Rules Changes in the NFL

Strangely, no poker content today, other than to congratulate my good friend wwonka69 on winning like his fourth Mookie last night. I know we have had our differences over time, but let's be honest. The man has won the Mookie a bunch of times, so obviously he is great at poker. Gotta face facts.

Today's topic is going to be the new rule changes in the NFL. In the annual owners' meetings, several new rules were passed, and out of the blue it was all they were talking about this morning during my commute on ESPN Radio.

The first rule change is the elimination starting in the 2008 season of the "push-out" rule. Starting this year, NFL officials will only have to rule whether a player landed in bounds or out of bounds on receptions made at the sidelines. No longer can a player be ruled in-bounds just because he made a catch in bounds in the air but was pushed by a defensive player until he landed out of bounds. Now if you're pushed out of bounds, you're out of bounds.

Why would they do this? Are there really owners who put this shit at the top of their list of important things to do with the NFL this year? So now the quarterback can throw a nice pass to, say, two yards inside the sidelines, an athletic player can jump up and one-hand catch it while he's falling over, and then get bounced out of bounds in the air and it won't be a catch? I don't get it. I mean, I could see if maybe the pass is thrown to a part of the field that would be out of bounds if the sidelines extended up into the sky or something, then maybe fine, the pass was kinda out of bounds already, so why get credit for being pushed out by the defense. But I can't believe that now I already know that at some point in a key spot for somebody this year, someone will throw a pass clearly in bounds, it will be caught by a player jumping straight up from clearly in bounds, he will be pushed out in the air and the team will lose the catch because of this rule change. And I am still trying to figure out why why why? And meanwhile, this particular change was approved unanimously, 32-0. Of course.

The next rule change is that most field goals are now reviewable by instant replay. Apparently the previous system prohibited any replay reviews for any field goals, period. Really? And who was the genius behind that brilliant one? Again I am left scratching my chin and saying "hmmmmmmmmmm". I mean, there are only two kinds of offensive scoring in the entire game of football, and you are going to immediately strike out reviewing any of one of those two kinds? Why? Are there going to be so many field goals that need reviewing that it will slow the game down that much? No field goals reviewable until now in a league that has had instant replay for years? What a joke.

The third rule change that I find interesting is the elimination of the 5-yard facemask rule entirely. Now the officials will only have to decide whether the facemask was significant and intentional -- which will bear the usual 15-yard penalty associated with a facemask -- or rather if it was unintentional and insignificant, which will draw no penalty at all. This is the first time in my life basically that an NFL player will be permitted to incidentally grab a facemask and even pull it a little bit but expressly not get a penalty for the play. It makes me wonder what the rulesmakers thirty years ago were thinking when they decided to treat the facemask as such a serious infraction. Hopefully we won't see defensive players getting more lax about going near the facemask as a result of this rule change. Definitely another one that surprises me to even be on the owners' horizons, personally.

Lastly there was a rule change from earlier in the week that I liked, but even that one I think is still behind the times. The Rules Committee voted to allow a defensive player to wear an intercom in his helmet to allow him to hear coach-to-defense signal calls. But only two helmets on the entire defensive team will be permitted to contain such intercoms, and only one such helmet will be allowed on the field at any given time. Now, I am all about using technology fairly and without harming the game or cheating in sports. In this case, I struggle to understand why every player on the field isn't permitted to have an intercom in their helmet.

Seriously. Think about basketball or hockey. There, the arenas are small, the coaches sit or stand right on the sidelines, and more or less all the players on the court or the rink can hear the coach or the assistant coaches yell if the coaches want or need to communicate with their players. Any of the players they have on the court.

Now think about the big-arena sports. In baseball, it's not like Joe Girardi can yell out to Hideki Matsui out in right field and be heard. But, baseball is a sport where the coach doesn't really need to bark out orders on a minute-to-minute basis like the other sports. Plus, baseball has some set period of time before every action, before every pitch, before every swing, and in that time the coach can and does give signals to those of his players that he considers key decisions for that particular play. Football moves a little faster, however. For example, if the offense chooses to adopt a no-huddle offense, the defensive players might likely have no opportunity whatsoever to obtain signals from their defensive coordinator on the sidelines. They can't possibly hear their coaches yelling to them in most cases unless they are standing within a few feet away from the sidelines. Any why not let them talk? Seriously, what's the problem? In my world, there would clearly be a speaker inside every player's helmet on the field. Why not? Let the coach call the plays so everyone can hear them, let the coach advise the players how to react as the play unfolds. Isn't that what happens in basketball? In hockey? Most things that increase the ability for the players and coaches to communicate, as long as it is done equally for both sides, are fine with me.

Oh yeah, one other thing: the owners voted down a proposal that would require players' hair to be short enough such that it does not cover their name tag on the top of the back of the jerseys. Good for you, assholes, ya finally got one right. They say it's all about image. Give me a break. Long-haired players are some of the most popular NFL jerseys in the league right now, and what exactly is "wrong" about the image that long haired players portray, huh? Seriously, the stuff that people spend their time thinking about can really blow the mind.

OK, Riverchasers tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "riverchasers". Tons more events -- basically twice as many as we've had so far -- are left in the BBT3 and that means tons more chances to get in to the series-ending Tournament of Champions, which now is set to have a maximum of 53 entrants and which will award two WSOP Main Event packages and two preliminary WSOP packages as well to the top four finishers. See you tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt!