New rules: No holding or PI's; or 3 or 4 non-penalty holds or PI's per half sort of like basketball

[uihawk82]

The officiating has always been somewhat iffy. the crews seem to never get together and tell their crew member flag thrower to pick it up, and it many times seems to happen during a big play or makes a play a big play.

Talking with my son about the game, which he went to (and he and I have seen a lot of them in person), he mentioned to me that why dont they try getting rid of the really subjective, many times, holding and PI penalties altogether. As he said, if a receiver cant get open well enough by pushing off some himself then he doesnt deserve the target or too bad if he cant catch it. Dbacks could hold and receivers could push off so let the chips fall where they may. If a defensive player hits a defenseless receiver too hard etc there still is the rule to call a personal foul, which is not perfect since it is a subjective call.

And on holding, both sides can hold but no tripping or tackling/pulling players to the ground. Only ball carriers are tackled.

Personally, I would try getting rid of these penalties and it just doesnt work then try the basketball rule change where the teams get a certain number of holds and PIs each half without a penalty march off or losing the outcome of the play. The flags are thrown so they can be totaled up.

Has any league tried or experimented with this type of thing in the last 70 years?

 

[Hawk_4shur]

Yeah, sorry. I can't get on board with that, as least in the PI case. Holding? Maybe.

I don't like the "pre-snap" penalties. Illegal formation, to many men in motion, one guy not 1 yard off the LOS, the tackle flinches - if those were all not called as penalties would the game change much?

Watching football over the weekend, it seemed to me that officials made a lot of borderline calls - almost as if they were on high alert to not missing anything, so they defaulted to calling a penalty. Both college and pro.

There are too many penalties, but I'm not sure if eliminating the rules is the right answer.

 

[nick614]

Sounds like a great way to get a bunch of injuries and have every game look like an Iowa-South Dakota St game. No thanks.