Imagup General Magazine 2024
On the weekend, football enthusiasts expect to enjoy fantastic NFL games. Besides the joyfulness the NFL brings them, several unclear decisions of the referee leave football fans unsatisfied. Rules are created to ensure fairness in every game, but some rules seem to create an adverse effect. Therefore, we recommend that the NFL should change these five rules to accomplish the precision of referees’ judgment.
1. 2-minute Fumble Rule – The First To Be Changed
Usually, the NFL leaders tend to impose strange rules that are applied for barely happened events. Consequently, these rules make players, referees, and football fans confused and irritated.
Let’s take an example. In 2014, the Green Bay Packers were suffering from a six-point loss in the fourth quarter. The referee assumed that Aaron Rogers’s fumble was a safety because of a bizarre rule: In the last two minutes, the ball must be recovered only by the player who had fumbled it.
Almost every rule is established to provide the appropriate advantages for an NFL team or guarantee the players’ safety. Hence, we can see how nonsense it is to force a player to fumble a ball backward. People who rule the NFL should modify this rule so that it is valid with fumbled-forward balls only.
2. Immediately Display Every Personal Foul On The Stadium’s Screen
Sometimes, defenders were flagged because of their severe tackles with passers. Yet, there will be no dispute if the decision of the referee is correct. On the contrary, when the replay of the situation is posted on social media, anyone can recognize that the defender’s tackle is not against the rules.
Since the referees have to make decisions quickly, their mistakes can’t be avoidable. However, their unfair judgments may significantly impact the result of both teams, especially the underdog.
Therefore, to ensure a football game’s fairness, all the personal fouls should be displayed publicly on a huge screen at the football field for everyone to witness. Only in this way, referees will stay calm and in full command of their faculties to opt for the most accurate opinion.
Personal fouls should be displayed on the field’s screen.
3. Interference Of A Defensive Pass
In casual football leagues like in college football, the 15-yard is the required distance for a penalty of defensive pass interference. However, with a professional league like the NFL, the deterrent’s space should be more than 15-yard. If you want to learn about things more, you can see here.
The recommended solution is to expand the distance of a defensive pass interference to 20 yards or where the foul is committed, no matter who reaches the spot first.
4. A Runner Is Considered Tackled Down Whenever He Is Tackled
The following rule may be one of the most popularly unsuitable rules of the NFL. As there goes a term described in the rules of the NFL, it is “Down by contact.”
According to the organization board’s explanation, when a player is “Down by contact,” it means that his opponent has been tackled down. Then, his whole body will touch the ground, and the ball will be counted dead.
In reality, a runner is genuinely tackled down by players from the opposite side, but he lands on other players but the ground. Thus, almost every player will stop playing because they assume that the situation is over. Yet, the runner stands up, keeps moving, and scores with ease.
The most prominent evidence for this confusing circumstance appears in the game between the Eagles and Cowboys. Brent Celek from the Eagles still fumbled the ball, after landing on a Cowboys’ defender’s body,
We can see that the NFL’s complicated and inflexible point needs to be adjusted from this situation. Nonetheless, the NFL managers don’t have to impose a new rule.
The reason is that the rule book of the NFL already has an article prescribing a relatively related content. A player’s forward progress can still be stopped even when he is not literally “Down by contact.”
“Down by contact” is a complicated term.
5. Choosing Team For Playoff Spot Due To The Season Record
In the NFL, there are 32 teams categorized into eight divisions, and each division is offered a playoff spot.
In fact, this policy is beneficial to almost every team in the league because they can stand a good chance to keep their position in the NFL. However, sometimes it comes with an adverse effect.
For example, in the 2014 season, with this rule, the NFC South with a losing record still possessed a position in the playoff spot because its rivals in the division were moderate-level teams. Meanwhile, teams in other divisions with more than 10-win records were still excluded from the playoff spot.
We all can’t deny the efficiency of this 8-division format in guaranteeing easy and balanced scheduling. Yet, to make the most of this rule, the NFL should follow the following suggestion. Apart from picking a team for the playoff spot via its winning the division, the NFL should choose teams with excellent season records.
Other Recommendations
#1 The Catch Rule Should Be Simplified
The NFL’s organization board seems to overestimate the importance of the catch rule. No one wants to be bothered by the explanation from rules experts within five catches.
#2 Add More Excitement By Stopping Clock
Commonly, a college league football game takes up to 3.5 hours because the clock is stopped on all first down. However, the NFL games just need to take advantage of the clock-stoppage on the first downs of the last 2 minutes to boost football games’ excitement.
Conclusion
We have listed five changes the NFL should apply to their rules so that it can bring enjoyable, exciting, and wonderful games to football enthusiasts.
Almost each of these rules is not suitable for the recent development of football and the football fans’ favor, so changes are inevitable. The NFL should change these five rules above as soon as possible to retain its reputation as the most famous football league in the world.
