Hmm. I didn’t consider that. Blarg.
Edit: I should say, to your first point, I did consider that and you are correct about my point being that. It would likely be a fundamental change to how the game is played, which I’m cool with. Everything in your last point, though, was not something I considered, though would be cool with more out of bounds plays if that meant less brain injuries.
We aren’t experts on a lot of things. But we are experts at looking at a rule and explaining exactly how it will break a game.
It is similar to the 3 point line in basketball. But it works there and not in football, because basketball is much less territory-control oriented. On any given possession, both teams and the ball cover the entire court. You’re not really conceding scoring opportunities to have a lot of ball movement down low, back out, across the court, back again, etc.
In football, the whole game is getting the ball “down low”.
Better would be to offer bonus points for yards gained. Something like… For every pair of possessions, the team that gained the most yards gets a bonus point.
Or maybe yardage-per-quarter.
I can foresee this reducing the excitement of the game a little. The do-or-die nature of scoring in football is a factor in why people enjoy it. I can also envision moderately degenerate strategies.
OH.
Make that the tiebreaker. There’s no OT normally. If the game is a draw, whoever gained the most yardage in the majority of quarters gets the win. If that is also a tie (they each won two quarters), then whoever got the most total yardage wins the coin toss for OT possession by default.
Not sure if this is the right thread, but it’s interesting to see the world of golf’s reaction to Bryson DeChambeaus.
You can get a taste from the snippets of commentary in this video of all the shots in his last round.
Long story short: using a more scientific method to reduce variables in his swing, clubs, etc. And packing on muscle mass to hit longer drives than anyone else in the field. Just look at his back when holding his putter. He looks like the Hulk.
He’s broken golf, apparently.
Reminiscent of Tiger in the early 2000’s. He was the first top-tier golfer to use weight lifting etc. to such a degree.
“Tiger-proofing” courses to even the playing field was the reaction back then, which seemed… specious even at the time.
DeChambeau’s career probably isn’t going to end up in the same tier, but Tiger’s body eventually started failing from such a violent swing. DeChambeau has said he wants to put on more muscle, I wonder how he’ll hold up physically if he does it.
Tiger is a pretty poor sample size of one. I see no reason that a human body couldn’t be built to be better at golf than any existing golfer.
For all the problems in golf, and there are many both in and around the sport, one thing I appreciate about golf is that it requires both power and finesse. You have to drive, but also drive straight. You have to putt, but also occasionally putt long. Lack of finesse has kept a lot of extremely strong golfers from success, and ample amounts of it have allowed less powerful golfers to succeed.
Most of the best sports are ones that are testing a greater breadth of physical abilities. Tennis you need endurance to last the match running around all the time, speed to run around quickly, strength to hid hard, and also finesse to hit accurately.
I also see the inclusion of dexterity/finesse/whatever you want to call it specifically as a great inclusion in any sport for the ability to help reduce the influence of cheating. Specifically reducing the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Not to say they can’t help at all, we’ve seen cheating in tennis and other sports. The point is that they can’t help you putt. Even if someone uses drugs to bulk up and crush the ball far, and rightfully get disqualified, you still have to respect that their putting skill was real. You can’t fake that.
Of course. We don’t know!
This does illustrate why I think Baseball is a dead end sport.
There is no way to reduce the impact of raw power or increase the impact of finer skills short of radically reimagining the game.
Pitching there is a lot going on in baseball. But hitting not so much. The problem is that if you hit it inside the park, it matters where you hit it. But as long as you hit it powerfully enough to get outside the park, it mostly doesn’t matter where you hit it. There’s a lot of space between the foul poles.
You can solve for that by pushing the fences back, and also making some home runs count more than others. The problem is that spectators love the home run. You don’t want to reduce scoring when the rest of the game is already slow.
The French call it a “spoon serve”. It’s becoming a normal shot, with six players going for it already this tournament.
Backspin in tennis is the ultimate troll move
At the Australian Open, there are no line judges making line calls. The Hawkeye system is making every line call.
What I’ve found interesting is how the commentators and spectators, and the players to a less visible degree, are slowly coming to understand that the fundamental source of truth of the sport has shifted.
It used to be that the LINES ON THE COURT were the actual dividing lines between “in” calls and “out” calls. If the line judge decided a ball was out, they made the call. This could be overruled by the chair umpire. And if either player disagreed, they could appeal to the Hawkeye system, but only three incorrect appeals per set. So you have four sets of eyes on the ball as it touches or misses a line.
But now the COMPUTER MODEL is the source of truth. There’s nothing else.
Conceptually it used to be that Hawkeye had to match up to the lines on the court, but only a few times per set, to act as a final decider if needed.
Now the lines on the court are only for calibration, both for Hawkeye and the players. They are merely a guide to the players where they should be AIMING the ball, and serve no purpose after the ball is struck in deciding the fate of the call, either in or out.
Same with the spectators. The lines are now just a guide to what is happening in the Hawkeye computer model of the point. If a ball looked like it went in but it was called out, the line on the court no longer matters!
It’s a weird transition.
This would rule. I Cut You Choose, in the NFL:
I’m curious how the Ravens specifically think this will benefit them such that they are pushing for it.
I want it for the opening kick, not just OT! And ditch the coin toss, just have road team pick a yard line.
Another thing to gamble on, where are the Dolphins going to start the ball against the Colts this week?
Maybe they just think it’s neat? Costs them nothing to advocate for it. Or, did they lose a big OT game in recent history where the coin toss clearly decided it?
This seems easily fixed.
EDIT: It gets worse
EDIT2: It somehow got worse!