Breaking Ground On Project Nfl

The NFL is enduring a season of quiet crisis on several fronts.

Football needs fixing.

Lucky thing, I have my toolbox with me. Got the hard hat on. Safety goggles, too. So let’s go to work!

New law: Stop the civic raiding of other cities’ teams! The NFL must work harder with club owners and communities to create new or upgraded facilities, including financial involvement if necessary. Rules for relocation must be stricter and more diligently enforced, and the longer a city has had a team, the harder it should be to move. The NFL must be willing to go to court when challenged to stop franchise freeagency.

Reason: When you start making it just about money, fan loyalty (foundation of any franchise) becomes worthless. Stability is paramount. You want teams, Baltimore and Nashville? Wait for expansion.

New law: Rewrite commissioner’s job description to make less a figurehead for club owners and more an advocate for fans and the game.

Reason: Paul Tagliabue, for example, should publicly lead the push to keep the Browns in Cleveland. The owners vote. But the commish should use his power to sway opinion. Another example: Tagliabue has declined Dolphins invitations to be involved in any way in marking Dan Marino’s record-breaking. Get out of your office, Tags. Get down with the fans.

New law: Rewrite the rules governing the salary cap. Signing bonuses paid up front should be included up front. Bonuses should not be allowed to exceed a certain multiplication of a base salary.

Reason: A cap is needed, but not a joke-cap with gaping loopholes that invite lawyerly circumvention. As is, the cap’s a mockery.

New law: Allow clubs to promote themselves with independent marketing arrangements, as the Cowboys did with the Nike deal that led the NFL to file a $300 million lawsuit. Infuse a small percentage of such income into a common pool, but otherwise open market for teams to benefit from their own good name.

Reason: Further grow financial stability of clubs. A reworked, airtight salary cap would not allow added income to buy competitive advantage, so why not? And maintaining across-the-board revenue sharing of TV income and gate receipts would continue to evenly split the vast majority of revenue.

New law: Insist all new stadiums be open-air. Require all venues to have natural grass, including domes now in use. (The technology exists.)

Reason: Aesthetics and injuries. Domes are to football what Styrofoam is to food. And artificial turf ruins knees, shortens careers and robs us of the manly, John Madden-delighting image of a warrior trudging off the field with a clod of sod wedged in his face mask.

New law: Weed out aging, incapable game officials with mandatory fitness tests over a certain age.

Reason: Officiating needs upgrade, and the main problem isn’t lack of instant replay. It’s too many stripes who look like officers at an AARP meeting.

New law: Create rules to discourage or at least limit “situation substitutions,” especially on defense.

Reason: Offenses, scoring and action suffer.

New law: Drop Terry Bradshaw onto remote, uninhabited Pacific island.

Reason: Ever seen Fox’s pregame show?