Rule Changes Phone Breaks The End of March. The last week of March has a lot of things going on. The Sweet 16 and Elite 8. Match play in the PGA. Came so close to having a great ending. MLS getting going. The NBA lost and won at the same time. The NHL races got tight and exciting. The Walking Dead hits its season end. So does the Alaskan Bush People. Once again the NFL dominates the news even with March Madness going on. It is pretty crazy to think that rule changes and phone breaks can grab headlines when you have so much exciting things going on elsewhere. All this and more in The Week That Was.
NFL Phone break madness
Kliff Kingsbury the new coach of the Arizona Cardinals said that he is going to give phone breaks to the players while they are in team meeting. Surprisingly there was a lot of blow back from him saying this. People had their undies in a bunch over him saying this. It is unclear why there was such “out rage” over him saying this. Of course Stephen Smith was one of the ones to have the biggest amount of over the top out rage over this. Saying how childish it is. Really Stephen A. Have you heard yourself talk lately? Talk about childish. If Kingsbury had phrased this any differently no one would have noticed or cared. Since he said it was for Phones there was the crazy out rage.
The truth is teams do this already. They just call them water breaks or stretch breaks. You can’t sit there for super long periods of time and stay focused. Your mind is going to wander. It is just the way most of us are. It is time to accept that phones and other tech devices are a part of who we are now. It happens when any new technology is introduces and starts to take hold. We need to start with teaching the kids how to use it correctly and go from there. Mobile devices are here to stay. They are not going away so we need to learn how to integrate them into society. It is the way of the world. In the mean time the NFL is loving the attention.
Every year there are some players that retire that we wish would not. We know that father time gets an athlete every time. Undefeated. Talk about the G.O.A.T. Father time will win in every situation. For me one of those players retired this year. Jordy Nelson had a great career. He came out of no where and lit up the league. it did not hurt that he was the favorite receiver for Aaron Rodgers. With Rodgers throwing the ball and the ability of Nelson to hit his marks they were a deadly combination. While he is not going to be a hall of fame receiver he was reliable and steady for a long time. The knee injury in the 2015 preseason was a huge bummer but he came back and had a very good year. Even his last year in Oakland was decent. Thank you for the memories Jordy have a great retirement.
NFL Rule Changes
The rules in the NFL are fluid. As in any sport they are not set in stone and can be changed as deemed appropriate. This year is no different. The biggest change to the rules for this year it going to be allowing replay on pass interference (PI) plays. Back when they were first deciding on using video review. I was all for it. They should do it so that they can get the calls correct. That is what just about everyone was thinking. Turns out that is not how it worked out. Even with review there are just as many calls if not more that are being called incorrectly. With the PI implementation we are now going to review judgment on the field. This rule will apply to a bad call or a bad non call of PI. Back when the defender was not allowed to touch a receiver at all this was pretty simple. You touch them it is PI. Now that the defender is allowed to put a hand on the receiver as they are running down the field that changes how the call can be made.
Of course this rule is a direct over reaction to what happened in the NFC Championship game between the Rams and the Saints. The play in question is when Nickell Robey-Coleman hit Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis well before the ball got there. Not only should this have been PI it also included a helmet to helmet hit. So even if it had not been PI it should have been a personal foul for the helmet to helmet hit. At worst the Saint should have had a first down in the red zone. Instead they had to settle for a 31 yard field goal and a 23 – 20 lead with 1:41 left to go in the game. The PI was absolutely missed. To say that the call cost the Saints the game is not correct though. They still could have stopped the Rams. The Over Time was a bummer and I think that the OT rules for the NFL need to be adjusted. If the Saints had scored a touchdown or been able to run the clock down then kick the field goal. The outcome could have been different.
This one play has now led to something that I did not happen at this point. For the upcoming season coaches will be able to challenge PI. PI that has in their mind been called incorrectly or not called at all. On the surface this looks like a great idea. As with all review plays in the last two minutes of each half they are automatic and called by the replay official. For the rest of the game the same challenge rules apply. It does not give the coach extra challenges it just adds to the number of things they can challenge. So it should not slow the game down. It does not mean that every play will be challenged. The problem is that most of these calls are not like the one in the Saints Rams game. 99% of those calls are going to be subjective. In that sense there will be just as much of a chance to get it wrong as to get it right. You are just trading one subjective opinion for another. I don’t know if I am for this rule change or against it. Guess we will see how it goes. I am sure that this rule will change the outcome of at least one game this year. As long as it helps my team. I am good with it. LOL
Rules I Wanted to Change
The onside kick one is the rule I really wanted them to change. I really like the rule that the AAF has in place where they do a 4th and 12 from teh 28 yard line. I like the idea of that. Last year in the NFL the onside kick conversion was less than 3%. That does not say much for having an excting come back or ending to a game if a team is down two scores. Some people do not want the onside kick to change. I really do not understand why. It makes no sense to keep it a way that only has about a 3% success rate. That means that there is almost no chance then. The 4th and 12 would increase it to probably around 12% still not great but much better than 3%. The other change proposed was for over time. I don’t really know the details just that it was tabled to be looked at a later date. The OT really does need to be changed. But I am not sure they are going to do it. I would be ok with getting rid of OT in the regular season. In the preseason they should not do it either. No sense in putting players at risk in a game that means nothing.
AAF in trouble
It appears tat the AAF is in a bit of financial trouble. Again. If you remember two games into the season they had a payroll issue. It was not clear if it was because they did not have the money or if it was just a clerical error. What is clear it that Tom Dundon invested $225 million to keep the league going. Now Dundon is saying that the AAF needs the cooperation of the NFLPA to stay in business. Pretty sure that this is something they should have worked out then before the league got going. We have no idea what the numbers are yet for the AAF. Getting players from the NFL would surly help. Especially access to the third string quarterbacks and the offensive linemen. The local radio guys I listen to make fun of this league but what ever. It is pretty good and there are a few players that could possibly make it to the NFL. There has been a need for a developmental league with the NFL Europe folded. Not sure why the NFL was all for that one now does not want to help supply players for the AAF.
NCAA – March Madness Fun
The Sweet 16 and Elite 8 were the most exciting weekend of Basketball in a long time. Other than the one off of a 16 beating a 1 seed last year. These two rounds were absolutely amazing. In the sweet 16 we saw two of the One seeds lose. North Carolina and Gonzaga. I was not sure that North Carolina should have beena one seed this year. They had an alright year but there were a few teams that got seeded lower that had as good or better seasons than North Carolina. One of those being Michigan State. We talked about this last week that the B1G was given the short end of the stick in the seeds this year. They got one into the final four and almost had two. If Purdue had ot messed up the end of their game and let Virginia get that basket to tie we would have had the B1G with half of the final four. As it is the Final four does a pretty nice job of representing the country. We have the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and the Big 10. Almost seems like they planned it out. We know they did not because if they had we would have had two ACC teams in the final four and one of them would not have been Virginia. Lets just hope that next weekend is as exciting as last weekend.
NHL primed for crazy finish
In the East just about everyone has been eliminated. The only team that is not in that still has a chance to knock someone out is the Canadians. With three games left they will need some help to get in. They will need to win out and then have the Hurricanes or Blue Jackets stumble. The way the Blue Jackets are playing it will probably not be them. In the West there are several teams that could still be in it. In the long run it is looking like it really will not matter. Unless the Lightning fall off a cliff I dont’ see any team that can hang with them in a seven game series. They are just too well rounded and have an answer for every situation. Really Yzerman should have hung around for one more season to finish it out. I get why he wanted to get back to Detroit but this team that he built is just amazing.
NBA awards change
The NBA has changed when they are going to give out the regular season awards. This is a problem since most of the sports people out there can not distinguish between the regular season and post season awards. I really can’t understand why it is so difficult for people to understand that there are separate awards. The NBA is not going to help with that since they are now going to do what other sports do and announce them after the playoffs are done. In previous years they were doing it between the first and second round of the playoffs. That actually made a good amount of sense and limited some of the confusion. It really does not mater when they do it. There will still be those that do not understand how the awards work.
Lakers Crash and Burn
The Lakers have announced that LeBron James is shutting it down for the rest of the season. I wonder if the team is really shutting him down or if he told the Lakers that he was just not going to play anymore this year. it really does not matter since the Lakers are out of it for the 6th straight year and even with him in the line up they have not been winning. This off season for the Lakers is everything. They need James to get healthy. More than that they need Magic to work some Magic in the trade and or free agent arena. With the way the Lakers messed things up this past year they may have trouble getting players to come there. The most interesting idea was to put James up on the trade block. You could do that but what are you really going to get back that would be equal to LeBron James. Nothing. However if they can’t get players to come to LA to play with him then it really does not matter.
Survivor still strong Walking Dead strong finish
This season of survivor has been amazing. Survivor: Edge of Extinction has had some great twists and the addition of the Islan Enge of Extinction has been great. The only problem has been the first person voted out. Reem Daly is nothing short of super annoying. That will happen from time to time but holy crap take a breath between complaints. Sometimes you really understand why someone is voted out. She deserved it and glad she did not make it back into the game when they did the Edge of Extinction game to get back in. The biggest crazy move in the game was when Aubry Bracco a returning player was voted out while she was holding two advantages. The blind side worked out perfectly. She had no idea that she was going to get voted out. Surly the move will go down as one of the best and biggest blind sides ever pulled off in the game of Survivor.
If you are a fan of the Walking Dead then you were very happy with how well the second half of season 9 was written. You may not be happy about who died in it but no one died for the sake of dyeing like in some of the previous seasons. Every move that was made added to the story. The last episode was not the most exciting but the episode before that was so emotional that they had to give viewer a chance to regroup. It also set things up very well for next season. If they stay on this path it could get back to the excitement that season three and four had. They really brought it back. If you had stopped watching you really should go catch up.
That is it for this week. Keep reading to the end I am looking for some more information from the readers of The Week That Was. Hopefully you have a great week. Look forward to some exciting things coming up.
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