2024 NFL PREVIEW (& RANT)

As we transition from mid- to late summer, NFL teams are already well into preparations for the new season.

Although we are still in the midst of the "Dog Days," the Buffalo Bills are in

training camp at St. John Fisher University, just a few miles from our wine porch.

Like it or not, the 2024-25 NFL Season is now underway.

The thirty-two National Football League training camps are now open... not that they ever actually close in the ever-shrinking NFL off-season. And while Major League Baseball is steadily hemorrhaging fans (see WHY MODERN BASEBALL SUCKS) the NFL has been growing in popularity for decades and appears poised to continue along that trajectory... unless they keep alienating us fans with occasionally stupid rule changes.

A few decades ago, the run-oriented offenses lined up in tightly bunched formations, necessitating the defenses to respond in kind. (See HERE.) But now passing is king, thanks to a slew of enabling legislation that coddles quarterbacks and liberates fleet-footed wide receivers to navigate the defensive secondary with impunity. Hard tackling is discouraged, and any contact with the opposing passer is often met with penalties, automatic first downs, fines, ejections, and/or suspensions. Alas, the game that I and my fellow grumpy old men grew up loving has progressed from hard-nosed, run-dominant, black & blue slug-fests into what now seems like a human video game.

Chicago Bears middle linebacker Dick Butkus, the widely feared, bone-rattling Anti-Christ of the NFL

from 1965 to 1973. For better or worse, his dominant style of defensive play likely wouldn't have a place in today's game. (Click HERE for his highlight reel, complete with hilariously bombastic music.)

The game of football has evolved as such for two major reasons: ONE-- through exercise science, diet, financial incentives, and sheer Darwinism, the NFL players keep getting bigger AND stronger AND faster, thereby altering the fundamental forces that dictate the flow of physicality on the field; and TWO-- the NFL tinkers with the rules every year in an effort to keep pace with the game's aforementioned evolution while accommodating what they assume to be the public's changing tastes. Their attempts at improvements often succeed, but this season's new rules are causing a lot of head-scratching; to wit--

THE NFL HAS CONCOCTED TWO COMPLETELY NEW KICKOFF RULES.

Superstar kicker Harrison Butker of the World Champion Kansas City Chiefs steps

into a kickoff. For the 2024 season, his ability to regularly boom the ball through the

endzone for a nice, safe touchback will be curtailed by new rules.

Everyone in the football universe agrees that because players are getting both bigger and faster, the traditional kickoff is the most dangerous play in football, a grossly disproportionate source of body and brain injuries from high-speed collisions... like on THIS play. In a related story, the onside kick is most often the ugliest, sloppiest play on any given Sunday in the otherwise precision-oriented game of football (see ONSIDE KICKS GONE WRONG.) And so for the past decade or more the NFL has been groping for one or more solutions to the problems associated with kickoffs. And for this coming season, Dear Readers, the NFL has outdone itself in plumbing the depths of utter ridiculousness. HERE, courtesy of Madden 25, we can see how they've chosen to kill the traditional kickoff AND the surprise onside kick... both of which, I admit, needed some improvement.

To me, a different and far better solution has long seemed glaringly obvious--

When Team A scores a touchdown or field goal, give them the ball at their own 25 yard line and make it 4th down with 15 yards to go for a first down... a first down that would allow Team A to retain possession and begin another potential scoring drive. In most cases Team A would play it safe and punt, transferring possession (just like a traditional kickoff) and often resulting in a potentially exciting punt return. This alternative to a traditional kickoff is known as "The Schiano Rule," although-- truth be told-- I, your Grumpy Old Mansplainer, personally proposed this exact idea on a call-in to the NFL's Sirius Radio channel 88 over a dozen years ago, well before former NFL and current Rutgers University head coach Greg Schiano ever publicly mentioned it.

Whatever its origin, this rule would bring numerous benefits:

• It would simplify coaching by eliminating the need for teams to staff and coach a kickoff team, an onside kickoff team, a kickoff return team, and an onside kickoff return team, a.k.a. the "hands" team;

• It would be more exciting than a traditional kickoff, approximately three-quarters of which resulted in boring touchbacks in the 2023 season. Under the Schiano-DannyM. Rule, teams would almost certainly punt on 4th and 15 from their own 25... unless they are desperately trying to mount a comeback. Touchbacks are unlikely on punts from that far away, so there would be ample and potentially exciting punt returns, which produce fewer injuries than kickoff returns;

• For teams mounting a comeback in the fourth quarter, the Schiano-DannyM. Rule would replace the onside kick with something far more consistent with professional football as we know it-- if a team wishes to retain possession after a score, it would run either a fake punt or a regular offensive play from scrimmage in order to gain the necessary 15 yards for the first down... a low-probability play, but still way more likely to succeed than an onside kick.

One version or another of the Schiano-DannyM. Rule is proposed every year at the off-season owner's meetings... and it is shot down every year, likely out of fear that eliminating kickoffs would constitute too long a leap from football's ancient origins. If that's the case, here is my proposed compromise-- start each half lining up as if for a traditional kickoff at the 20-yard line and PUNTING the ball to the opposition (just like the free kick after a safety) and use the Schiano-DannyM. Rule after touchdowns and field goals. (BTW, moving those two kickoffs back to the 20 would mostly eliminate two yawn-inducing touchbacks.)

And while we're fantasizing about rule changes, I'll reiterate my suggestion from last year for improving overtime-- At the end of regulation, give each team alternating possessions beginning at the 50-yard line with 1:00 on the clock and two time-outs. (Whichever team was on defense at the end of regulation goes first on offense.) So, Team A starts a drive with a 1st and 10 at the 50, and will come away with either a touchdown, a field goal, or nothing. Then Team B goes on offense and has a chance to match or beat Team A's effort. If they match scores, they go to another round, and repeat the process until one team outscores the other in a round. I submit that this overtime format would be both more fair and more exciting than the NFL's current system for breaking ties.

Meanwhile, on another topic that has recently become central to the NFL...

FOOTBALL GAMBLING HAS GONE MAINSTREAM.

I'm old enough to remember when the mafia monopolized the gaming industry, and publicly mentioning serious gambling and the NFL in the same sentence was taboo. Indeed, the NFL long endeavored to maintain at least the appearance of an impenetrable firewall between itself and Las Vegas... even while point spreads for every game were printed right in the sports pages for all to see.

But in 2021 the NFL finally acknowledged reality, embracing gambling by entering into partnerships with the major sportsbook operators. (see HERE.) Considering legal sports gambling alongside the plethora of fantasy football leagues, a visitor from outer space might well conclude that football gambling is the primary purpose of American civilization for half of the annual lap around our sun.

I am not-- nor have I ever been-- the slightest bit interested in gambling on football or any other sport. HOWEVER... I think I may have found a weakness in the system of NFL gambling as we know it... a weakness that might just provide an "investment opportunity."

There are two ways to bet on NFL games-- point spread, and moneyline. (See HERE for a detailed explanation.) Now, I couldn't help but notice in the past few seasons that many of the Week 1 games resulted in outright upsets... in other words, the oddsmakers have seemed lack sufficiently accurate assessments of the 32 teams' strengths and weaknesses going into the first game of the regular season to pick actual winners, much less point spreads. This makes sense-- the ever-diminishing number of preseason games (3 this year, soon to be 2) are used primarily to assess the talents of untested rookies; furthermore, as of late the NFL greatly limits actual hitting in practice.

"Football isn't a contact sport; it's a COLLISION sport. Dancing is a contact sport."

(Coach Vince Lombardi, 5-time NFL champion and legendary hard-ass)

SO-- how can one capitalize on this information deficit? Maybe... just maybe... by betting the moneyline and picking the underdog in every game of Week 1 this year. Mind you all, Dear Readers, that we are not encouraging you to gamble... we will conduct the experiment by hypothetically betting $100 on every moneyline underdog in Week 1, and we'll post our results for all to see.

Stay tuned...