In 1979, British multi-genre rock group Dire Straits first became well-known in America with their first hit single Sultans of Swing.
Six years later, they scored a marginally less successful hit with Walk of Life — which 30 years later still, AstraZenica, which manufactures the anti-diabetes drug Farxiga, used as the background score in commercials for the drug.
(Isn't it awesome that music that you grew up listening to is now being used to promote prescription medications?).
Instead of the walk of life, the NFL owners just did the bait and switch by approving a rule change bringing the ball out to the 25-yard line on any fair catch made inside the 25 on a kickoff return.
The obvious intent is to improve starting field position — and therefore, to ratchet up scoring, which the owners believe that the fans can't get enough of.
(Sooner or later the owners can be expected to extend the same change to punt returns.)
All well and good — but if anyone complains about how many more points per game are scored, the NFL can snap back with the equally correct observation that fewer yards per game are being gained!
Example: if a team starts on their own 10-yard line, they need to gain 90 yards to score a touchdown (exclusive of any penalties against either team) — while if a team starts on their own 25-yard line, only 75 yards are necessary, creating the optical illusion that better field position hurts offenses rather than helps them, which it does on the stat sheet.
Have we seen this movie before?
It turns out that we actually have: In 1978, the owners passed the Mel Blount Rule — also and much better known as the "chuck rule" — making it far more difficult for cornerbacks to cover wide receivers.
In turn, this would make teams want to pass more, and run less.
What happened?
In 1977, the NFL as a whole averaged 143.9 yards rushing per game, and 141.8 yards passing per game — and nine running backs rushed for 1,000 yards or more.
In 1978, the league as a whole averaged 141.8 yards rushing per game, and 158.8 yards passing per game — yet the number of 1,000-yard rushers actually went up, to 11.
How could that be?
Answer: because the NFL lengthened its regular-season schedule from 14 games in 1977 to 16 games in 1978, where it remained until a 17th game was added in 2021.
The trend in favor of passing over rushing reached its greatest elongation between 1994, when teams rushed for a paltry 104.3 yards per game, the lowest of all time, and 2015, when teams passed for 243.8 yards per game, the highest ever.
So it is patently obvious that the owners know all too well how to manipulate statistics to fit into their narrative, because they are such old hands at it.
And not for nothing, but if the NFL wants to really improve starting field position, how about getting rid of all these dumb penalties — chief among them the ubiquitous "illegal block in the back" — on returns?
After all, this isn't the CFL.
If it was, we would have an 18-game schedule, with two bye weeks for each team — and "Super Bowl Monday" would be a national holiday because the Super Bowl would be played on the Presidents' Day weekend.
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