By Dan Pompei, National Football Post
The NFL has looked to a lot of places to make its game safer. It even has looked to Canada. And it may continue to look north.
As recently as a year ago, the competition committee kicked around the idea of a bigger field, CFL style. And this wasn’t the first time the committee has broached the subject. Perhaps the committee will broach the subject again when it meets in Indianapolis in advance of the combine.
The Canadian field is 195 feet wide, compared to the 160 foot wide NFL field. The CFL field also is 30 yards longer, but the widening of the field is what really could impact safety regarding head injuries.
“I’m not so sure we shouldn’t think about widening the field,” former competition committee member Bill Polian said. “It’s a radical idea, but I think it’s worth thinking about. You would have more space and perhaps a safer game. I say that based on my CFL experience. There are less collisions of that type in the Canadian game.”
Polian knows the CFL better than most, having built Grey Cup winners in Montreal and Winnipeg before becoming a six time executive of the year winner in the NFL.
The thinking is a wider field would spread out bodies over more space, reducing hits in the middle of the field. The down the field game wouldn’t change much, but box play could be considerably different.
Pro Football hall of fame quarterback Warren Moon, who played in the CFL for six years before coming to the NFL, said there are fewer head to head collisions by big men in the CFL—and that is significant to him. “The lower impact hits I think cause more problems over a period of time because there are more of them,” he said. “A wide receiver doesn’t get the number of hits a linebacker or lineman gets on a day to day basis. Those hits accumulate over time and probably do more damage than a big hit a receiver might get a few times a season.”
It’s possible a wider field would lead to more high impact hits, because defenders could be farther from their targets and building more speed before making contact. There would more “run and hit” potential, in the estimation of two general managers who spoke with NFP.
“If you widen the field, you have more high speed collisions,” said Rick Smith of the Texans.
But Polian doesn’t see it that way. “The farther a player has to run in terms of contact, the less ferocious the contact is going to be,” Polian said. “We know the most ferocious hits come from guys who are ten yards apart and lay each other out. You have fewer higher power collisions in the Canadian League than here.”
A wider field almost certainly would lead to more scoring, and a shift in the offensive-defensive balance of the NFL. Schemes would be affected. This might not be a bad thing for the NFL. But it would be a radical thing, to use Polian’s word.
“It would be hard for defenses to stop the offenses,” Moon said. “They are having a hard time stopping them now. It would be harder with a bigger field. There would be a lot more scoring, I know that. If you make the field bigger, bigger lanes, bigger areas, it will be tougher for those defensive backs to cover.”
Some believe NFL players have outgrown their field, which is part of the problem with head injuries. CFL-sized fields also may encourage faster, more athletic, and smaller players because covering ground would become a more valued asset.
A potential problem with wider fields is some stadiums might not be able to easily accommodate them. It depends how much the field would be widened. Polian believes extending the field to the white border would not be a problem anywhere.
A less drastic measure could be to widen the hash marks as they are in college fields. The competition committee has discussed this as well. But the affect may be minimal.
These ideas may have merit. They may not. But they are worth further investigation in the quest to make the world’s greatest game a safer one.
It would be nice if NFL Europe still was in existence and the league could experiment. But there are other ways to measure how field size affects impact. The NFL quietly is studying Aussie Rules Football currently, as players in that league are wearing GPS devices that measure speed and impact. Perhaps similar studies need to be done on CFL players and NFL players.
A wider field would be a significant change for the NFL. But a significant change might be called for.
The NFL has looked to a lot of places to make its game safer. It even has looked to Canada. And it may continue to look north.
As recently as a year ago, the competition committee kicked around the idea of a bigger field, CFL style. And this wasn’t the first time the committee has broached the subject. Perhaps the committee will broach the subject again when it meets in Indianapolis in advance of the combine.
The Canadian field is 195 feet wide, compared to the 160 foot wide NFL field. The CFL field also is 30 yards longer, but the widening of the field is what really could impact safety regarding head injuries.
“I’m not so sure we shouldn’t think about widening the field,” former competition committee member Bill Polian said. “It’s a radical idea, but I think it’s worth thinking about. You would have more space and perhaps a safer game. I say that based on my CFL experience. There are less collisions of that type in the Canadian game.”
Polian knows the CFL better than most, having built Grey Cup winners in Montreal and Winnipeg before becoming a six time executive of the year winner in the NFL.
The thinking is a wider field would spread out bodies over more space, reducing hits in the middle of the field. The down the field game wouldn’t change much, but box play could be considerably different.
Pro Football hall of fame quarterback Warren Moon, who played in the CFL for six years before coming to the NFL, said there are fewer head to head collisions by big men in the CFL—and that is significant to him. “The lower impact hits I think cause more problems over a period of time because there are more of them,” he said. “A wide receiver doesn’t get the number of hits a linebacker or lineman gets on a day to day basis. Those hits accumulate over time and probably do more damage than a big hit a receiver might get a few times a season.”
It’s possible a wider field would lead to more high impact hits, because defenders could be farther from their targets and building more speed before making contact. There would more “run and hit” potential, in the estimation of two general managers who spoke with NFP.
“If you widen the field, you have more high speed collisions,” said Rick Smith of the Texans.
But Polian doesn’t see it that way. “The farther a player has to run in terms of contact, the less ferocious the contact is going to be,” Polian said. “We know the most ferocious hits come from guys who are ten yards apart and lay each other out. You have fewer higher power collisions in the Canadian League than here.”
A wider field almost certainly would lead to more scoring, and a shift in the offensive-defensive balance of the NFL. Schemes would be affected. This might not be a bad thing for the NFL. But it would be a radical thing, to use Polian’s word.
“It would be hard for defenses to stop the offenses,” Moon said. “They are having a hard time stopping them now. It would be harder with a bigger field. There would be a lot more scoring, I know that. If you make the field bigger, bigger lanes, bigger areas, it will be tougher for those defensive backs to cover.”
Some believe NFL players have outgrown their field, which is part of the problem with head injuries. CFL-sized fields also may encourage faster, more athletic, and smaller players because covering ground would become a more valued asset.
A potential problem with wider fields is some stadiums might not be able to easily accommodate them. It depends how much the field would be widened. Polian believes extending the field to the white border would not be a problem anywhere.
A less drastic measure could be to widen the hash marks as they are in college fields. The competition committee has discussed this as well. But the affect may be minimal.
These ideas may have merit. They may not. But they are worth further investigation in the quest to make the world’s greatest game a safer one.
It would be nice if NFL Europe still was in existence and the league could experiment. But there are other ways to measure how field size affects impact. The NFL quietly is studying Aussie Rules Football currently, as players in that league are wearing GPS devices that measure speed and impact. Perhaps similar studies need to be done on CFL players and NFL players.
A wider field would be a significant change for the NFL. But a significant change might be called for.
