Bud Grant believes changes needed to keep NFL on top SID HARTMAN , Star Tribune March 22, 2014 - 11:58 PM
PAUL SANCYA • Associated Press,Vikings kicker Blair Walsh attempted, and made, an extra point in the 2013 season opener at Detroit. Walsh, like all NFL kickers these days, is nearly automatic on point-after attempts — he has missed one of his 80 attempts in his two seasons.In 2011, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired former big-league manager Joe Torre as an executive vice president, and one of Torre’s major roles was to help with the study of instant replay, which is being introduced this year.I think it would be a good idea for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to consider hiring former Vikings coach Bud Grant to a similar position in his league office, because he has long been a proponent of rule changes that are starting to get traction around the league.This week, NFL owners will meet in Orlando to discuss a number of topics. One known to be on the agenda is a discussion on whether to change the setup for extra-point kicks.Goodell has been talking about the possibility of making changes to the format to make it more of a challenge. Grant long has considered that a good idea.“Well, you know, Roger must have read my book,” Grant said. “They have come to the conclusion — not because of me, but I’ve advocated for a number of years — that the extra point has become a nothing play. They came up with the statistics that they missed two last year, or whatever it was. The TV people won’t like it because it’s a timeout on both sides, but it’s a nothing play.”According to Sports Illustrated, over the past three seasons NFL kickers have attempted 3,709 extra points and missed only 18. That’s an average of one miss for every 200 extra points kicked.Grant said he has had a couple of ideas for how to make it more challenging.“I advocated, and there would be a lot of suggestions on how to handle it, but moving it back to the 25- or 30-yard line would put some drama into it, even though they still make 80 percent of them, or they could narrow the goalposts,” the Hall of Fame coach said. “I don’t think they’ll do that. I think they’ll go back and kick it from the 25- or 30-yard line and still have the option, you can declare whether you want to go for two points and put it on the 2- or 3-yard line.“… I think it will come to pass, but you have 32 teams and everybody has their own ideas. You form a committee, and committees don’t get anything done.”Two other changes that Grant would like to see are the removal of the touchback for kickoffs that are returnable, even if they are in the end zone, and to eliminate the fair catch on punts, a rule that has been in the CFL forever.“[Critics] come back and say, ‘Someone is going to get hurt back there.’ Well, they’ve been doing it for years in Canada, and I’m sure somebody could get hurt, but I never had that experience,” Grant said. “… The punt return then becomes a viable play, entertainment, and you won’t be going up for a beer when they’re going to punt because they’re going to force them to return the punt, which would make our game even better.“The time to change is when [a sport is] at the zenith. Right now football is at the top of the list so we can make some changes and keep it at that level.”
