Football that's more fun?

[SWC75]

It's sometimes suggested that American football would be safer if they played without helmets and padding so the players wouldn't launch themselves at each other. It might look like this:
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/121138

In fact, it might be more fun. Every play is like Miami-Duke at the end. And the kicks aren't the formal placekicks of our sport. You have to do them on the run through what seems like narrower uprights.

 

[texascpa]

While I like rugby, let's not delude ourselves that these guys wouldn't be launching themselves at each other. The same thing happens in Rugby and guys still get concussions.

 

[obliterata]

Rugby's a good game, a lot of action. NBC has it on opposite college football sometimes and I'll often watch it. I wish they'd experiment with the rules a bit and let laterals be thrown overhand too just to see what would happen.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Was just at a friend's house in Albany reliving our glory days. My buddy's wife was talking about the rugby guys she used to hang with and told a story about how one of her friends was invited to play at a tourney in Florida somewhere and got crushed in the scrum and is now paralyzed. Just saying there are consequences to every contact sport.

 

[Cowtown]

Make the playing field 10 yards longer and wider, the end zones 20 yards deep, and play 3 downs. The players will necessarily become smaller and faster and there will be far less interest in - or use for - the hulking 350 pounders whose collisions can be measured on the Richter scale. Oh wait, there already is a league that plays that way ...

 

[Cowtown]

It's sometimes suggested that American football would be safer if they played without helmets and padding so the players wouldn't launch themselves at each other. It might look like this:
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/121138

In fact, it might be more fun. Every play is like Miami-Duke at the end. And the kicks aren't the formal placekicks of our sport. You have to do them on the run through what seems like narrower uprights.

I'm not so sure. Successful coaching is about control. The reason that "play" is so spectacular is because it's so rare. Because face it, coaches don't coach toward final play, out-of-control melees. They put in systems designed to eliminate "loose radicals," if you will, and prevent getting beaten by freak plays. And either way, coaches will adjust. Remember, Daryle Lamonica, Warren Wells and Fred Biletnikoff who terrorized defenses with their long range scores? That style of play was great for fans but the bane of defensive coordinators, until someone came up with the two-deep zone.

 

[SWC75]

Make the playing field 10 yards longer and wider, the end zones 20 yards deep, and play 3 downs. The players will necessarily become smaller and faster and there will be far less interest in - or use for - the hulking 350 pounders whose collisions can be measured on the Richter scale. Oh wait, there already is a league that plays that way ...

Or go back to limited substitution, one-platoon football. To play both ways the players would have to be smaller and quicker.