NFL....about Offensive and Defensive linesmen....

[Alphabet Man]

I got thinking, why do they have 3 teams in NFL as in the offense, defense and special teams? What I am getting at, not sure how to put it, that when players swap over, they waste up time. Why do the same 11 players play as the offense, defense and one player that can also punt and kick? It'd speed up the game. I think if they did that, it'd be a game that alot of Aussies would take to, and maybe most of the world.

The only reason i can find in opposing my idea is that it would be a bit like Rugby, but i beg to differ, I think the faster the game, the higher the scores, the more attractive the game would be to the eye. TV stations wanting ads in between changeovers may be an issue. So I'm not sure how you guys would take to a faster game, introduce more athletic/solid players to the game. I expect alot of criticism for this.

And yes, I love Test cricket.

[Cyclopsis Joe]

Well, I think that the game wouldn't be as exciting. Around the 4th quarter, those guys are getting pretty tired as it is. Unlike Rugby or Soccer (Football to the rest of the world), American Football players wear all kinds of pads and stuff, and that gets heavy.

Finally, about the comment of more points, during the switches, the clock stops for a change of possession, so it wouldn't change that much. It's not like the clock runs while they are setting up for a Kickoff.

[Alphabet Man]

I get ya point on the first one. Maybe allow interchange, players can swap on and off the bench durign the game at any time, in between plays quickly maybe.

At the moment, in Hockey too, they have 15min periods, but by the time its finished its taken a good 30mins sometimes, if we eliminate the change over periods, it will still go over 15mins on the continuous clock, but not that long and it will be more of playing time. In Aussie Rules here, we have 20min quarter plus time on, which is like stoppage time in soccer, maybe they could play 15mins plus stoppage time.

[Alphabet Man]

All that being said, I don't want to eliminate the true American Football-players (ie, the body size etc etc) in favour of pure athletes.

[Brendan]

I get ya point on the first one. Maybe allow interchange, players can swap on and off the bench durign the game at any time, in between plays quickly maybe.

At the moment, in Hockey too, they have 15min periods, but by the time its finished its taken a good 30mins sometimes, if we eliminate the change over periods, it will still go over 15mins on the continuous clock, but not that long and it will be more of playing time. In Aussie Rules here, we have 20min quarter plus time on, which is like stoppage time in soccer, maybe they could play 15mins plus stoppage time.

hockey has 20 minute periods and 15 break i personally like the break because then i can do homework and stuff and not miss the game.

[Discrim]

wouldn't make much difference timewise for the reason mentioned: the clock stops after a change of posession anyways. tactically, the complexity of an NFL team's playbook...heck, even a small college team's playbook makes a return to what we recall as "ironman football" damn near impossible for an entire team to do nowadays. imagine being a quarteback, where you gotta know everybody's assignments for most of the plays and be able to read the defense effectively in under 3 seconds...then you gotta play safety too, where you gotta read what the offense is doing, figure out who you're covering, or take outside contain or such. sounds like too much for one guy, don't it?

shoot, it's easiest for linemen to be ironmen, but even then it's tough (in regular football, I mean...I'd have a far easier time being a OL/DL in Arena ball than I did on my high school's JV...yeah, I said it). And contrary to your belief, it wouldn't make much of a difference scoringwise, because even though the defense would be tired as hell, so would the offense. shoot, going to two-platoon ball in the first place didn't really increase scoring. the only real good going back to ironman football would do is that the sport would rid itself of the Human Pass Interference Flag, aka Ahmad Carroll.

interchange as you described it would never work, mainly due to the rules and the nature of the game...3-5 seconds, and usually a play's over, so there wouldn't be nearly enough time for any interchange as is, and the guy coming on probably doesn't know what play was called. adding to that, it could open up an unfair advantage: a wideout could go to the sideline, and the guy closest to the endzone could simply walk on, uncovered, and make an easy TD run after catching it; conversely, if it looks like a rusher's gonna go all the way, a linebacker could simply head to the sideline and the guy nearest to the endzone could make, IMO, a very cheap tackle.

about the only thing I could agree with is having just one guy to do punting and kicking. some college teams do this, though it's extremely rare now for NFL teams to do so unless one somehow gets injured and the other has to take over his duties. I distinctly recall BYU punter/kicker Matt Payne not only handling all of the Cougars' kicking, but also dude was one of the few kickers who actually know how to lay someone out. Insanely enough, some NFL teams actually have 3 (I kid you not, THREE) kickers: one to punt, one to kick field goals and the last one to do kickoffs

[Alphabet Man]

I get ya point on the first one. Maybe allow interchange, players can swap on and off the bench durign the game at any time, in between plays quickly maybe.

At the moment, in Hockey too, they have 15min periods, but by the time its finished its taken a good 30mins sometimes, if we eliminate the change over periods, it will still go over 15mins on the continuous clock, but not that long and it will be more of playing time. In Aussie Rules here, we have 20min quarter plus time on, which is like stoppage time in soccer, maybe they could play 15mins plus stoppage time.

hockey has 20 minute periods and 15 break i personally like the break because then i can do homework and stuff and not miss the game.

are you sayign your at the hockey doing homework and not getting a halftime (breaktime) beer and pie...or at home watching on telly

i think my idea has a little merit, wont be used ever, i know that...

Interchanges could be through a certain area of the field, say the half way line they have to run on and off at the same point, if they dont they play down a player or something.

It might work for ARena football, all that beign said im not sayign NFL is a crap sport i love the game, im just making an idea

the time would stop as ya mentioned 'scrim, but he 15min quarter would be playd quicker and the game that currently takes 2.5hrs for 60mins of game time would be over in say 2hrs

[Discrim]

playing down a player...you see how hockey teams who have to play a man down are nearly crippled offensively. a football team that had to play with one or two fewer guys would be hampered similarly: offensively, it'd be harder to mask which way you're gonna run,, as you'd have one less blocker available, and it'd be much harder to pass, what with only four receivers available to you. defensively, it'd be much easier for the offense to move the ball on you: if you're short one DB, the QB could easily torch your defense, and even the worst RB in the league could destroy a front seven short one or two. or for short, a bad idea because posession is so important in football.

and I'm still wondering how exactly changing substitution rules would either increase scoring or speed up the game. Shoot, the only real way to speed up the clock would be to adopt timing rules similar to the Arena leauge. In Arena ball, until the last minute of either half, the clock only stops after a score, turnover (I think...gotta look over the rules on that one) or when the referee decides to call a timeout for some reason. after the 1-minute warning comes around, the clock will stop on out of bounds tackles and incomplete passes, like the NFL, but it also stops if the offense has the lead, and loses yards, which is why you'll never see an Arena quarterback take a knee-those count for lost yardage, and hence would stop the clock. as I said, substitution rules have little effect on the clock or the scoreboard.

heh, tis good to get a debate like this going...at least you aint one of those "rugby for girls" morons who think pads=sissies...those guys, I aint got no respect for em.

[Alphabet Man]

yeh nah my thinking is not neccesareily changing the 15min quarters, but instead of the 15mins taking over 30mins of actual time, we could reduce that by not having to swap offensive and defensive each play or turnover, they'd get a little break walkign back to the middle of the pitch and the clock wouldn't stop

maybe having a player that can kick would make the game a bit like rugby league after 5 tackles

[Discrim]

funny you mention that, having a position player also serve as kicker or punter used to be the norm, with Paul Hornung (HB/K for most of his career), Sammy Baugh (legendary QB, also played safety and punter in the ironman days) and Lou Groza (O-lineman/kicker) being some of the most notable. the practice was dying by the mid 60s, but the introduction of soccer-style placekicking was largely the death knell of position player-kickers, and also the old style of straight-on kicking.

as far as that making it like league, not really. only thing that would change would be the guy 7-12 yards behind the center.

and again, I fail to see how two-way players would affect the clock, as even then, both teams still need to call their plays (before you go that direction, WHO calls the play won't matter timewise, either). ya want a 15 minute quarter to go shorter than a half hour, I wouldn't tinker with substitution rules, that's akin to trying to fix the motor by changing the tires-you're foolin with the wrong part of the car. (obviously, substitution is represented by the tires, while the motor represents how quickly the game goes).

you fix the motor by fixing the motor, which means in this case, speeding up the game by altering some timing rules:

-changing the play clock from 40 to 30 seconds

-plays that end with an incomplete pass or a runner going out of bounds would no longer stop the clock, the clock would keep running

--exception: 2 minute warning, last two minutes of each half: these plays would result in the clock stopping, as per current rules. In the first half, the 2 minute warning would always be used; in the second half, it would only be used if the deficit is 16 points or fewer.

-2 minute warning penalty rule: the clock is stopped after any penalty that benefits the trailing team (or offense if the game is tied). the clock is restarted after any penalty that benefits the leading team (or the defense if tied).

turnovers and scores would still result in the clock stopping, but I figure the game would go fast enough for your tastes. heh, the only thing I could see done so that more aussies, euros and such would take a liking to the game would be to allow interior linemen to go out for passes, as them Euros are always bitching about how not everybody gets to touch the ball-then again, they seem to think blocking is something that's done without a purpose...sheesh. (sue me, I'm a lineman...yes, catching a pass would be nice, but the QB kinda needs blockers or he'll end up on a stretcher)

it's funny you mentioned league, too, as I occasionally read articles on RL1908.com, and dude's talkin about how league may be more like the original rugby than union is...heck, he mentions that football may be more like old rugby than union

http://rl1908.com/blog/old-rugby.htm

[Alphabet Man]

What is the point of the 2min warning? is it just another timeout basically.

I watched Pittsburgh pretend to play today, at the end, there was still 20secs left, why do they all walk on the ground. Why cant they play it out to the siren? could an umpire turn aroudn and penalise one side or both sides for having too many players on the ground. I've seen it with basketball as well. What happened to the cliche 'its not over till its over'

maybe what im suggesting could work better in Arena football

But am i right in saying that offense and defense lines do exactly the same thing almost

[Discrim]

2 min: more or less...a good reminder that the half/game's almost over. it varies by league or country: high school and college don't use it; in Canada it's a 3 minute warning, and in Arena ball it's 1 minute.

why they walk off while time's still ticking off: generally, teams do that when the half or game would end before the play clock expired, and usually teams get derided for running up the score, so they take a knee instead. heh, it's been years since I got to line up in that victory formation

edit: I forgot to mention a little thing Giants fans hate hearing about: back in the late 70s, the Giants led the Eagles by a few points, and the game was almost over. However, the Giants' offensive coordinator sent in a run play instead of a kneel down, and the handoff was fumbled. The Eagles' Herm Edwards picked it up and ran it in to win it for Philly...and the Giants' OC was almost immediately fired. THAT, Alpha, is why they kneel down to run out the clock-to keep something like that from happening again.

o-line and d-line: kinda yeah, in that d-linemen are blocking as much as o-linemen are (to protect the linebackers from the o-line, as odd as that sounds...heh, I should know, I only got 1/2 sack in 4 years of high school ball), kinda nay in the obvious desired end (making holes for the RB and giving the QB time vs. stopping the back for a loss and sacking the QB or forcing a bad pass). Heh, looks like we do agree if somebody had to, it'd be easiest for linemen to go ironman...I did it a handful of times back in high school, the hardest part was remembering I had to stick around heh, one time I'd been in on a defensive stop near the end of a game and headed to the sideline...only to have to haul my ass to the line cus I forgot I was still in as a guard (the refs flagged us for that)

[FiddySicks]

dont they do this in the Arena Football League?