NFL has spent a good part of the weekend reporting the innumerable logical and logistical flaws of this proposal. Would teams be willing to take the risk of playing their starting quarters behind offensive offensive lines or would they place their offensive units from the first complete chain at the same time? Will the teams line up several kickers, punters and long snappers during the two weeks of each season when they would be forced to play a backup? Why would the league sneak up to the TV channels that provide the bulk of its cash flow by leaving them branded games in which star players sit? Why would the NFL unnecessarily complicate the nature of fantasy football and gambling, two institutions that drive millions of fans to watch games every week?
And of course, the big question is how could anyone accept games played largely by backups affecting the competitive integrity of the league? NFL teams are already playing games in which most starters are sitting: they are called pre-season games and they do not count for the standings. This proposal would take two of these games and give them meaning. All of a sudden, NFL fans should pay a lot of attention to games designed to give the stars a break. Who wants to watch players below the average who decide the team season?
Unfortunately, I do it. I am sick and what excites me the most in the world is the really horrible football. If I'm in a hurry to talk about my three outstanding football observing experiences since I was a professional writer, I'll be backing Michigan's 78-0 win over Rutgers in 2016, when Bills quarterback Nathan Peterman launched five interceptions in a half against the Chargers in 2017, while Buffalo beat his first playoff appearance in almost 20 years and the Cardinals pitched Ryan Lindley in a playoff game. the NFL in 2015. It is absolutely breathtaking to see football games thought to be important being diverted by incompetent players. I live for this trash.
Although I can not in any way approve of the adoption of this proposal by the NFL, its implementation would be a major step forward for football fans as terribly horrible as me. The logical part of my brain is pleased that this poorly designed funds puncture is never more than a thought experiment. The depraved part, however, is obsessed with the idea of ​​considering the immense possibilities of a world where below average football is mandatory. Let's break down three of them.
The dawn of the quarterback
The quarterback is the most important position in football, as lack of skill can jeopardize the team's chances of success. The quarterback is also a position where only one player occupies the field at any given time and is the only position where a player will likely play more than 99% of his team's offensive shots. (Five quarters did so last year and half of the 32 teams in the league were able to start the same quarter for the 16 regular-season games.) Quarterbacks are insurance policies that do not part of the game plan of the week.
This BID proposal would change that. Having an 18-game schedule with a limit of 16 games would require each team to give meaningful reps to the shifts. Last season, 54 QB started their games in the NFL; this rule would require that at least 64 quarters receive housing starts. This slight rise would be incredible because watching backup shifts play in the NFL is hilarious. Of course, from time to time, a backup makes it clear that it should start. More often, however, terrible things happen when a second-string player takes the reins of an offense.
Think of all the players who would be asked to lead the NFL offensives in this brave and stupid new world: busts, passers-by who were incompetent long ago, guys you thought you did not hear the names. We would see coaches handing over the keys of the 37-year-old hung up as mentors to the young quarterbacks, the fourth-round rookies whose last significant action took place in the Bad Boy Motors Gasparilla Bowl, projects that are going strong. would instantly collapse if they were thrown into a match against the professional defensemen, the guys who made the team because they are golfing buddies with the offensive coordinator.
Watch the players currently listed as NFL backups. There is Paxton Lynch, who was cut two years after being selected in the first round! Tom Savage, who has already lost a battle against Brock Osweiler! Tanner Lee, last seen 4-8 as a quarterback from Nebraska! Chase Daniel, who is in his 10th year in the league and has only started four games! The NFL would force these guys to play!
I want to watch these guys play football because I'm sure some of them do not want to play football. They planned $ 2.7 million to do nothing, and if they play in a game and launch four interceptions, the template is finished. This is our last chance to watch Nathan Peterman play important games in the NFL.
The strategy of disrespect
If this BID proposal were adopted, the main question would be how teams would decide to ration the two mandatory missed games of their players. Would they arrange for key player absences throughout the season (placing the starting quarterback, the receiver next week, the best pass the next week, etc.) to maintain a relatively competitive team? Or would they be stacked at the same time in large sections of their runners in the hope of limiting the effects of the rule to two weeks? Would they have chosen to ensure that players avoid long trips to the opposite coast or to London? One thing is certain: give NFL coaches the option to get on the air and they will invent dozens of innovative ways to do it.
I suppose that some teams consider the games against the worst teams in the league as opportunities to rest the players while hoping to win a victory, adding a new level of intrigue to imbalanced confrontations. These games would go in two ways and, in my opinion, both are hilarious. The first is that the quality teams would manage to beat horrible despite the rest of their starters. Can you imagine the humiliation? It's one thing to lose for a team that plays its quarterback. It's another thing to lose to a team that plays their backup QB because their coaches did not think your defense was good enough to stop it. It might be more fun, however, to see the teams miss the playoffs, as they spoiled a game against a team of 2 to 10, leaving that to their substitutes.
The tragedies of the week 18
If I were an NFL head coach in a world where this IDB proposal had been adopted, I would not even bother to decide when my best players would be on a bench. I would only play my best available talent in every game, as long as I could. Most guys would still miss a few games. Last year, the average NFL team lost 78 games due to injury. Last season, only 676 players participated in the 16 games, about 21 per team, less than half the strength of each franchise. Even ignoring the 16-game limit, a decent number of top players on my team would still be available to play weeks 17 and 18 after missing previous games due to injury.
A lucky team would get 16 full games among its best players. He would win games against the teams whose best players were injured and against the teams that chose to rank their stars at the beginning of the year. And that would be at the height of the playoffs before the last two games of the season. It is no coincidence that most of the top 10 ranked injury teams in 2018 also participated in the playoffs.
But if this team did not win in the playoffs before the 17th week, this lucky team would suddenly seem unlucky. Having managed to run the gantlet of 16 consecutive games without fear of serious injury, this team would now be forced to replace a team B. His hopes in the post-season could be based on the performance of the backups that may not have played much since the preseason. Imagine one of these teams of teammates battling an opponent whose defensive coach All-Pro missed a few games early in the season and was eager to feast on a left-leaning forward protecting a QB rookie who had not started since 'university. Yes, pobrecitos.
It's not so ridiculous to imagine a world where backup players will be playing the final weeks of the regular NFL season. This is already happening to a certain extent during the 17th week, in games featuring teams eliminated from the post-season and those who place their best players for the playoffs. In this world, however, these would be significant games decided largely by unworthy participants.
Everyone would hate that. Star players would hate to watch from the sidelines as backups decide their fate in the playoffs. The networks would curse the critical correspondences decided without name. Fans would experience the strangeness of spending the entire year living and dying with only one group of players, then suddenly hoping that another group of players miraculously mirrored themselves.
And I would find that incredible. Yeah, it would be cool to watch the rare occasions when the backups won a victory to save the season for their team. But most often, we would witness the breathtaking savagery of relatively competent NFL player groups starting for unprepared players. We attended a team that belonged to the post-season stomping 49-10 with its season on the line because none of its top players were eligible for the equipment; the hopes and dreams of an organization crushed by half-cooked technology. There would be a waiting line between City Hall and the suburbs to kick the ass to the coach to have the nerve to not be able to account for the limit of First 16 games. Everyone would hate the realities caused by the NFL's awful best idea so far – everyone except the sadistic football crazies like me.
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