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"FacebookPinterest\n\n 1. Reinvent overtime.\n\n This has been the league's most glaring on-field problem since 1974. The \"sudden death\" format promotes conservatism, overemphasizes the kicking game, and hinges on an arbitrary coin toss. Recent off-season adjustments the league made for playoff games won't help enough. A better solution would be to boil the game down to its most fundamental element\u2014the ability to advance the ball ten yards in four downs. NFL overtime should be like the system in college football, only more severe: Each team would get four offensive plays from the ten-yard line. No field goals, no extra points. (If you score, you have to go for two.) What could be more dramatic? \n\n 2. Tweak the enforcement of pass interference. \n\n Very often, placing the ball at the spot of an interference penalty makes sense. But nothing unjustly changes momentum like a forty-yard penalty on a pass that might not have been catchable. The league should employ two kinds of pass-interference calls: the existing rule (which would still place the ball at the spot of the foul) and an \"excessive downfield contact\" rule (which would be five yards and an automatic first down). Referees can call \"excessive downfield contact\" in borderline situations where the penalty is not egregious enough to justify a massive change in field position. The only exception would be any interference in the end zone; that should always move the ball to the one-yard line automatically (in order to keep Hail Marys relevant).\n\n 3. Microscopically increase the success of onside kicks.\n\n Onside kicks work about 24 percent of the time. But that's a misleading figure; they rarely work if the opponent knows they're coming. From an entertainment perspective, it would be nice to increase the likelihood of the kicking team recovering its onside attempt, but not by too much\u2014if teams suddenly recovered 40 percent, the game would become a farce. So how do we slightly increase that possibility? By changing where the receiving team lines up. Right now, it's ten yards from where the ball is kicked. Make that fifteen yards, which would force the receiving team to charge forward once the ball is kicked. It wouldn't change the metrics dramatically, but it would give the trailing team slightly better odds.\n\n 4. Use throwback uniforms at least half the time. \n\n Who doesn't find this charming?\n\n 5. Instead of talking about Brett Favre's future, talk about the future of the NFL's collective-bargaining agreement. \n\n Unless there's an extension, the league's CBA with players expires next March. This is a complex legal problem, but it boils down to this: The end of the CBA means the end of the salary cap, and that would almost certainly lead to a lockout. The evaporation of the cap could also destroy the competitive balance that keeps pro football from growing stale. (A cash-rich franchise like the Cowboys could become the Yankees.) Nothing will impact the future of the NFL more than the outcome of this dispute.\n\nChuck Klosterman is the author of Eating the Dinosaur. Follow him on Twitter @CKlosterman."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/chuck-klosterman-gq-brilliant-ideas-for-football>