Stupid Rule 2

While baseball has a stupid rule or two–one less next year, as I’ll discuss later–football has a doozy that has more actual impact on the game: the fumble-out-of-the-end-zone-for-a-touchback rule. When this rule was invoked against the Vikings in mid-season it may have cost them a win and led to general speculation that the rule would be changed in the offseason. Now that it almost cost the Kansas City Chiefs their spot in the AFC championship game, on national television, the chances of a change must have gone up exponentially. The “rule” is this: when an offense fumbles and the ball goes out of the end zone without being recovered, a touchback is called and the team on defense gets the ball on the 20-yard-line. The team on offense, which has worked its way downfield, not only gets nothing, it loses possession. Why? There is no equitable reason for such a result. If a player fumbles out of bounds anywhere else, his team retains possession and the ball is spotted at the site of the fumble. There should, obviously, be no reward, in terms of yards gained, for fumbling. But the defense, which may have caused the fumble but was not able to recover it, gets no reward. Why should it be any different at the goal line? If the defense recovers the ball in the end zone, it’s a touchback. There’s no reason the outcome should be identical when they don’t recover! The fix is obvious: apply the same rule that governs fumbles everywhere else on the field. The offense keeps possession at the spot of the fumble. If there is something different about an end-zone fumble and you want to penalize the offense accordingly, spot the ball back at the 10. But there’s nothing different and that makes no sense.
Getting back to baseball: the late Gordon Harriss and I once had extended debate about the injustice (my position) of calling the batter out when he is hit by a throw from the catcher while running to first base inside the foul line. My point was that for a righthanded hitter, the natural, direct route from the batter’s box to first is necessarily inside the foul line and it makes no sense, and is impractical, to require him to reroute his path to the bag. The Rules Committee finally recognized this injustice by creating a lane inside the foul line where, from now on, the runner to first will be protected. Hallelujah!