SI.com - MMQ: Eric Winston guest columnist

[Arky]

Filling in for Peter King and has a lot to say about a lot of stuff:

1. I think the Texans will be playing past Week 17 this season. We return 10 starters on each side of the ball. Last season, our defense over the final 13 weeks gave up just 87.6 rushing yards per game, good for fourth best in the league. Second-year defensive coordinator Frank Bush won't be starting this year from square one. On the other side of the ball, Matt Schaub has gotten better every year since his arrival. His 4,770 passing yards last season are more than Peyton Manning has ever thrown in a single season and rank sixth best all-time. Throw in the best receiver in football, Andre Johnson, and the best talent at the running back position since I have been here, and I think we will be balanced and hard to stop.

[nunusguy]

Excellent piece by winston. I especially enjoyed his thought about the way to
improve the SB and intraconfereence games.

[painekiller]

Nice link, I really enjoy Eric Winston and I think he will be doing color for one of the networks when his playing days are over. He is bright, articulate and funny. Add in his insightfulness and you have a winner.

[Joe Joe]

The only things I don't like is that he would get rid of divisions and only have a team play its rival from the other conference. There are so many teams in the NFC that I would like to see the Texans play. Do you know how boring it would be to beat the Cowboys every year?

[Keith]

Yay for Eric. Real football talk in late June.

1. He's wrong on moving the Super Bowl to a Saturday night. Sunday night, Monday night, and Thursday nights are best for getting eyes on the TV.

Look, it's the Super Bowl, it will draw huge ratings pretty much whenever, but Sunday night works just fine as is.

2. I'm not opposed to getting rid of divisions, just having two conferences... but losing interconference play would be tough, and having a put-upon rival is lame unless it's one of the very few premier ones.

3. All for expanding the roster, especially the game day roster. As for a minor league, it's called NCAA. MLB and NBA drafts high school players; NFL does not.

4. Rookie wage scale makes sense to just about everyone, but basing too much of the compensation on playing time bonuses penalizes the good picks on great teams. Obviously this would make sense to someone like Winston who joined a miserable team and needed him to start ASAP. I wonder if he would think this if he went to a 15-1 team instead of a 1-15 one.

5. Change OT yes, but play it as a full 15-min quarter, i.e. no sudden death. This solution eliminates all the put-upon foolishness of possession inside the 20 (what is this Eric, Texas HS football?) or that Mickey Mouse muck the NCAA uses.

[Joe Joe]

Originally Posted by Keith

Yay for Eric. Real football talk in late June.

3. All for expanding the roster, especially the game day roster. As for a minor league, it's called NCAA. MLB and NBA drafts high school players; NFL does not.

NBA has actually changed to only allow players to be drafted no sooner than one year after high school now.

[Arky]

Yeah, I"m all for expanding the rosters.... I think it will be a necessity if they move to the 18 game schedule. Not quite sure how it would effect payroll but it seems the owners would make a little more money so they could pay more players. I could see the NFL becoming similar to the NBA where the "B" Team gets significant minutes every game.... More and more rotations with better roster depth to keep everyone fresh over an 18 game season...

As far as OT, I think Winston means that each team gets one possession to do something whether it's a kickoff, ensuing kickoff, turnover, etc. For example, if team A gets the ball to start OT (via kickoff) and fumbles it away, then team B has a chance to win the game on their possession. Since team A blew their possession, they have to keep team B from scoring. Many variations could happen: Team A gets a FG and kicks off to team B, team B scores a TD and wins the game, etc, etc. If after each team has their one possession and it is still tied, then it goes to sudden death thus, not dragging out the game.... I kinda like that.....

[Warren]

Originally Posted by Keith

3. All for expanding the roster, especially the game day roster. As for a minor league, it's called NCAA. MLB and NBA drafts high school players; NFL does not.

While the NCAA is definitely the NFL's talent pool, I think the practice squads are closer to being the NFL's minor league, since that's where young players are sent for seasoning and to wait for their chance at the big time. While I wouldn't have a problem with a minor league similar to the NBA's D-League, the fact is that every time that has been tried with football, going back to the WLAF in the early 90s, it's been a commercial failure. The NFL ought to expand the practice squads since that would have many advantages over a minor league -- much cheaper than creating a bunch of teams that not enough people want to see, the players are coached in the teams' systems by the teams' own coaches, less injury risk, as scout teamers they cut down on practice wear and tear on the roster players, etc.

[painekiller]

Originally Posted by Warren

While the NCAA is definitely the NFL's talent pool, I think the practice squads are closer to being the NFL's minor league, since that's where young players are sent for seasoning and to wait for their chance at the big time. While I wouldn't have a problem with a minor league similar to the NBA's D-League, the fact is that every time that has been tried with football, going back to the WLAF in the early 90s, it's been a commercial failure. The NFL ought to expand the practice squads since that would have many advantages over a minor league -- much cheaper than creating a bunch of teams that not enough people want to see, the players are coached in the teams' systems by the teams' own coaches, less injury risk, as scout teamers they cut down on practice wear and tear on the roster players, etc.

Wow! a plan that would make sense? Are you kidding me?


I like your idea BTW.