Has anybody else felt a great disturbance in the NFL in recent years? They are trying to switch everything up on us folks! You let me know if I’m the old man yelling at the clouds, but this ain’t the game of football that I grew up with. Every year seems to carry the most successful professional American sport further away from the original spirit of the O.G. product.
The 2024 NFL Season will be the largest leap of change to actual gameplay since the 1970 NFL Merger.
Recently we heard about the outlawing of “hip-drop tackles” via officiating, for the 2024 NFL Season. Now, this is tough because I’m all for player safety, but this is undoubtedly the next rule change in a long line of them that has made everything easier on the offense. Quarterbacks and wide receivers are now protected, and the point-scoring and excitement has been optimized for and catered to. Many current and former players voiced their displeasure when this ban was announced.
This hasn’t been discussed a ton, but the league also decided to push the NFL trade deadline back a week. There is an extra game, but that still moves the deadline forward an incremental amount, when compared to the overall length of the season. Will this cause a slight uptick in some teams tanking and some teams loading up? I hope not.
Even the positive changes, like the NFLPA proposal to modify/move OTA’s comes with a catch. This is a piece that will fit the inevitable puzzle of adding an 18th game to the NFL schedule. We are also getting broadcast coverage moving more and more to the streaming platforms… welcome to the future of reality TV and cash cow-ism.
On that note, I want to point out that there is now a Hard Knocks documentary for every part of the year (including offseason)! This year, we’re even following a whole division, getting all up in their biz during the season. That’s mad nuts, even for a nut connoisseur. I’m grateful for more access and peaks behind to scenes of how things work, but don’t you think there’s a reason that coaches don’t want their teams to be on it? It’s added pressure that can have dudes acting out of character.
I love the game of football, so expansion to other professional leagues in different countries around the world (similar to pro basketball) sounds like an enticing idea. There’s no way Roger Goodell has eyes on competing with soccer (fútbol)… right? I just hope this league doesn’t start acting out of character.
NFL marketing IS currently devising detailed and strategic marketing for global expansion (which can also be accelerated through their partnerships with international streaming giant, Netflix). Will the Jaguars from Duvall County someday end up in the U.K.? Will there someday be teams in Brasil, México and/or Nàìjíríà? Will Tyreek Hill someday cross up a North Korean fruit stand vendor?
New NFL kickoff rules have dropped, and I’m kind of excited to see how it plays out… but it possibly eliminates Hall of Fame talents and kick return fits like Devin Hester and Dante Hall. As Coach Cowher points out, it will also do away with the onside kick part of the game. The punt play is still here, but those kinds of returns are half as likely to score. I mean, we have an entirely new phase of the game being introduced and replacing an old one at the highest level of football!
DeAndre Hopkins is petitioning the league about flag football. Cool idea, but I’m going to recommend treating flag football as the more PR-friendly version of the sport like artists are treating AI. Flag football is now in the Olympics?? This dude is lowkey cold, but brah… have several seats!
Look, this pains me as a defensive guy at heart. This is becoming a different game?? {How I wish Zuck+IG would let us embed vids…} Are the rules really about player safety…? Or more points and more revenue?
Teams are now building new stadiums with retractable roofs to attract other sports events and acts. State-of-the-art venues sounds great, but what about playing football in the elements? That’s something that is defining of American Football, and a feature that is found nowhere else in major sports…
There are current developments, like the implementation of new-age tech to replace the chain gang, that I think are welcome and necessary. I also see the new Guardian Cap allowance as really great, and a positive thing for football, but the league does not want team logos to be covered long term… Paint the cap to match?
This article about the caps makes me think about: if WRs, DBs and QBs don’t have to wear them, will the NFL eventually keep creating rules and structures to place more value on the passing game? Have they already? I’m no conspiracy theorist (maayyybe a smidge), but it would make some sense. There was a time after the Will Smith movie about CTE that I considered that the concussion issue could ultimately end the sport of American football one day. A pivot to the passing game could be the reason for survival.
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For those paying attention to the incoming rookie class, there was a record 23 offensive players taken in round 1 of the 2024 NFL Draft! Only 9 defenders were taken!! 14 consecutive picks were offensive players. The previous record was 7 to start a draft!
In fact, there has never been a run of 14-straight players on one side of the ball at any point in an NFL draft. We’ve also never seen 5 of the first 10 picks being QB’s in a draft, but it happened. And directly after, 2024 broke its own record that stood for two draft picks when Bo Nix was taken at #12 by the Denver Broncos! Six of the first 12 picks in the draft were quarterbacks.
Does that mean this should be the greatest QB class in history? I’m no college ball expert, but you can call me skeptical… Nix was a player that was being projected by all the draftniks for the 2nd round. Such is the desperation for QB’s these days, that we see that desire manifesting itself in a propulsion up the draft board for all of these young signal callers.
These things also go to show the now outsized impact that passers have on the game of football. They are protected and even supported by the rules like never before in history. Just ask Tom Brady.
I heard Mike Macdonald seem to bring up an 8 DB formation?? Do I need to clean my ears? I was a DB when I played (MTHS/MHS👨🏾🎓) but… good lord.
And now, player empowerment is stretching to an NBA level? Are players starting to have the leverage to pull strings like fully guaranteed contracts and no-trade clauses? This may only increase with the vote for the trade deadline being pushed back a week (week 9). Elway, Manning, Favre, Brady, Rodgers, Watson, Wilson have all flexed the leverage of the rarity of their expertise to get what they wanted.
Don’t even get us jabbering about how NIL will possibly change everything about football one day.
And now, with the 3-helmet rule, we’ll have NBA style jersey switcheroos too. I like an alternate uni, but one of the beautiful things about the NFL is that the jerseys are classics. The NBA has some classics too, but they rarely wear them, eschewing those for experimental and loud outfits. It’s no wonder NFL teams are ahead in branding.
And finally, on cut down day (like we wouldn’t notice), a vote to make private equities a part of the game. Is this a good thing for the game of football? I have serious and persistent doubts.
I’ll admit it: I’m anxious about the direction of the game of football that I grew up with. A gritty, physical, yet graceful, lay-everything-on-the-line sport unlike any other. I proudly shed literal blood, sweat and tears on the field, learning about hard work and camaraderie even by necessity with those whom you must cooperate with.
Maybe we can make the game safer, but this game was always like stepping onto a battlefield for me. I get it. When men are making a fortune or losing that fortune based on injury luck, it must suck. But that’s the gladiator game of football that I grew up and fell in love with. Remember this football? 🥹
Do I sound like an old head if I say: let’s hope this movement doesn’t go TOO far? Look at how Seattle has rolled with a cheap vet and then traded for another cheap contract to stay within contention of SF who have a $1M bargain of their own in Purdy!
My fear is that this becomes a business of rentals, red tape, endorsements and mercenaries playing flag football. I just hope we (including the next generation) don’t lose the love of the game and the love and loyalty to a cause, no matter how long it takes. I hope we don’t lose out on what makes football inspiring and unique. Buckle up.
