I hadn’t watched American football in many years but around Christmas time I watched a little bit with my son who is getting old enough to pay attention to it. What struck me was how many pointless rules there are in football. I asked myself which of the many pointless rules is the most pointless. Some candidate
1.Holding
2. Illegal motion
These two are basically rules that establish a conventional way to play the game. If you dropped these rules you would still have a game that makes sense but aesthetically you could argue the game is less attractive. Players grabbing each others uniforms, offensive players running around before the snap. It’s a matter of taste but the deadweight loss is the subjective element of enforcement. Bottom line: artificial rules but not totally pointless.
3. Intentional grounding. This rule has a point but its a stupid point. The quarterback can’t throw the ball just anywhere, he has to throw it near somebody who could legally catch it. Or he can throw it out of bounds, it seems. But if he can’t do any of those he has to get mowed down by a charging defender.
But here’s the most pointless rule I could come up with:
4. Ineligible Receiver Downfield. There are only certain players on the offense who are designated as eligible to catch a pass. If anybody else catches a pass then it doesn’t count. Now that by itself is pretty artificial. Those players, and their counterparts on the defense are basically added to the game just to offset one another. You could remove them from both sides and it would be a wash. But even more pointless: an ineligible player is not allowed to advance down the field when a pass is thrown, even if it is thrown to somebody else. These rules essentially provide job security for giant, immobile humanoids whose only function is to stand in the way of somebody else. They take away the possibility of having a team of 10 perfectly substitutable athletes plus a quarterback. I can’t see how that would not be a more interesting game.
Is there any more pointless rule than that?
Cheap Talk 
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January 9, 2012 at 6:08 am
rif
I think the rules against “touchdown celebration” and “taunting” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchdown_celebration] are even more pointless, since they make the game actively less entertaining.
January 9, 2012 at 6:25 am
Pierre-Louis
Most US football rules are artificial. For example, why only one forward pass? Take most away and you get something close to Australian football. Then you realise the “artificial” rules actually make the game more interesting. Rules change every year as the game evolves to make sure the game is fair and entertaining. On the contrary, soccer rules never evolve, so you have a bunch of useless rules such as offsides, unjustified penalty kicks, and constant faking injuries by players.
January 9, 2012 at 8:07 am
PLW
How can we tell whether the rule has not point or whether you just don’t understand the point? After all, you are a football expert, right?
January 9, 2012 at 8:36 am
n=1
There is a natural experiment available. Even more on point than Australian rules, there is the Canadian football league. Looks the same at first glance, but there are many changes in areas relevant to your observations. For instance, offensive motion, even directly toward the line, is specifically permitted. This strikes me as a much better arrangement. But what has the natural experiment told us? Most americans can’t name a single CFL team. I know I can’t!
January 9, 2012 at 9:13 am
Dennis
If you want 10 substitutable athletes running around receiving passes, you should become a fan of ultimate frisbee. Watch Championship games here: http://www.usaultimate.org/multimedia/default.aspx
January 9, 2012 at 10:09 am
Anonymous
Ineligible Receiver Downfield is in place to prevent injuries: “One of the major problems was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_football#Violence_and_controversy_.281905.29
March 20, 2014 at 7:59 am
Shun
I’m a fan of the whole small changes thing. I’m also a fan of your aparopch to this question (ie, try it for a while and see how you feel). I’m also betting that in a couple of months, those two blocks will feel like two miles (winter)!
January 9, 2012 at 10:27 am
Sean Crockett
Jeff, your description of linemen is similar to how one might describe pawns in chess; relatively immobile, offsetting their counterparts, functioning largely to get in the way of someone else. Would chess be a better game if most pieces were replaced by queens?
January 9, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Pointless Rules : baseballmusings.com
[…] Talk looks at pointless rules in American football. What are the pointless rules in baseball? I suspect the intentional walk is one. The author of the […]
January 9, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Mallesh Pai (@malleshpai)
Two points– 1 regarding the intentional grounding penalty. it just rewards the defense for putting the QB in a bad position. he could take the sack, or throw it away, and either way he’s in roughly the same position (loses yards + a down). the penalty just gives the qB a painless option to taking the sack.
regarding ineligible receivers- sure, but that takes away the structure from the game. besides, another reason to not have the big guys downfield early is that they can then start blocking early (i.e. in the mid/secondary), clearing a path for the ball carrier. in effect, ineligible receivers cuts down on the number of things the offense can do (they already have the informational edge in that they know what play they’re trying to run, the D doesn’t), without it, i suspect there’s almost no way to stop a half plausible offense.
January 9, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Bobby
All rules are artificial. They are intended to make the game enjoyable and safe. All the rules you mention are there to make the games enjoyable by limiting some of the natural advantages of the offense.
And describing the holding penalty as primarily an aesthetic choice also gives away that you really have no idea what you’re talking about. 🙂
January 14, 2012 at 9:44 pm
chat
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