Rules Rules Rules

There has been a certain amount of talk among people with whom I have associated (read: fellow viewers of television when I happened to be in the room) about the fact that the rules of football seem to be becoming more and more slanted in favor of being unable to do certain things. For instance, the referees seem eager to call defensive pass interference in cases where the defensive player looked at the receiver too hard. Another common problem is the fact that, once you get several hundred pounds of defensive lineman moving in the direction of the quarterback, it is difficult to stop said pounds when the quarterback throws the ball, but more and more, referees are calling roughing the passer.

I understand the motivation behind some of the rule-tightening. Safety issues alone have made certain plays illegal, such as the above passer roughing. The NFL simply cannot afford to lose quarterbacks to injuries, especially when they are so easy to injure (not to malign the chutzpah of quarterbacks in any way; it's a matter of being off-balance, unprepared, etc. not of being weak). It isn't fun when a player's neck is broken because someone grabbed his face mask. Frankly, there are many unstated rules which also protect the players; the referees don't allow knives, for instance.

When a rule is there for safety, I can accept it even if it might mean slightly less exciting play. But some rules seem to be introduced or altered simply to preserve the "purity" of the game. This is not a situation unique to football. Quite frankly, what purity? It's a game. It is not played for the players; it is being played for the people watching. It is modern-day bread-and-circuses, and taking it too seriously will ruin the fun for those of us in the stands (or in front of the TV, as the case may be).

On the one hand, part of me says, "Throw out all rules, give twenty-four guys a field and a ball and tell them to put said ball over arbitrary line X in the shortest amount of time by whatever means necessary." There is no doubt that this might be exciting. Ultimate football, as it were, in the style of a street brawl.

But part of the reason we have rules in sports at all is because a fracas isn't interesting, or at least not as interesting as it sounds. Most "Extreme" sports have more rules than you can shake a stick at. Ultimate fighting, supposedly the more "pure" boxing without all those rules, still has rules. We enjoy rules because they give us a framework in which to enjoy creativity. Unfettered creativity isn't very interesting. Indeed, saying "twenty-four," "ball," "arbitrary line X," and "shortest amount of time," amounts to rules.

We cannot eliminate rules from sports; sports are rules. Games on the whole are rules. But the rules should exist to serve the enjoyment of the game, whether because it isn't enjoyable to get killed, or because rules are made to be bent a little. When we create rules simply for the sake of keeping a game within the rules, we forget that rules are the game, and whatever the rules are, the game is bound to be within them.

And stop calling so many pass interference calls. And one guy on each team should have a whip. And there should be a live tiger on the field. Now that's football!