Some Free Advice to the UFL

I don’t know what the United Football league is going to look like, but I can guess. It’s going to try to look like the NFL. Other leagues have come and gone by trying to be the NFL, only with lesser talent. None have succeeded.

Or they’ve tried to look at where the NFL is now, guess where it’s going, and get there first (the remote-controlled hover cameras of the XFL, for example). This too has failed.

So rather than trying to imitate and/or innovate, the UFL ought to do something completely unexpected: the exact opposite.

Retrovate.

Hey, there’s a reason why Mitchell and Ness can charge over $300 for a 1970-style Johnny Unitas uniform and Steelers crowds are still packed with fans wearing Lambert jerseys. Fans loved what professional football used to be.

The UFL should look at what made pro football different, fun, popular and wildly successful. Then give that back to football fans. Forget about drawing in new fans. That’s what the NFL has been all about for twenty-five years now — changing the rules to create more offense, making broadcasts as much spectacle as sport, turning game day into an event. They should imitate what the NFL used to be when it caught the imagination of the sport-loving public. Put the goal posts on the goal line. (That’s why they’re called “goal posts” not “back of the end zone posts.”) Bring back wider hash marks and sportsmanlike conduct. Kill the TV time-outs and video reviews. Start games at the same time every week. (That’s how kids get into a habit of watching it.) Take it back to when a guy was down only when he had two knees on the ground and was actually touched. Forget the muff rule and the five-yard rule. Bring back the rule that you can’t act like a five-year-old desperate for attention every time you make a tackle. And forget uniforms that look like something the Jetsons would wear. No one is ever going to spend $300 for them in the future.

Want to be really retrovative? Get rid of some of the padding. Heck, go with leather helmets. Sure, you’ll have more broken noses, but you’ll have fewer cases of pugilistic dementia. Guys won’t go helmet-to-helmet if what’s covering their melon is only slightly more than a tossel cap.

Try it. Why not? Everything else has been tried before. And failed.