My Hypothetical Football Variant

[Fray32]

Within I will describe a variant on the sport of football that we all know and love, with new rules and dimensions. I came up with the idea over a year ago but haven't mulled it over seriously. I'm curious what interesting implications we can arrive at, given a new starting point that fundamentally alters the game. (And yes, I am a little bored during my time off in Lockdown 2.0)

The Motivating Setup

Imagine you're watching a standard NFL regular season game: Kansas City against the Raiders. The Raiders have somehow built a 48-7 lead. There are 10 seconds left on the clock in the 4th quarter and Mahomes takes the field at his own 25 yard line. He takes the snap, drops back, and heaves it to Tyreek Hill who has snuck behind the defense for a clean catch in stride, no one near him, no one in front of him, and no one on the field fast enough to catch him.

"Big deal" - Jon Gruden, presumably. No one else seems to care much either. This is of course because even with the touchdown and PAT the Chiefs have lost 48-14. No matter the situation, on any given play your upside is ultimately capped. At most you are scoring 6 points on one play, and at most your team can score 8 points before attempting an onside kick. Due to the nature of onside kicks and how difficult they are to pull off, that's about the most points you can string together before risking a loss of possession.

Now, what if truly unbounded upside was possible? What if the Chiefs could still win on the last play of the game?

The Basic Outline

First off, it is physically impossible for real people to ever construct this game in real life (reason will become clear), however this could be pulled off in some sort of virtual video game-type experiment.

• The goal: Two teams compete to amass as many yards from scrimmage (YFS) as possible before the end of the game (signaled by the countdown of the game clock).
• The field is no longer 100 yards long. Pick a starting point, call it 'Midfield' and extend the field infinitely in both directions.
• There is no such thing as a touchdown, PAT, Safety, field goal, etc. There is no such thing as points.
• There is still a time constraint. I haven't given this much thought in how it should differ from current NFL set up, but importantly you still have a game clock and a play clock.
• There are no special teams. No punting (there is no point, there is no 'field position' game). No kick offs.
• Coin toss determines who possesses the ball first.
• Now we are in familiar territory. 1st and 10, 4 downs to gain 10 yards. A priori I don't know if this would work well (if it's too easy), but we can always change 1) how many downs given and 2) how many yards to gain a first-down.
• Game proceeds. Suppose Team1 possesses the ball first, they begin to drive for as long as they can, amassing as many yards as they can and continually getting 1st downs. Once we have a turnover on downs, Team2 would then bring out their offense and do the same thing. They would be confined by a 40 second play clock between plays and some overall game clock. To keep things simple, the game clock works like soccer in that it is always ticking down regardless of whether a pass was incomplete or a runner ran out of bounds. 
• I still think a forced half-time change of possession is a good idea, to at least guarantee that each team has minimum one possession in the game.

Now, back to our Chiefs/Raiders example, I'm sure you see where I'm headed with this. Suppose the Chiefs after getting thoroughly dominated throughout (but not insurmountably so) were at a 400 YFS deficit. Mahomes launches to Hill, who still manages to sneak behind everyone and he's off to the races. He runs and runs and runs. Before pure exhaustion fells our cheetah, he has scampered for a 600 yard completion and with no time remaining the Chiefs have pulled out an come from behind win on the last play of the game.

Note: we also have the potential for uncapped downside too. Imagine an ill-advised throw out to the flats that's easily intercepted by the defender going full speed in the other direction and no one in front of him. That could potentially be negative hundreds of yards for the team that turned the ball over.

Discussion

From this setup, how would normal NFL strategy change? How would teams adjust their pace of play on offense? What approach to offense would be optimal? What approach to defense? For example: 4th down and 1, if you sellout against the run and the wrong person gets behind the defense that could be a giant gain in YFS and also possibly multiple minutes off the game clock. Does every defensive call need some kind of 'prevent' safety net? Does the running game become easier or does it take a backseat to passing in all but the most niche situations? Do the coveted skillsets for skill-position players change at all? Does the body-type of an NFL player change at all? How often do you substitute? How do you construct your gameday roster?

I'm imagining some hilarious scenario where a fresh Mo Farah-type manages to run an entire marathon on one play, taking up as much clock as possible, with no chance of being stopped by anyone else unless he trips, stops his own forward progress, or gives up.

 

[BigTrav]

17 hours ago, Fray32 said:

 (And yes, I am a little bored during my time off in Lockdown 2.0)

 

 

No kidding...

 

So first thing I thought whilst reading was 'what about red zone'. Because RZ is like a mini-game in itself. It changes quite a lot with the compressed field etc, but under this scenario, what would you do, just flip the field once you get close to end zone and just go back down the other way? So we would lose classic red zone plays (no need for a fade in the corner, for example. No need for players like Gronk which would be a shame). You'd miss out completely on the clever playcalling you get down there.

In terms of how the sport would be drastically different, I think there would be a 100% effort to dare them to run - which few teams would take up. Imagine if you're passing all day and have amassed 5, 6, 700 yards, but your opposition is struggling in the passing game? Blow out doesn't even cover it. Defences would be so heavy on press-man, 6 or 7 DB sets, no fat men in the middle, just all about speed and mobility. 

If your opposition is running the ball a decent amount, you've basically won.

[Fray32]

14 minutes ago, BigTrav said:

No kidding...

 

So first thing I thought whilst reading was 'what about red zone'. Because RZ is like a mini-game in itself. It changes quite a lot with the compressed field etc, but under this scenario, what would you do, just flip the field once you get close to end zone and just go back down the other way? So we would lose classic red zone plays (no need for a fade in the corner, for example. No need for players like Gronk which would be a shame). You'd miss out completely on the clever playcalling you get down there.

In terms of how the sport would be drastically different, I think there would be a 100% effort to dare them to run - which few teams would take up. Imagine if you're passing all day and have amassed 5, 6, 700 yards, but your opposition is struggling in the passing game? Blow out doesn't even cover it. Defences would be so heavy on press-man, 6 or 7 DB sets, no fat men in the middle, just all about speed and mobility. 

If your opposition is running the ball a decent amount, you've basically won.

Thank you for the reply, I figured NFL Gen flat out ignoring this was their polite way of letting me know this idea was terrible😄

In regards to your question about the Red Zone playcalls -- there is no redzone, there is no endzone. The field never ends. You look off into the horizon and just see a green expanse forever and ever. Think the never-ending staircase in Super Mario 64. And you raise a good point: the endzone fade would have no place in this game, that's one playcall that would not make the transition. I hadn't thought of that, good observation.

I tend to agree and think teams would all start building their offenses similarly, focusing on speed and agility (and stamina). Maybe offensive linemen start looking more like tight ends -- they can do the bare minimum short-distance blocking when needed, and crucially they can substitute in for other receivers and skill position players when they're flat out exhausted (say in the middle of a 20+ minute possession).

But I still think you'd have some Minnesota Vikings-like squad that use Cook and their running game to try and win (narrowly) against a Green Bay. If the Packers can't slow Cook down consistently, and Cousins can play efficiently on key downs, they could conceivably possess the ball for an entire half on one possession. They might only gain 300-400 yards of offense (depending on their pace of play) but they wouldn't let Rodgers touch the ball. The most complete "blow out" in my mind is a game where Team1's offense goes 4 and out and that's the only time they touch the ball for the entire game.

And just in case it's unclear, I'm not recommending changing the NFL game (not to mention this can't be played in the physical world anyway), this was just a thought experiment.   

[QBIso]

How was this post not made by @pf9

[Malfatron]

9 hours ago, Fray32 said:

but they wouldn't let Rodgers touch the ball.

Rodgers wouldnt be a starter in your game.

[Uncle Buck]

You're gonna need a bigger stadium...

[DannyB]

I get most of it, but even in an imaginary scenario, or as a video game, the endless field presents problems unless there is some crazy way to account for it. So a guy gets behind the defense, and starts running. And running, and running, and running, and maybe walking, then running again...I mean at some point the entertainment value goes to zero, not to mention it's like, a never ending play??

Potential work-around: Again, because like you said this is NOT something that is being played by real people, and is instead basically a video game, the coach/operator/person controlling the team, has the choice to drop in a player from the bench, like a freaking paratrooper, and he appears like 15-20 yards in front of the opposing player to attempt the tackle. In exchange, simultaneously, a player from the field (coach's choice) is teleported to the bench and can't go back in until every player, or defensive player or whatever, has been cycled through.

Another rule idea, not sure if it's an improvement or not but something to think about: On 4th down, instead of going for it and trying to pick up the 1st down, teams CAN choose to punt, and however many yards they net get added to their score.

[Tk3]

On 12/29/2020 at 4:55 PM, Fray32 said:

• The field is no longer 100 yards long. Pick a starting point, call it 'Midfield' and extend the field infinitely in both directions.

FINALLY a good use for my infinitely long football stadium!

[Fray32]

14 hours ago, DannyB said:

I get most of it, but even in an imaginary scenario, or as a video game, the endless field presents problems unless there is some crazy way to account for it. So a guy gets behind the defense, and starts running. And running, and running, and running, and maybe walking, then running again...I mean at some point the entertainment value goes to zero, not to mention it's like, a never ending play??

Potential work-around: Again, because like you said this is NOT something that is being played by real people, and is instead basically a video game, the coach/operator/person controlling the team, has the choice to drop in a player from the bench, like a freaking paratrooper, and he appears like 15-20 yards in front of the opposing player to attempt the tackle. In exchange, simultaneously, a player from the field (coach's choice) is teleported to the bench and can't go back in until every player, or defensive player or whatever, has been cycled through.

Another rule idea, not sure if it's an improvement or not but something to think about: On 4th down, instead of going for it and trying to pick up the 1st down, teams CAN choose to punt, and however many yards they net get added to their score.

LOL this reminds me of that NFL Street 2 minigame Open Field Showdown. I don't hate it. And I also like the punting on 4th down net yards being added to the offenses total. This will allow the more... 'chicken' NFL head coaches (read: Jeff Fisher) to routinely put himself at a disadvantage by punting for an extra 50 yards maybe instead of potentially extending his drive. Any format that doesn't force a team to play optimally is A-OK with me.

Along this train of thought too, I've wondered in my Chiefs/Raiders example, what is to stop Raiders DBs from rampant DPI and holding at the end of the game. Even if you tack on penalty yardage to the YFS total, a 50 or 60 yard DPI is nothing compared to what it could potentially lead to if caught. Of course the game can't end on a penalty, but if you played prevent defense and just interfered if there was even an a small chance of being caught... This would also require some clandestine levels of officiating too, just being able to keep track of an infinitely long field lmao.

[Malfatron]

someone should go through games from 1972-2019 to see what all the teams records would be if we used these rules, and how the playoffs would have shaked out.

@pf9?