Hall of Fame former Vikings coach Bud Grant is hoping that the NFL will make a few rules changes that he says will make games more exciting.
Grant says that if the league were to cut back on some of the “boring” parts of the game, things would move a bit quicker and be more exciting for fans, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Grant railed against some of these rules noting that “Football is entertainment. And there are things in the NFL that provide no entertainment.”
He went on with three specific complaints about plays he thinks make the game more boring.
“Why would you want to be watching a game for three hours or more, and then have the last two minutes turn into a quarterback kneeling down?” he began before adding, “Why would you want to have an outstanding athlete as a punt returner, and 85% of the time, all he’s going to do is fair catch the ball?” And, “Worse than that is the kickoff. They have turned that into the most nothing play in football.”
“I would complain to people about the idea that when the trailing team was out of timeouts, the quarterback starts kneeling down and the fans are leaving,” he said.
Grant added that instead of kneeling, there should be a requirement that yards must be gained, “one yard — or the clock stops.”
“A few things can happen when trying to make a yard. You can get stuffed. You can fumble. You can get a penalty. And you keep the fans interested,” Grant explained.
Grant, who is also in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, said the NFL should follow the CFL on punts.
Hall of Fame former Vikings coach Bud Grant (Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)
“I attended enough meetings to know the NFL wants to avoid admitting Canadian football has a better idea about anything. Yet, they should follow Canada and take away the fair catch,” Grant told the paper. “There’s no fair catch in Canada, but the coverage also has to give the returner 5 yards. NFL people hear this, and they’ll say, ‘It will increase injuries.’ The 5-yard cushion makes all the difference. My opinion is there won’t be a real increase in injuries, and the punt would become an interesting play.”
The 95-year-old Grant also blasted the NFL’s kickoff practice. He calls it boring and scoffs at the league’s reasoning of preventing injuries.
“Why bother, if your goal is to make the kickoff the most-nothing play in football? They say it’s about safety. Injuries happen on every play,” Grant insisted. “They have made several changes on the way you can block on the kickoff. They can keep those. But you wait three minutes through a timeout, they come back, kick off, walk the ball out to 25. It’s ridiculous. Move the kickoff back 5 yards [to the 30], and if you don’t bring it out, you don’t get rewarded with the 25. You get the ball at the 15.”
Indeed, nearly all the rules Grant doesn’t like were put in place as safety measures to reduce the violence of the game. So, it isn’t likely they’ll be going back to harder-hitting any time soon.
Still, Grant tied to couch his suggestions as mere help, not “fixing.”
“The NFL does not need fixing,” he carefully explained. “Everybody watches the NFL. It’s the greatest game going. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid making it better.”
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