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Widen field to make football safer

I may have a simple, relatively inexpensive solution to making NFL/NCAA football instantly safer.

As football athletes, indeed all athletes have become bigger, faster and stronger, one can expect the injuries and concussions will continue notwithstanding improvements in rules and helmets.

Yes, the NFL has taken steps to modify the rules to minimize violent collisions, but the root problem is that the size, speed and power of the players has increased, and it has caused the field of play to decrease.

Football's easy solution: Make the field 10 yards wider. Give the players more space, which will by definition reduce the incidents of violent collisions as the premium will now be on making the sure open field tackle rather than blowing up the runner or receiver in confined spaces full of massive bodies running full speed.

An alternative would be to field nine-man teams, but that is a fairly radical change. Adding five yards per sideline will automatically stretch the boundary and open up the game, without changing it dramatically.

The NFL has made other sweeping changes, such as kickoffs and extra points, so they could even raise the first down requirement to 15 yards on this expanded field to equalize the important offense/defense balance.

In professional golf, the stewards of the game have modified and extended the courses to accommodate new technology and power. The NFL players have now outgrown their sandbox.

The integrity, excitement and spirit of the game is

still preserved, but injuries should be reduced and a new premium will be placed on athleticism, speed, agility and endurance, with a new generation of athletes now able, and unafraid to compete to gradually replace the size, power and brute force requirements that now threaten the NFL with self-destruction and extinction.

John Finney

Palatine

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