06:01 PM
12/06/25
12/06/25
November 15, 2025
SportsFilter: The Saturday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
I like it.
posted by NoMich at 03:29 PM on November 16, 2025
The grumpy old man in me needs to vent about a football rule that needs to be changed, or at least modified. I'm talking about the fair catch. OK, receiver waves his arm, catches the ball, no problem. What bothers me is a receiver, deep in his own territory, waves his arm and jumps out of the way as the ball bounces into the end zone for a touchback. To me this is illegal procedure whereby the receiving team gains an advantage. I would like to make it a penalty for a faked fair catch. If you signal for it, you catch it. If you don't, make it a dead ball at the spot where the ball first lands, unless it is in the end zone on the fly, and a 5 yard penalty from the spot at which the receiver waved his arm. That would give kicking teams a reward for a well-executed kick.
I have another rule that I would like to see changed, but I'll save that for later.