Interesting replies; like I said, I was just asking since this is the first time I have actually watched 2 NFL games and I am taping the Rams/49s on Monday. Pittsburgh is my team but only because my youth football team wore their colours, we thought we were them until we went 1-10, then we thought we were Hamilton!
Canadian football rules have been fine-tuned down to the most finite detail over the past 150 years or so, with the "line-of-scrimmage" being adopted in 1881 which differentiated football from rugby forever (instead of the rugby "scrum" to introduce the ball into play).
American's learned much about football from Canada, right back to the first football game in the U.S. at Yale in 1874, with the visiting McGill university team introducing the rugby-football game to a receptive American audience. The rest is history.
There's not much you can do to the Canadian game to "improve" it. Any move you make today will have an equal and opposite reaction...and not all of which will likely be desirable (like the 1-year Wonders of the slippery painted-on ball laces or the ridiculous original "punting out of bounds" penalty.)
It's actually the NFL which should be adopting CFL rules, as was recommended by a blue-chip NFL committee a couple years ago. They recommended widening the field as much as possible (at least 6 ft. on each sideline), having a 1-yd restraining zone at the line of scrimmage (the CFL has less head-on-head contact by linemen), and other innovations from the Canadian game.
Canadian football doesn't need to copy American football to improve our game, other than perhaps requiring receivers to have two-feet in bounds for a legal catch. This might bring a higher level of professionalism to the game, albeit narrowing the field and possibly hampering the 3-down offences.
While CFL offences are in full bloom today and are almost unstoppable...only a couple of years ago the defences were dominating, making for some dull games. Requiring two-feet in bounds might be a positive move to balance the "no-touch" defence on receivers today.
You may want to adjust your PVR cuz they play tonight. If you want to watch the best NFL team play take note the Raiders play on Sunday night.
Okay Here we Go!!!!!!!!!!
NFL Touchdown scored. All the players run off the field!!!!!!
Convert try all the players run on the field. Good yes. All the players run from field.
Kick off players all run on field for kick off. NICE
Kick off goes deep into end zone or through. Kick off players run back to team bench
Offensive players run on too field for first down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOW what actually happened!!!! Except 6 commercials!!!!!!!!!!!
And a punt!!! No I don't want to try and catch it. Just let it bounce dead.
No infraction!!!!!!!!!
Sure about that? American football came from Rugby which has a 10 yard end zone. If the US took 10 yards off the field to add to the end zone they would have 2o yard rnd zones today
Rugby though being the forebearer to gridiron football has undergone some changes over the years as well.
A modern rugby pitch is drawn out in metric today as opposed to english imperial measurements. While features like the 22m line or the line 10 meters from centre are fixed, the overall length is variable so long as it does not exceed 100m. This 100m is based off of the original 110 yards that is common to gridiron.
The goal areas like in gridiron are a bit of a modern contrivance simply to define the extent beyond the goal line the ball can continue to be played. Like the field itself the depth is variable but not to exceed 22m. That 22m limit probably has a similar origin to Canadian footballs 25 yard end zone in fitting the playing area inside an athletics track.
A rugby goal area need only be so deep as to provide a space for the ball to be touched town to score a try after carrying the ball over the line of scrimmage. Moreso than in gridiron football and perhaps with the exception of kicking the ball across the goal line to be collected by an onside teammate, rugby is confined to major scores by way of carrying the ball across the line with no forward pass.
Today the goal areas in major rugby matches are likely to average 10 to 15 m purely as a function of space available in major sports facilities which are often shared with soccer.
Doesn’t make sense that that is where a 10 yard NFL end zone came from. Not saying your wrong as it is not something I ever thought to look into.
Rugby does more than just carry the ball over so there is a need for an end zone but did that use come from the existence of the end zone or was the end zone created because of the need to allow that?
After the NFL outgrew some of the college stadiums they were playing in, they reduced the size of their field to fit inside baseball stadiums which had many more seats than some college stadiums in the early 20th century. Many NFL teams shared stadiums with baseball teams for many years.
For many decades, especially with all-white teams the constricted field size wasn't a big factor. Today it is. That's one reason why Canadian football is so superior to the American game. Not only the Canadian rules which forces teams to be aggressive but the larger field size too. This allows the great athletes of today to fully display their speed and moves...rather than another kickoff through the endzone in the NFL.
The NFL played with 3-downs until 1912 and on a much larger field in the early days (up to 150 yds long). They played with goal posts on the goal line until 1972 (and not the superior single post uprights we used in Canada that were set back from the goal line, the NFL goal posts had two solid steel posts right on the goal line which must have been very dangerous for the players.)
As I understand it I would suspect the latter.
Without a link to give you just now but having done some light reading on the history of various codes of football, the end zone or goal area generally came about to define the extent to which the ball could be played beyond the goal line.
In North America the driving factor was the forward pass but kicks beyond goal necessitate a defined goal area in almost every version of football.
As much as I have had an interest in the history of the game (and I am far from well informed let alone an expert) I have never thought to learn the history of the rules and evolution from rugby to football.
Interesting stuff. Rugby however is just too complicated with the split between league and union (prefer league myself).
Actually NFL has made good rule changes. But still have some of the stupid's rules in place. I do love now they call pass interference or not. Allow a little bumping and grinding.
What is up with the rule where you kick the ball to them, the receiver runs away from the ball and the kicking team surrounds it? WTF? I understand fair catch since they have no yards, you would get killed, but the other?
What is up with the rule where you kick the ball to them, the receiver runs away from the ball and the kicking team surrounds it? WTF? I understand fair catch since they have no yards, you would get killed, but the other?
Do they not have confidence in their own ability to catch the ball? I thought these were supposed to be the best players.
Small change but I'd like tosee CFL adopt the 2 minute warning idea.
Since our league has far fewer timeouts than NFL make the 2 min. warning an actual timeout when the clock stops.
CFL can get far more plays off during the last minute so why not give both teams a timeout with 2 to go?
I've lost interest in the NFL over the past couple seasons and am now close to strictly a CFL/NHL guy. Too many overpaid crybabies down there.
CFL rules are far better imo. I love some of the old rules from rugby like the gunners on punts that can be exciting. The live ball in the end zone on kicks is great too. Adds some more excitement on special teams.
I gave up watching 49s/Rams today, yes it has taken me this long to get to half time as I would quickly get bored with it. I did think it was funny how catches that are pretty common in the CFL were spectacular in the NFL. I will try a few more games though but maybe after the CFL season is done.
I gave up watching 49s/Rams today, yes it has taken me this long to get to half time as I would quickly get bored with it. I did think it was funny how catches that are pretty common in the CFL were spectacular in the NFL. I will try a few more games though but maybe after the CFL season is done.
NFL knows Hollywood and uses it. They also use piped in crowd noise at the right times, more cameras - high definition cameras, more closeups, better lighting.More sizzle like soccer adswhere everything is sensational! They know who their market is and they target it well. They got a good portion of our youth didn’t they.
TSNuses good quality Bollywood - pretty good butthere is a difference.
I gave up watching 49s/Rams today, yes it has taken me this long to get to half time as I would quickly get bored with it. I did think it was funny how catches that are pretty common in the CFL were spectacular in the NFL. I will try a few more games though but maybe after the CFL season is done.
But to be fair, in the NFL you need to have two feet in the playing field and control when you make a catch. You also have a much smaller end zone area to make a catch.
I haven’t watched an NFL game get but looking at the highlights there have been quite a few high scoring exciting games, last Thursday was 41 - 39 ?
I watched the Riders/Stamps game on ESPN2, it was the first ESPN televised game since back in July, only one TD scored. Doesn’t look like any more CFL games televised this year on ESPN
Small change but I’d like to see CFL adopt the 2 minute warning idea.
Since our league has far fewer timeouts than NFL make the 2 min. warning an actual timeout when the clock stops.
CFL can get far more plays off during the last minute so why not give both teams a timeout with 2 to go?
Because you get a timeout with 3 minutes to go
The NFL has the best football players. The CFL has the best football game.