The Looneyville Mudpuppies have announced that they will not tackle any more on kickoff returns in their American football games. And when they play baseball, they’ll put a runner on second base once the game goes into extra innings. These are two radical rules changes that take each of these sports in different directions.
The Mudpuppies do not exist (this team is fictional), but both of these changes are being considered strongly by their respective professional leagues. Let’s look at them more closely to see what impacts they might have. Personally, I don’t really like either proposal, but one has a solid rationale while the other does not.
First of all, it seems strange to discuss football in March. March is made for basketball madness and for baseball’s spring training. The National Football League (NFL) should take a vacation. Instead, it is making headlines by threatening its franchises with the prospect of eliminating kickoff returns.
The kickoff and return are parts of the game in both the NFL and college football. Top: Creative Commons via Flickr.com by Ryan L. Broyles @ N05. Below: Creative Commons via Flickr.com by Acaben.
Kickoff returns, which come after points are scored, are some of the most dynamic and unpredictable plays in American football. For those outside the United States, think of Rugby Sevens and it’s basically that same frenetic play, repeated several times per game (after a team scores). Kickoff returns are also a killing field for head injuries, which are threatening the viability of football at the high school and college level in coming years. Nearly all former NFL players tested had brain disease which likely resulted from their time in the game.
The Point examines head injuries in football. Crash-test dummy alert.
To be frank, the NFL has no choice but to address head injuries. And it could cut down on the number of concussions dramatically and immediately with one simple change: eliminate the kickoff return play. Players get 5 times more concussions on kickoff returns than any other type of play. The NFL already has allowed teams to move further forward (to the 25 yard line) when there is a touchback (the kickoff ball being kicked into the end zone); it may move the ball further forward still to bribe teams from not having to put kicked off balls into the field of play at all.
This week, Mike Murphy, president of the Green Bay Packers and a key member of the NFL’s competition committee, recently said that teams will need to clean up their act on kickoffs or else the NFL will eliminate kickoffs altogether. So what does this needed behavior change involve? Should teams play flag football and not have any physical contact on kickoffs? Softening the play seems unlikely. It appears much more likely that the league would do what Murphy suggests and simply eliminate kickoffs altogether.
What would be lost? Traditionally, there are three areas of football: offense, defense, and special teams. Special teams players excel at the weird plays like kickoff and punt returns. If they play well, their team may have the ball in a better field position once their offensive unit gets back on the field. Eliminating the kickoff return would do away with one of the funnest, most dynamic, unpredictable, and enjoyable plays in the game. And it would put a lot players out of a job; roster sizes could be reduced if the kickoff goes extinct.
A highlight reel of NFL kickoff returns.
But it also would eliminate (by far) the largest source of head injuries in football. And if they cannot successfully ‘dumb down’ the kickoff return in any way that justifies keeping it, then maybe it is more important to protect players than to keep this type of play.
Meanwhile, baseball continues its own struggle, not against head injuries but against sheer boredom. Its main target remains the length of games that go on too long for most fans to maintain interest. The average game now takes three hours and five minutes (3:05) to play, which is the longest it has ever been. Major League Baseball (MLB) has instituted some new rules to speed up the pace of games, such as limiting the number of mound visits to the pitcher (a new rule this season).
Bored yet? Source: Footballscoop.com.
MLB has another idea that it is testing out in the minor leagues this season. When a game is tied after nine innings (which is the regulation length of games), it goes into what is called “extra innings”. These begin with the 10th Inning and basically keep on going until one side has the lead at the end of an inning. While it is rare for games to go for too much longer, the record was a 25 inning game, and it is not uncommon to have 11 or 12 inning games.
So baseball’s new idea is to put a runner on second base in extra innings. When there is a runner on second base (halfway to scoring) with no outs, it improves the chance of that team scoring to more than 60%. But the inning cannot end anyway until the second team has had the same opportunity to bat and it also would have the head start of the runner on second base.
Worse yet, if you know the game well enough, you can play out the rest of this scenario in your head. With a runner on second base, only the best hitters would swing for a hit. Most hitters would lay down a sacrifice bunt instead to move the runner over to third base in exchange for an out at first base. Why? Because a runner at third with one out is better than a runner at second with no outs. It probably adds another 5-10% probability of the team scoring a run. With a runner at third, either a hit, long fly ball, well placed bunt, or even a groundout, not to mention a wild pitch or passed ball, would get the run home.
Continue playing this inning in your head. What happens next? Runner on third with one out means that the pitching team would probably walk the next hitter intentionally. That would put runners on first and third with one out, setting up the possibility of a double play at second and first bases, so a ground ball could end the inning without any runs scoring.
So basically, this change of starting an extra inning with a runner on second makes for rather a dull inning. Sacrifice bunts, intentional walks…Yes, it sets up the likelihood of a run, but it also sets up an inning of small ball unless the team’s best hitters happen to come up during that inning. Most fans don’t tune in for small ball; they want fireworks. The fans who like small ball are already watching.
This proposed change does not make baseball any better. And I’m not convinced that extra innings are a problem for fans. Less than 4% of games even go into the 10th inning at all. The pace of play is the bigger problem. And as far as the time length of a game, most of that extra time is coming from late inning pitching changes. Put some limit on those and you’ll shave off more than a couple of minutes per game.
Fans who are watching a game that goes deep to extra innings realize they are seeing something special. The longer it goes, the more it ages like a good wine. Give me a 15 or 18 inning game where a team runs out of hitters and has to use a pitcher to pinch hit. Or it runs out of bullpen pitchers and has to use a starter in relief. Now those are baseball games.
Here is a 16-inning gem from 2014 between the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates, the longest in Pittsburgh history.
Extra innings are not the problem that ails baseball. If MLB is serious about making games go faster, then address the pace of play or put some limits on all of the late inning pitching changes. Those grind the game to a halt and I’m willing to bet that’s when baseball loses most fans.
Mascot race in Cleveland. Creative Commons from Wikimedia by Erik Drost.
Football has no choice but to address head injuries. Curtailing or eliminating kickoff returns may be inevitable, given that most head injuries result from that type of play. While kickoff returns are fun to watch, the game can survive just fine without them. Baseball, on the other hand, is not squarely addressing the problems that are turning off most fans from watching the games: pace of play and the never-ending pitching changes. This extra inning second base runner does nothing for me or for most fans. Traditionalists do not like more radical changes than this, but traditionalists also will not have a sport to watch in 10-20 years if fans other than them have stopped watching. Football is getting serious; baseball should as well.
Sources:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000923684/article/nfl-poised-to-explore-possible-elimination-of-kickoffs
http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/nfl-rules-player-safety-kickoffs-eliminate-roger-goodell-changes-owners-meeting/zvq2upcwk96h1bo47ifqjt2gr
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/ct-spt-minor-league-baseball-extra-innings-rule-20180314-story.html
https://www.fangraphs.com/community/lets-strategize-under-the-potential-extra-inning-rule/
https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-baseball-games-reach-each-inning
Top image is public domain.
