It turns out that the overwhelming majority of fans are not the only people that think NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell needs to do his job better.
On the heels of FOX’s suggestion that the NFL limit its number of broadcast windows, CBS President Les Moonves has told the commissioner that the games need to start moving a lot faster. According to Fortune, “If there are ways of doing advertising in different ways that are equally beneficial, we’re looking at that, and we’re trying to make the game as good an experience as we could make it.”
According to Pro Football Talk, “Moonves also discussed with Goodell ways that the referees could see the replays more quickly so that replay reviews would be shorter.”
This is one of those things that sounds great in theory, but could end up a nightmare in practice. Pay close attention to what Moonves has suggested here. He’s not saying that the league should run fewer commercials. That’s not a real option for a league that exists to make money, which the NFL definitely does.
No, instead Moonves suggests “advertising in different ways that are equally beneficial.” That could very well mean advertisements on uniforms. It could mean advertisements along the sidelines, similar to what hockey and soccer does. It could mean any number of really intrusive advertising methods that NFL fans have not had to put up with before.
While everyone would like fewer advertising interruptions, not everyone wants to see Tom Brady with a “Papa John’s” logo on his chest.
The suggestion to speed up replay reviews has merit. Officials have consistently taken longer than their allotted time on reviews for quite a while. But why not just focus on simplifying the rule book, and encouraging referees to use discretion when making calls, so that only the most obvious calls get made instead of calling everything the officials see?
If the game moved faster with fewer unplanned interruptions such as penalties, then the planned interruptions, in this case the commercials, wouldn’t seem all that bad.
Whatever they decide, the NFL formula of about 20 minutes of real football action spread across a four-and-a-half-hour time period is clearly not working.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn