FanNation - The Republic of Sport

no visual replays in football (soccer)

Great idea with the illegal defense. Put everyone in the paint and with today's NBA players we get a 25 to 30 game. Todays players have noooooo jumper.

You can't triple stamp a double stamp

Let the officials make the decisions. Let them have access to video replay when they want to help them with the decisions. Keep the managers, coaches, players, broadcasters, fans away from requiring video replays.

Until effective video replay is implemented, all the rule changes in the world won't help. And no sport is using video replay effectively.

The NASCAR thing is a safety issue, so it's gotta stay. Fully agree on the other four.

I would like to continue to see rules based on ambiguous judgment calls phased out. The NFL took a great step forward this year by eliminating the forceout and the 5-yard facemask. Both were totally ambiguous, impossible to call them consistently fairly throughout a season.

I'd like to see the pass interference rules clarified and then subject to replay. Too often, the refs just can't see the first contact from their vantage point, and there's either a no-call or a call on the wrong player. It's just gotta be reviewable...

College football is 0 for 2 in their attempts to speed up games. First, they tried winding the clock after all changes of possession... horrible, horrible idea... now they are using the NFL model and winding the clock after out of bounds... not a bad idea, but stopping it for the final 2 minutes? Even the NFL does it for the final 5 minutes.... but my point is, the NCAA has completely missed the ONE area they can shorten games.... halftime. Halftime for every college football game is 25 minutes. This is so both marching bands can perform (when schools bring theirs to road games). There is no need for this. Only the home band should perform. Let the visiting team save money by bringing only a pep-sized band, or no band at all. If they feel they need to bring the whole band, then they can perform before the game... before the home team's band takes the field to do the national anthem. You can cut halftime down to 15 minutes by doing this.

The double play. Often, the fielder doesn't touch the base, or touches the base before he has the ball, and they still call it an out. He's GOTTA have ball AND touch the base.

That Chargers-Broncos ruling had nothing to do with the tuck rule. Hochuli blew the whistle too early, making it a dead ball where is was at the time...which was just outside the 10-yard line, before the Chargers recovered it.

Can we count rules of grammar for sports writers as "sports rules"? Because at this point, they are being broken so often (thanks to the internet making everyone a sports writer), there may as well not be conventional rules!

"This NBA rules have been massaged the last few years to allow zone defenses,..."
-Nice work Lang. Do they pay you or is this a volunteer gig?

I can't stand the nfl and the way they manage overtime. You play 60 minutes of tough football, manage to weaken the defense so you can tie at the end of the game and you....toss a coin???? Are you kidding me? College football has the only right approach to the situation.

Soccer inspired this idea but every sport could use it.

Retrospective flop suspensions based on slow-motion replay technology.

Intentionally exaggerating a gesture in order to trick a ref into a foul call goes against the sportsmanship that is at the core of any sport ever created.

Exaggerating gestures to get refs to call fouls is easy to spot in slow-motion instant replay.

Each league should set up a committee that reviews charges of flopping and suspends players games or multiple games at a time as punishment for flopping. The more important the game, the heavier the suspension should be. Multiple-offenders receive ever-harsher penalties.

It'd clean up soccer (flopping is reaching horrible levels in that game, especially when scoring is relatively low and uncontested Penalty Kicks from 12 yards away compensation for fouls are horribly punitive), and basketball, too, seems to be seeing an increase in flopping (is this related to the influx of international players where soccer is king?).

Hooray for ScottTB! I agree. The corruption of our written language has pervaded ABCNEWS.COM, The Boston Globe, and now that last bastion of grammar - SI.COM. Okay, first sports: you're right and (as usual) Mr. Whitaker is wrong (or at least woefully misinformed). Mr. Hochuli's ruling was nowhere near the vicinity of the tuck rule (just as a Bronco to recover that fumble was nowhere near the vicinity of the ball). He should've swallowed his whistle and kept to the spirit of the law (which was that regardless of the whistle no one but the Chargers would've recovered that fumble) and not the letter (for after all, reality should prevail over doctrine). Second, grammar: If I had a nickel for every person who wrote well on these blogs, then I'd have a nickel. No, wait. Actually, I'd have two cents.

The dumbest rule in all of sports is the soccer offsides rule (must be two defenders between
you and the goal if the ball is behind you). I say let any player be stationed where he wants.
This would open up the game to allow the players to demonstrate both their skills and
athleticism.

in soccer: add instant replay when game is on the line type of work

in nfl: keep force out rule, get rid of illegal formation and unnecessary hit on qb( like if qb throws interception, then the defender on return team goes to block him and flattens him)-it should be legal.

nfl- superbowl should be able to be played in cold weather areas...chicago, green bay, buffalo, etc....

the dumbest rule in sports is the soccer offsides rule (must be two defenders between an
offensive player and the goal if the ball is behind the player). Getting rid of this rule would
really open up the field AND, more importantly, the scoring.

You're absolutely right about the NFL overtime rule. Everyone knows the best way to determine which team should win a game is to play two equal "halves" of a predetermined length of time, each of which would played under as near as possible to identical circumstances except that one team would kick off to start one of them and the other team kick off for the other. Only then would you be able to say that each team had a fair chance to win and...wait, hang on a sec...why does this sound vaguely familiar? Oh, yeah, it's called a GAME! And when a "game" ends with both sides even it means that they each had 60 minutes and who knows how many possessions to prove that they were the better team and neither one was able to do it, and when that happens why shouldn't a coin toss factor in the end result? Or better yet, why can't the audience accept that both teams played equally well and each should get credit for half a point (also known as a "tie")? Maybe it isn't 100% equal but keep in mind that games never START with overtime. It is simply a last-ditch effort to determine a winner when the game that was scheduled could not do so.

Oh, and by the way, I'm willing to bet that the team that goes 2nd in college OT (which also happens to be determined by a coin flip, don't forget) has at least as much of an advantage as the team that receives in the NFL, so it isn't really any fairer.

Actually in NFL, the team that kicks off is more likely to win. The team that wins the coin toss usually elects to receive. So the coin toss hasn't helped.

The running lane to 1st base in baseball. It's terrible. When is the runner allowed to come back in to the base? 10 ft away? 15 ft away? Why make a runner run a crooked path to 1st base? Let the baseline be established by his original position after contacting the ball. Just like it is at every other base.

According to these statistics I may be wrong. I only looked at last year.
http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_11_08_04.html

No more trapezoid, or Brodeur rule, in hockey. It's absolutely ridiculous, it rewards dump and chase hockey and actually limits a goalies ability to start a rush. Like the DH, it limits the athletic ability of it's players. An embarrassment to be sure.