Roger Goodell pondering yet another terrible change to the game
By Austen Bundy
We all know football is an evolving game, but sometimes we just wish the NFL would stay consistent for a long enough period of time for us fans to get used to it before it's changed again.
Just Thursday, NFL executives had to somewhat walk back commissioner Roger Goodell's seemingly imminent proposal for an international Super Bowl. Naturally, it wasn't received well by American fans.
The league is always looking for ways to improve the game and gameday experience for fans, Goodell has said such on multiple occasions. Most of those so-called improvements have to go through the NFL's Competition Committee in the offseason before being implemented.
The NFL seems to want to kill the kicking game now
Kickers are practically automatic these days but not entirely. The new kickoff rule was made to benefit returners and limit injuries, which it has so far this season.
Now, the league seems to want to take things a step further and make field goals even harder to convert for kickers.
Per the AP's Rob Maaddi, NFL executive Jeff Miller told reporters Friday that the NFL's Competition Committee will be exploring narrowing the goal posts after this season. It's unclear by how much but Maaddi noted that kind of drastic change is not "imminent."
Sure, kickers like Baltimore's Justin Tucker and Dallas' Brandon Aubrey make field goals look way too easy — even from 70 yards — but that's not any reason to make them harder to convert.
If a team drives into their kicker's range and the offense stalls out, they've practically earned the three points. Granted, no kicker is perfect and fans live to see the moments elite kickers miss (as sad as that sounds) because it all factors into the strategy of the game.
Narrowing the goal posts will certainly drive point totals down which means less offense and even less incentive for kickers to be a significant aspect of the game. We already see enough doinks each season, there's no significant demand for them that physically changing a part of the stadium is required.