[As published in the Columbia Daily Spectator on Thursday, January 21, 2010]

I’m getting really tired with “kicking” in professional football. Does anybody else feel this way?

Football is supposed to be about quarterbacks, receivers, running backs and tough defenses—not kickers and special teams. Yet, as was evident last weekend, kicking and everything that goes along with it is increasingly taking over the game.

Let’s examine the most common uses of kicking from best to worst:

THE PUGNACIOUS PUNT
In all honesty, I don’t have too many problems with the punt. It’s relatively fast, doesn’t require any commercials and it serves as a decent way to turn the ball over to the other team. Punters are also pretty skilled when you think about it, and this is especially evident when they try to place the ball within a few yards of the end zone.

But where punting bores me is on the return. The majority of the time, the punt returner “fair catches” the ball, meaning he chooses not to return it. When the receiver does return the punt, he is usually tackled immediately, given the limited range of the punter’s leg compared to the kickoff, where the ball is situated on a tee. Even worse are the monotonous occasions where the returner simply lets the ball bounce.

While these described outcomes are mostly boring, at least they happen quickly. And every so often, someone does actually return a punt, making the play tremendously exciting. So in all, punting occupies the small space that it should in the game.

FOUL FIELD GOALS
I’m sorry, but field goals are becoming extremely annoying. Even my father, who religiously rewinds his TiVo to catch every play, fast-forwards through the field goals, unless the game is on the line.

The greatest problem with field goals is the strategy of “icing the kicker.” Coaches at all levels believe that if you take a timeout right before the kicker is about to attempt a field goal, he will be forced to “think about” it and as a result, may miss the field goal.

What a stupid idea that is.

The kicker is already nervous, knowing that he might have to go in the game and kick, and if anything, a timeout gives him a chance to catch his breath and relax. But for the viewer, icing the kicker means that we have to wait until the play clock is almost at zero before waiting another five minutes for the game to come back from commercials after the timeout is taken. And this is all to see a field goal attempt that may not even come close to determining the result of the game.

I think that “icing the kicker” should be banned, at least from the first half or the first three quarters. If football coaches think that they’re so in tune with psychoanalysis, they should focus their efforts on controlling their own players’ childlike behavior that results in costly personal foul penalties that actually do change the game.

Lastly, field goals are simply unfair for teams that play in different climates or environments. Of course this argument could be extended to the rest of the game as well, but when kicking a 50-yard field goal in a dome is easier than a 35-yarder in the snow and sleet, there is a problem.
Field goals are already too automatic—except for those made by Nate Kaeding or anyone playing for Northwestern—and are rarely blocked.

Extra points, which are so meaningless that they don’t deserve their own pithy heading, are even worse. As an example of how automatic extra points are, consider that the last ranked team in the NFL converted 93 percent of their extra point attempts this year. In all, 16 teams converted on 100 percent of their attempts. Similarly, only five teams in the NFL blocked a punt all season—which just goes to show you how monotonous those plays can be.

KATASTROPHIC KICKOFFS
Arguably, the kickoff is more exciting then the punt or field goals because of the return. As opposed to punts, most kickoffs (about 85 percent actually) are returned leading to a potentially exciting play.

But to me, kickoffs are becoming perilously hard to sit through. As we know by now, they are always preceded—and usually followed—by a commercial. This fact alone demonstrates the unnecessary attention that is given to a relatively simple play. Let’s be honest: Nine times out of 10, the returner is pummeled on the 20- or 25-yard line. And this one play is worth 10 minutes of our time?

Finally, kickoffs always result in the field being littered with yellow flags and injured personnel. Just the idea of men running directly at one another at full speed is enough to understand why injuries are frequent on these plays. And for some reason, the seasoned professional athletes that make up special teams units still don’t understand what a “block in the back” or “holding” penalty is.

I’m not advocating that the field goal be nixed or the kickoff replaced, but some rule changes could certainly improve the situation. Even an advertising rule such as the NHL’s—which prevents commercial breaks after an icing call—would be a positive step.

But the fact remains that this overemphasis on kicking in football needs to be booted. To give you an analogy, imagine if there was a timeout called before the shortstop threw the ball to first base to record a simple groundout—in order to “ice” him, of course—resulting in a commercial break. Yeah, that’s what I thought you would say.

Jacob Shapiro is a List College senior majoring in history and Talmud.