NFL Rule Changes (and other stuff)

So the NFL decided to do away with the 5 yard face mask penalty. Why? The reasoning was to shorten the 3 hour games. Shortening the games by eliminating the 5 yard mask penalty? Interesting.

Here's a novel concept...

How about getting rid of a few commercial breaks? Perhaps the dreaded Extra Point / Commercial / Kickoff / Commercial / Resume Play sequence could be limited to Extra Point / Commercial / Kickoff / Resume Play? That would do it for me. The only thing worse in football is when a Kickoff gets returned for a Teed, and you have:

Extra Point / Commercial / Kickoff (Return TD) / Extra Point / Commercial / Kickoff / Commercial / Resume Play.

And people say soccer is boring.

Consider the fact that the average NFL play takes approx 8-12 seconds. For simplicity sake, let's estimate that at least 16-24 seconds is taken in between plays (huddles, etc) with the clock running, meaning only 33% of actual action is being played during the game's 60 minutes. That's 20 minutes of action over a 3 hour period. That's a whole bunch of ESPN hype during the week for 20 minutes of actual action. It's also the reason I find an NFL game not involving my beloved Steelers pretty boring. Maybe that's why I need to have a financial stake on games not involving the Black & Gold...to keep me from gouging my eyes out while I'm watching commercials for 2 hours any given Sunday. But eliminating the 5 yard face mask should help.

moving on....

Chris Henry was arrested again and I'm completely shocked. I thought he would've turned it around by now. I mean...it's really not his fault, he's just hanging around the wrong people, me thinks. Maybe it was the environment he was brought up in. I don't know...but there's gotta be an excuse as to why he acts this way. Someone needs to give this kid and his electric monitor another chance...where's Jerry Jones when you need him?

seriously...

This will probably upset my fellow Steeler brethren, but I'm now of the opinion that the Steelers should've cut James Harrison. Friends of mine, who don't have a Steeler bias, ask me what's the difference between Cedrick Wilson and James Harrison. I don't have an answer, other than...Harrison is a better player than Wilson. Personally, I need to respect the players I root for. And if the Steelers are gonna be held to a higher standard, which was the assumption I was always under and one of the reasons I love the organization, then I say cut his ass. Otherwise, we're no different than the Bengals. I'd rather lose with dignity than sacrifice our integrity, which is exactly what we've done here.

So there's my second complaint of the NFL...too many thugs, gangstas, criminals, and wife-beaters. Tough to root for those guys, especially in-between all those commercials.

And finally...

I'm tired of Chad Johnson. Tired. Can we make another rule change and eliminate all WR's? Let's just do away with the position. We can play with just RB's, TE's and Fullbacks. If you haven't seen this yet...hilarious stuff at the 3:00 mark on...kudos to Brian Kenny. Amazing that I used to like this ass bag...