On the same day Mel Kiper defended his idea to ban two high safety defenses in the NFL, Tony Kornheiser used his pulpit on Pardon the Interruption to propose a few insane rule changes around NFL field goals.
Faced with significant improvement by NFL kickers since he first started covering the league in the 1980s, Kornheiser believes the league needs to remove the “foot” from football.
“I understand that it’s called football; there is now … too much foot in it,” Kornheiser said Thursday on PTI. “I think it is time for some sort of tweaking.”
What tweaking does he want? Well, Kornheiser wants to change the scoring system that has existed since the NFL’s inception.
“I want to play with the score, Mike,” Kornheiser said to cohost Mike Wilbon. “I think I want to give two points for field goals inside of 40 (yards), three points for field goals outside of 40, but I want to take a point away if you miss a field goal. I want coaches to have to think strategically, do we want to do this? I want to fool around with the score.”
“I understand that it’s called football, there is now … too much foot in it.”
“Where did you get this from, TikTok?!”
Tony Kornheiser proposes an overhaul of NFL field goal rules, including taking away a point for misses 🤔 pic.twitter.com/9DZHuPFmy7
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 19, 2024
Certainly, Kornheiser backed up his argument that NFL teams are now taking full advantage of their great kickers more than ever. But like Kiper’s strange idea to punish competent teams and talented players for innovating, it sounds pretty crazy to reduce a team’s score if they try and fail on a long kick.
PTI, of course, operates within the tight windows of its timed rundown, but Kornheiser needs a little more time to flesh this one out. What happens if a team is tied at the end of regulation and tries a winning field goal? Would they still get a point subtracted and lose the game if their kicker missed?
Clearly, sports media is up in arms about lower scores and more conservative offenses in the NFL during the first two weeks of the season. But Kornheiser “fool(ing) around” with the score is probably not the answer.
