This One's For Maxie

[pbmax]

The Charge: Old Timer Says Current Football players and the game they play is soft and more akin to basketball than football. They will be the ruin of the game they all love. And no, I am not overselling it.

Excerpted from American Weekly

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The Defense: Modern QB Says Hold The Phone, You Don't Know What You Are Talking About

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[Fritz]

Dagnabbit, when I'se a kid we played with leather helmets, and if you got yer eye poked out, by golly you just popped it back in. None of this namby pamby stuff they got today.

[Maxie the Taxi]

Let me was poetic for a moment... (and thank you pbmax for thinking of me)...

First, let me say, I've had this very same argument on barstools over beers many, many times. Well, not the exact same argument... The arguments I've had were over players: Are the players of yesteryear as good as modern players? That question is answered thusly: The stars then, were as good as the stars now. However, there are more good players now and there are more true athletes.

The Strong/Graham argument is one about rules, not about players. In this, I think, football is unique. What other game has undergone so many rule changes, and so many great upheavals in just the basics? The advent of the pass alone revolutionized the game.

My opinion is that football -- after the advent of the pass -- has steadily adopted rules that favor the pass. This IMHO is to the detrement of the game.

I don't think anyone wants to see the NFL turn into Arena Football, but that's where it's heading. In this I can see Strong's point.

Because pro football has no aversion to changing rules to "shape" the game to fans' and owners' liking, I don't really see the argument as one between old school and new school. I see the argument as one between a rush-favoring rules structure and a pass-favoring rules structure. The latest rules regime is the new "modern."

I would suggest changing the rules to reduce some advantages currently enjoyed by the passing game...namely, the ridiculous pass interference rules and the no contact after 5 yards rules. Specifically, if there's pass interference downfield, don't award the offense the ball at the spot of the foul (or on the 1 yd. line if the interference is in the end zone). I like the college rules better. Award the offense a 10 yd. penalty.

Also, let the DB use his hands and incidental contact all the way downfield. Allow "screening" and other defensive techniques that don't require the DB to turn his head back to the ball.

Maybe, just maybe, I'd also revert back to the days when the O-lineman couldn't use their hands.

We need to change the rules to make the rushing game a big part of modern football.

I hate to watch games that degenerate into passing "shoot-outs" where the last team to have the ball wins. In that sense, Strong is right. The game is like the NBA where the game only gets really interesting in the last two or three minutes. The early part of the game can be discounted. Football shouldn't be like that.

Well, that's Old School's two cents worth. Nice reads, Pb. (I loved Otto Graham.)

[Lurker64]

I think really, what we need to do to reign in the current "pass-happy" trend in the NFL is the following:

1) Make offensive pass interference a point of emphasis one offseason. This often goes uncalled, or is called very inconsistently.

2) Loosen the rules for illegal contact. Anything to prevent ticky-tacky illegal contact calls from being called.

3) Make defensive pass interference a spot foul up to 15 yards with an automatic fourth down, unless it is in the category of "intentional pass interference" (i.e. a receiver has you beat, so you tackle him to prevent a long touchdown), which is a spot foul of any distance.

[Fritz]

Bring back stickum for db's!

[pbmax]

Bring back stickum for db's!

And tear away jerseys.