Ballscast Roundtable: If you could change one rule in any sport…

There are a lot of truly great discussions that go down in the Five Reasons group chat that never see the light of day, which seems unfair. I mean, sure, you may get the pleasure of reading the statistical breakdowns and spider charts that make our group of misfit sports dorks special, but you miss out on some of our more bizarre conversations. The ones that typically happen after dark. The ones that have always just sort of floated away into the night, replaced at sunrise by the morning grind. Well, it’s time to correct that. Twice a month, for your enjoyment, hosts from the network’s various podcasts will gather here at the Ballscast Roundtable to discuss an utterly ridiculous question carefully curated by Adam Smoot. Feel free to join the discussion in the comments or on Twitter or with the complete strangers in your UberPool.

We’ll kick off the inaugural edition of the Ballscast Roundtable with a topic that’s fairly tame:

You possess the Infinity Gauntlet of sports. It’s modeled after Brian Baldinger’s hand. It gives you the power to implement one rule in any sport. What’s it gonna be?

Adam Smoot (Ballscast)

Here’s a way to add a bit of gamesmanship to the NFL Draft and eliminate even the very thought of tanking all at the same time.

At any point during the season, an NFL team may cash in all of their picks in the next draft to immediately select a player out of college. So, for instance, if the Dolphins, at 5-8, realized they wanted Kyler Murray, but had already won too many games to realistically be in position to draft him, they could choose to forfeit all of their picks to select him right then and there, regardless of their draft position.

This cannot be done in back-to-back seasons and can only be done twice in a 10-year period. There is no limit to the number of teams that can do this in a particular year, but multiple cash-ins will be ordered on a first come, first served basis, regardless of draft position.

Alfredo Arteaga (3YPC)

Any call so egregious that a coach becomes furious—pass interference or holding in the NFL, a charging call in the NBA—can be challenged with a Fight Challenge. In the NFL, you are allowed 3 per year, including the playoffs. In the NBA, you are allowed 6 per year, including the playoffs.

How it works: The head coach throws a black flag with a skull and crossbones onto the field or court to issue the challenge. The head referee has the option to either immediately change the call or stand up for the call by accepting the Fight Challenge. At which point, a fight referee comes out with a set of MMA gloves and a 6′ x 6′ mat. The head coach and the referee in the best shape fight for 60 seconds. In the event that there is no knockout or submission, the fight referee then deems a winner and awards the challenge.

On the flip side, if the head referee chooses to reverse his call immediately…the opposing coach can then issue a challenge, and he would then fight on behalf of the referees to uphold the original call.

For every challenge a head coach wins, they get a point, and for every one they lose, they get -1 point. These rankings are then used as the 4th tiebreaker for playoff seeding.

Billy O’Rourke (Smark Your Territory)

Since the NCAA is a fucking joke anyway, let’s just go the full monty and allow for each school to bring back one alum each game to really spice up the strategy. Every team. Every sport. Obviously football will be the biggest benefactor (as it always is), but imagine the implications to, like, golf, when Stanford needs a top-2 finish to win some tournament and HOLY SHIT HERE COMES TIGER WOODS. I dare you to keep eyeballs off that event. Swimming? Florida needs a gold here to win the SEC and RYAN FUCKING LOCHTE is here. You’d watch SportsCenter every night. Imagine those bullshit week one college matchups? Yeah, Central Michigan is outgunned versus, I dunno, Auburn, but does Auburn have a CB who can stop Antonio Brown? Did Auburn waste their alum spot on Bo Jackson bc, LOL, let’s give the old man some carries? Auburn still wins, but Brown goes for 12, 300 and 4. Oh, also, pay the players.

Jeremy Taché (Swings and Mishes)

If a college or professional sporting event is tied at the end of regulation, each team must select one player to compete in an “America’s Got Talent” style competition. Imagine Shaq doing stand-up comedy, Damian Lillard rapping, Baker Mayfield dancing, or Hunter Pence juggling bowling pins that are on fire (okay, I have no proof he can do this, but I imagine this is what Hunter Pence’s talent would be) with the fate of their team’s season on the line.

At the end of the competition, it would come down to a 5 minute window where you can tweet a hashtag at the league (theoretically #ShaqOvertime or #DameOvertime, etc.) and the person with the most tweets at the end wins the game for their team. The tweets would have to come from fans at home watching the game as to make it a more legitimate competition and not just the home fans voting for their home team.

This new overtime rule promotes a diversity of talent across all sports, involves a much needed social media presence into the game, unifies all sports, and allows fans to feel like they can legitimately influence the results of a contest.

Chris Wittyngham (Five Reasons/Pitch Invasion)

Ban all kicking in football. The game starts first and ten from the 25. If you can’t get 10 yards in 4 downs, then you give the other team the ball inside your own 35. Basically opens the door for every kind of offensive innovation because you have no choice but to move the ball 75 yards. It’s like bowling without the bumpers. And, from an entertainment standpoint, you’ve eliminated all of the boring elements of the game. Your team can’t go three and out up 7 with 3 minutes to play and punt the ball. There is no settling for field goals. Your team can’t go 5 straight possessions punting. The demand is to continually and repeatedly be good at offense. And that’s why we watch the game.