Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Bryan wrote:*Goal posts placed on the goal line - perhaps the dumbest idea in history.

Goal posts at the goal line were the original placement for goal posts in football, which has its roots in rugby. The rugby pitch has the goal posts on the try line (goal line).

The CFL continues to use goal posts on the goal line, but they also have end zones (in-goal areas... a rugby term) that are 20 yards deep. This makes for interesting situations because receivers have a lot of room to run around in the end zone but the goal posts serve as an obstacle.

The goalpost placement has to take the cake. It's not as if people were unaware you could place them at the back of the EZ and still kick FGs. What a hazard! The tuning fork design set back a few feet was a concession that yes, our continuance of this is dumb but it's the way we've always done it.

RyanChristiansen wrote:

Bryan wrote:*Goal posts placed on the goal line - perhaps the dumbest idea in history.

Goal posts at the goal line were the original placement for goal posts in football, which has its roots in rugby. The rugby pitch has the goal posts on the try line (goal line).

The CFL continues to use goal posts on the goal line, but they also have end zones (in-goal areas... a rugby term) that are 20 yards deep. This makes for interesting situations because receivers have a lot of room to run around in the end zone but the goal posts serve as an obstacle.

The field being wider also gives players more room to avoid being near them.

JohnR wrote:The goalpost placement has to take the cake. It's not as if people were unaware you could place them at the back of the EZ and still kick FGs. What a hazard! The tuning fork design set back a few feet was a concession that yes, our continuance of this is dumb but it's the way we've always done it.

I completely disagree about this one. The NFL started with the goals on the goal line, but moved them to the back line in 1927 -- and field goal kicking fell off a cliff. After leaguewide totals of more than 60 field goals each season in 1925 and '26, the WHOLE NFL kicked 23 in 1927. And it got worse. That was followed by SEVEN in 1928, 15 in 1929, and SIX in 1930, again in 1931, and again in 1932. So no, in fact the kickers of that time COULDN'T kick field goals with the posts at the back of the end zone, and the reduction in scoring was crippling offenses and fueling more and more tie games, which reached a high of TEN in 1932, when more than one out of every three games ended in a tie. The move was pretty much a disaster for the NFL.

Then they moved the goal posts back to the goal line in 1933, and voila: Field goals went up to 36 (a 500% increase) and ties fell to five in 31 games, or about one in six -- half of the previous rate.

So no, the goal post placement at the goal line was absolutely NOT a dumb idea, but moving them back to the end line in 1927 was a really dumb one. And moving them back to the goal line was a great idea, one of the key changes in 1933 that put the NFL on the track to mainstream popularity.

You're talking about kicking in 1932. Hadn't kicking technique improved by 1950? 1960?
Did having goalposts on the back line at college games crater college football?

JohnR wrote:You're talking about kicking in 1932. Hadn't kicking technique improved by 1950? 1960?
Did having goalposts on the back line at college games crater college football?

No, but college football started out way more popular than the professional variety. And sure, they could've moved the goal posts to the end line in the 1960s if they wanted -- but that's no big deal, because they did it in the early '70s anyway.

But the idea of NOT moving them isn't really an idea -- the idea comes when you make a change. And the idea of moving them to the goal line in 1933 was, without a doubt, a GREAT idea. That's why I don't think it has a legitimate place in this discussion.

Another dumb idea was the Playoff/Postseason Tournament to end the 1982 season. I realize the League wanted more games than the nine regular season games but teams with 4-5 records had no business making the postseason and were eliminated accordingly.

Sorry, The Super Bowl Tournament ...

The Super Bowl halftime show of SB IV ... Whose bright idea was it to do a renactment of the Battle Of 1812 ? Yes, the game was in New Orleans but with mothers losing their sons everyday during the Vietnam War, here was the halftime show, showing a dramatization of the battle with "soldiers" dying and strewn all over the field. Anyone with a copy of this game had to have seen how surreal it was considering what CBS was broadcasting to Americans every single day on the news. The show would have been better if Al Hirt and different jazz muscians from the area had just kept playing ...

Okay, War Of 1812, Battle Of New Orleans 1815 ...