NFL Wider Field
 

Here's one for the slow time.

NFL has considered widening the playing field 35 feet, and reportedly may revisit the idea

Y! SPORTS

Thoughts?

Sure. Let's make it longer, the end zones deeper, take a down off and eliminate the fair catch. :rolleyes:

I've got my resume primed with 17 years experience working this type of game. ;)

I can suggest ways they could have the game "play larger" by a little without needing to redo fields: Allow possession of the ball to be gained by a player in the air, without regard to where he lands. Then it'd be all about where he previously stepped. An add'l possibility would be to allow players to bat the ball while touching out of bounds; then it'd have to be about where the ball was, as in Rugby Union, so you'd need a view down the sideline.

Or you could go more radical and say a player's not out of bounds until both feet are touching ground beyond a boundary. Or you could have a "supporting points" standard as in wrestling.

Or they could leave a great game alone.

Yabut haven't you seen the new NFL commercials? They're all about evolution!

No

But would the NFL adopt the rule allowing teams to kick the ball in and out and in and out of the end zone?

This would have the OPPOSITE effect of making the game safer. Wider open areas would lead to collisions by players running faster. Thus, more injuries are likely.

I think most of the new NFL stadiums would be hard pressed to give up 35' from the sidelines

And that, right there, is why this will never happen. If you widen the inbounds area of the playing field, you have to narrow the OOB/sideline areas. In the few NFL stadiums I've been in, there's not a lot of extra space on the sidelines right now anyway.

The other option would be to remove the first few rows of seats, which would A) be rather expensive on the construction side, although it's a one-time expense, and B) result in fewer high-priced seats available for paying customers (and no owner would go for this).

That's why this didn't happen a century ago. The Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee was looking at ways to open up the game, and a leading proposal (promoted by Walter Camp, among others) was to widen the field. However, the cement had just been poured for what became Harvard's Soldier Field, which didn't have any more room, so it didn't pass. Instead we got the forward pass.

Or they grandfather the old fields in effect by adopting the same types of field dimension rules most other large-field games have, i.e. minimum & maximum, rather than exact, dimensions. And just build the new stadiums bigger.

I think THIS point, and the point being made by those in favor of this (more space means less collisions in total) are both true, with the effects of these cancelling each other out and the overall total effect would be negligible.

I don't see why widening the field would result in any increase in the relative velocity of opponents hitting each other; I don't even see why it wouldn't result in a reduction of same. I mean vector-wise, which is the right way to think about it.

Consider for example what it would be like if the field were only 10 ft. wide. Practically all the motion of opposing players would be directed against each other. Give them more space to run sideways, and more of that motion will be so directed, rather than forwards. They'll get up to higher speeds, probably, but at lower relative velocity.

I think if you go watch 6 man football at the high school level in the states that play it (Texas is one; a couple of other states play it as well rather than 8 man played elsewhere), you'd see the collisions I'm speaking of. You have players running full speed and no downfield blockers to either slow them up or cause them to run around the blockers, making for potentially pretty rough collisions. Put 2 or more guys at the size and speed of NFL players and you could have a disaster.

Think about how NFL defensive coordinators will scheme a wider field. More zones and more safeties. The hits may be legal, but as we know, injuries happen more on legal hits than they do on illegal ones.

I'm just suggesting they think about this.

Then I suppose the other way to reduce high speed collisions would be a shorter field, but it'd probably have to be a lot shorter to have much effect.

I have some other ideas for reducing the energy of collisions:

Longer grass/turf
No shoes allowed
Sumo suits
Increase the number of players per team to 33
Play in a swimming pool

Others?

Yeah, thicker, softer padding on everything, including the outsides of helmets. It doesn't technically reduce the energy of the collision, but dissipates it over a longer time or impact. The main problem is that the better you protect the head, the greater the danger to the neck.

Or you outlaw pads & helmets entirely, and the players may (or may not) reduce the energy of their collisions.

Softer playing surface, as you suggest, might help too, as in mandatory muddy field. Wrestling mats would be very effective but very expensive; used as is for football, they'd probably need replacing every game.