SI.com - MMQ: Eric Winston guest columnist

[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.