On ESPN's show, 'First Take' on Tuesday, they discussed eliminating field goals and place kickers because one of the people thought that field goals shouldn't determine a game. His thoughts are that the place kicker isn't really a part of the team because he isn't on the field for the majority of the game. A quote of his: 'Other players fight for fifty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds and to have all that work come down to one kick isn't fair to them.' I don't completely understand his reasoning, but I don't get paid to give my sports opinion.
Some of the more exciting games in football have been at the end with the weight of the game (or season for that matter) being placed on a field goal. Some have been monumental victorious kicks and some have been crushing defeats. Think of all the wide rights and wide lefts you have seen in your lifetime. Now imagine if those kicks never happened. Kind of boring, right? Imagine if the team was forced to go for it on fourth down instead of putting points on the board with a successful field goal.
If you go outside of football, can other plays or players be eliminated? Let's look at free throws in basketball. A lot of times in basketball games, if a team is losing by one or two possessions (two to four points), they will start to foul the other team in order to stop the clock and also there is a chance that the opponent will miss one or both of the free throws giving the team that is losing a chance to tie or win the game. Why not eliminate free throws in the last five minutes of a game? Free throws can determine a winner or loser in a basketball game just the same as a field goal can. If a player commits a personal foul, just take it out of bounds and continue to play. It would also speed up the last five minutes of a game which we all know would be good because basketball games take forever with all the stoppage and free throws in these types of close games.
What about icing in the last few minutes of a hockey game? Icing doesn't give an advantage to a losing team, but what it does is not allow for the team that iced the puck to not change their players on the ice. Let's take the last three minutes of a one goal game. During the last three minutes of a game, why would you let an icing call stop the momentum of one team? I'm not going to say that an icing play is going to determine a game, but it slows it down to the point where players get stuck out on the ice and can lower the level of play and can lead to penalties and soft goals. Just let the clock continue to run in the event of an icing in the last three minutes of a game. It still allows a team to change their players, but they lose the time on the clock.
All of these topics and ideas will never happen because everything written about is part of the sport. Everyone always has their opinions on what they would do to change a sport, but if the sports changed, what would we complain about? Politics? I don't think so.
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