Tag: rules

Now that the world has crowned a new Super Bowl champion, we, as a society, can get back to doing regular stuff. In an effort to help you in your transition from NFL season to post/pre-NFL season, here is a related book review:

2011 Official Rules of the NFL, published by Triumph Books

It is my understanding that the 2011 NFL rulebook doesn’t go into effect until the 2012 season. So I hope it’s not too late for the NFL to make a few changes to the rules before the start of the 2012 season.

A few months ago, I wrote a review for the 2010 NFL Rulebook and strongly suggested that some of the NFL rules be changed. My review was basically an open letter to the NFL commissioner and it outlined some specific rule changes that I would like to see made. Unfortunately, ALL of my ideas were ignored by the NFL. Not one of my suggested rule changes was used in the 2011 rulebook. So I can’t give this book a rating higher than ‘one star’.

It’s possible that the 2011 NFL rulebook was finished and ‘in the can’ before the NFL became aware of my ideas. So I will be willing to raise my rating to four stars for this book if the appropriate rule changes are made within a reasonable amount of time (by the start of the 2013 season.)

Also, I'd like to suggest another rule change. This is something that I forgot to mention in my previous review: In the NFL, I think that the out-of-bounds chalk lines should be widened by about one foot.
How many times has your favorite receiver made an awesome reception only to have it called back by the referee because the receiver's foot was "out of bounds"? Why not give the receiver a little leeway? It's hard to stay completely `in-bounds' ALL the time. But a great catch is a great catch. If a player makes a great catch, he shouldn't be penalized for stepping out of bounds a little.

An alternative idea to widening the sidelines would be to give the referees the authority to make judgment calls on sideline catches. The more difficult the catch, the more leeway the player would be given on the boundary calls. For example, if a player makes a catch with a difficulty rating of 10 (out of 10), but he steps out of bounds by more than a foot during the catch, the referee would have the authority to call it a fair catch, and the player could continue running downfield if not tackled.

The field boundaries were never meant to be ABSOLUTE in the first place.

Note to NFL commissioner: If you ignore your fan base, someday your fan base will ignore you.

As is, this is a one star book. I hope next year’s edition will be better.