USFL rule changes…thumbs up or thumbs down?

[LeGOATski]

3 hours ago, machine gun kelly said:

I was listening to Sal the other day, and he brought up a good point.  The NFL has the capability to do the chip thing, but the league likes the drama of the spot, and thus are resistant to the change.

 

I thought it was an interesting point. 

It's been obvious for a while that the NFL cares less about the integrity of the game and more about the drama & headlines. They know how to run the business and make that $$$$.

[sullim4]

For overtime, I'd much rather see a fixed 10 minute period with 4th quarter timing rules, with the winner being whoever leads after 10 minutes, or a tie if it's still deadlocked.

 

For PATs, I'd love to see some option to attempt a long kick for additional points.  Something like 2 points for a 50 yard attempt, or 3 for a 60 yard attempt, in addition to the traditional two point play on offense from the 2 yard line.  It'd increase the importance of the kicker and create interesting decisions depending on how good he is, or how good your offense is.  For instance, would you rather have Bass attempt a 50 yard kick for 2 points, or put Allen on offense for one play from the two?

 

The chip is a no brainer.

 

The "two forward pass" rule so drastically alters the game that I think it's baloney. 

[Warcodered]

1 hour ago, Just Jack said:

I work with locating and tracking systems every day.  The chip worries me, because I know how accurate people think they can be. There's a huge amount of infrastructure that goes into setting up a system.  If they use it as a part of determining where the ball is, in addition to camera view, then it may be okay. But if they think it will be the only deciding factor all the time, there's going to be a lot of pissed off people.  

Unless they synchronize the camera feeds with it, I doubt there will be a significant effect from the chip.

[Mark Vader]

4 hours ago, eball said:

I read an article this morning about some of the rules changes the USFL is putting into play:

 

• Allowing two forward passes behind the line of scrimmage. 
•  
• When a team scores a touchdown, it has three options: add an extra point with a 15-yard field goal, two points for a play from the 2-yard line that crosses the goal line and three points of a play from the 10-yard line that crosses the goal line. 
•  
• A team trying to stage a comeback late will have two options after scoring a touchdown: A conventional onside kick or converting a fourth-and-12 play on its 33 yard line. 
•  
• Kickoffs will be done from the 25-yard line. When The Spring League used that rule, 95% of kickoffs were returned. 
•  
• If a game goes to overtime, each team gets three tries to score on a play from the 2-yard line, with two points awarded for each successful try. If there is a tie after three rounds, an additional round is added until a winner prevails.  
•  
• A microchip in the ball will determine down and distance and whether a play produces a first down. 

 

The “rule” that interests me the most is the last one, which in this day and age seems like a no-brainer.  A chip should also determine whether a TD is scored.  I’ll be curious to watch that one.

 

I think the two forward passes, PAT, and OT rules are silly.  The onside kick option is intriguing.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

[Rochesterfan]

2 hours ago, LeviF said:

The complaints about the microchip not being able to tell when someone is down by contact are complaining about a problem that already exists - the spot and the time at which the player is downed are already separate decisions made by refs. The microchip just automates one of them.

 

How is it more accurate?  
 

How much time are they going to spend trying to determine and sync up the exact timing?

 

What way is the ball facing sideways or longways - are you measuring to the middle or end?

 

Basically it takes a action that the NFL admits is just close and acts like it will be precise - when in reality it will be no more accurate and will lead to potential things like TDs being overturned because the chip didn’t get there.

 

The precision of 1 chip across a huge field with no additional reference points is gotta be pretty close to the precision of 2 guys watching the play and moving in from the sidelines.  
 

It sounds to me like something that makes us sound advanced, but in reality it will have next to 0 impact.

 

 

[Mark Vader]

39 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

It's been obvious for a while that the NFL cares less about the integrity of the game and more about the drama & headlines. They know how to run the business and make that $$$$.

Case in point: The Bills-Colts playoff game.

 

Late in the 4th quarter Jordan Poyer stripped the ball out of the hands of the Colts WR. The Bills recover the ball, game over.

 

Nope, the replay officials said the receiver's knee was on the ground(which it clearly wasn't) when Poyer touched him, therefore the play was over at that point.

 

The NFL wanted a dramatic ending, and the Colts got their hail mary play at the end, it just went the Bills way.

[Warcodered]

22 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

How is it more accurate?  
 

How much time are they going to spend trying to determine and sync up the exact timing?

 

What way is the ball facing sideways or longways - are you measuring to the middle or end?

 

Basically it takes a action that the NFL admits is just close and acts like it will be precise - when in reality it will be no more accurate and will lead to potential things like TDs being overturned because the chip didn’t get there.

 

The precision of 1 chip across a huge field with no additional reference points is gotta be pretty close to the precision of 2 guys watching the play and moving in from the sidelines.  
 

It sounds to me like something that makes us sound advanced, but in reality it will have next to 0 impact.

 

 

You can get around some of these problems by simply making the rule that the chip has to cross the line, the big issue is synchronization, they haven't synchronized their camera feeds before this are they going to start now?

[Real McClappy]

2 hours ago, Just Jack said:

I work with locating and tracking systems every day.  The chip worries me, because I know how accurate people think they can be. There's a huge amount of infrastructure that goes into setting up a system.  If they use it as a part of determining where the ball is, in addition to camera view, then it may be okay. But if they think it will be the only deciding factor all the time, there's going to be a lot of pissed off people.  

Would a chip be able to track ball tracking/location at all times. Music city Miracle comes to mind here.

[Rochesterfan]

1 minute ago, Warcodered said:

You can get around some of these problems by simply making the rule that the chip has to cross the line, the big issue is synchronization, they haven't synchronized their camera feeds before this are they going to start now?

 

You can make that the rule, but how are people going to respond with a beautiful image of the ball tip crossing the goal line and the league ruling him short because the midpoint of the ball didn’t get there.

 

They can fix this - by giving leway knowing the length of the ball, but then you get the scenario where there is clear evidence of the ball being short because it is sideways, but the inaccuracies and leeway allow it to be good.

 

The obvious fix is this technology is only used in scenarios where the ball can not be seen and the location is questionable and the rest of the time they use the Refs to mark the ball.  It can not be one or the other - it has to be used as a small supplement to the Refs with logic prevailing and they need to have other markers on the field to compare the ball to - such as shoulder pads to have frames of reference as the fields are not microchiped yet.

 

 

[Warcodered]

15 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

You can make that the rule, but how are people going to respond with a beautiful image of the ball tip crossing the goal line and the league ruling him short because the midpoint of the ball didn’t get there.

 

They can fix this - by giving leway knowing the length of the ball, but then you get the scenario where there is clear evidence of the ball being short because it is sideways, but the inaccuracies and leeway allow it to be good.

 

The obvious fix is this technology is only used in scenarios where the ball can not be seen and the location is questionable and the rest of the time they use the Refs to mark the ball.  It can not be one or the other - it has to be used as a small supplement to the Refs with logic prevailing and they need to have other markers on the field to compare the ball to - such as shoulder pads to have frames of reference as the fields are not microchipped yet.

 

 

People might decide to get more upset because of that, but the reality is it's no different than when the ball is just short now, the definition of crossing the goal would just be different.

[Just Jack]

2 hours ago, Real McNasty said:

Would a chip be able to track ball tracking/location at all times. Music city Miracle comes to mind here.

It would, but accuracy is the problem. If I were to do it, I would have receivers embedded in the field every square foot.  Going off the field size of 360’ by 160’, that would be 576 receivers.  Now there’s also the signal strength of the chip.  Receiver field can be adjusted to pick it up further away, like when the ball if being thrown, but that could also throw off your accuracy because a lot more receivers would be picking up the chip signal.  I’d want to keep it down to where only 10-20 receivers at a time are picking up the signal, so processing of location is faster.  In this setup, I can see getting the accuracy down to less than a foot, maybe 6 inches.  But when it comes down to a 1st down line or goal line being crossed, I would trust video more.  
 

I just don’t  see 30 stadiums ripping up their turf to install receivers until it’s proven how accurate it can be.  

Edited April 13, 2022 by Just Jack

[BigDingus]

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

If a game goes to overtime, each team gets three tries to score on a play from the 2-yard line, with two points awarded for each successful try. If there is a tie after three rounds, an additional round is added until a winner prevails.

 

At first I rolled my eyes & thought "sounds bad," but after going back over everything a few times, I'm actually warming up to it.

 

The main reason for this is I definitely dislike the current OT system in the NFL, but I also hate the college one. The traditionalist in me rather stick with whatever I'm used to, but since this is happening outside the NFL, it actually allows me the chance to see how well it plays out in meaningful scenarios.

 

On paper it may sound a bit convoluted, but who knows, it might end up being really exciting & result in more definitive outcomes without much randomness. One thing I'd prefer to see is all 3 attempts are done in succession per each team, no shuffling defenses on & off the field 3 separate times. Let each team have all their attempts, then move on to the next team to get their 3 attempts. It'll waste less time, feel more fluid, & still provide the drama when that 2nd offense has to go out & match or eclipse the opposing offense's total.

 

6 hours ago, eball said:

When a team scores a touchdown, it has three options: add an extra point with a 15-yard field goal, two points for a play from the 2-yard line that crosses the goal line and three points of a play from the 10-yard line that crosses the goal line.

 

I'm sure most people will think this is too gimmicky, but I think it could work with a few tweaks. First, move the XP attempt up to the original, "freebie" spot on the 2 yard line (for a 20 yard XP attempt instead of the current 33 yard one). That way, it really is the safe, simple & risk-adverse option that's nearly an automatic 1 point on the board. 

 

Next, make the option for the 3 point play only available in the 4th quarter, and push it back to the 15 yard line (where they currently have the XP kick setup). This way, it's really only there as a last chance option as the game is nearing its end, can't be overly abused, and legitimately offers the most risk/lowest success rate by a wide margin. The way it's setup now, some teams will quickly realize it's better just to go for 3 every time...

 

It's like how the NBA has changed in looking at the 3 point shot. It's better to chunk up more 3's at a lower success rate than it is 2's, and with football, 1 made 3 point conversion makes up for failing several missed conversions. If you just start each game knowing you're going for 3 after every TD, you'd be fine with failing 2 of 3 conversions, and making just 1 extra gives you a huge advantage. Especially when you're starting from the 10, it actually makes it easier in many cases than a 2 point attempt, as it gives you more space to spread out a defense & for plays to open up. And having that option from the the first minute of quarter 1? Yeah... very abusable as it is now.

 

Anyway, didn't intend to put this much detail into this post, but it honestly could be an interesting mechanic introduced if certain things were ironed out (my ideas aren't perfect either, but I'd rather my tweaks than what they currently are offering).

[Tenhigh]

Just now, Warcodered said:

Unless they synchronize the camera feeds with it, I doubt there will be a significant effect from the chip.

That is what I was just thinking. But if they did, you could achieve perfect ball placement.  Kind of like True Level. 

[Warcodered]

43 minutes ago, Tenhigh said:

That is what I was just thinking. But if they did, you could achieve perfect ball placement.  Kind of like True Level. 

 

[T&C]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/04/09/usfl-to-eliminate-chains-measure-first-downs-with-chip-in-ball-and-yellow-line-on-tv/

 

 

" Although it undeniably looks cool on TV to see an image of the football and an image of the line to gain — reminiscent of the way replay is used in tennis — the reality is that this kind of ball tracking technology isn’t precise enough to guarantee that first down calls will be correct.

The NFL already has a chip in every football, but it uses those chips only for its Next Gen Stats tracking data, and not for officiating. That’s because the chips in the middle of every ball just aren’t accurate enough to locate where a football is to the inch. The data works fine as a good approximation of where the ball is, give or take the length of one football. But it doesn’t tell you whether a third down play just barely picked up the first down, or whether the offense should be facing fourth-and-inches.

Replay technology works so well in tennis because tennis is a sport fundamentally conducive to it: The smaller size of the ball, the spherical shape of the ball, and the ability to always have camera angles with unobstructed views of the ball and the lines on the court make tennis well suited to its replay system. Football just doesn’t work that way. It’s not always possible to tell precisely where the ball was when the ball carrier’s knee touched the ground, especially when huge men are surrounding the ball carrier and blocking any view of his knee or the ball."

 

More in the article above. 
 

[Tenhigh]

25 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

 

Lambs to the cosmic slaughter 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

I must be the weird one here…but man I hate this idea of the conversation attempts instead of onside kicks. It’s just to arcade’ish for me. It’s Football…kicking is a big part of it. I feel like running plays after kicks is doing to much