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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come out and said that the NFL will consider offering incentives to teams playing late-season games to discourage them from resting their starters for the playoffs, after the Indianapolis Colts were widely criticized by fans and media for pulling many starters with a 15-10 lead in the 3rd quarter of a game against the Jets in Week 16.

The Colts were 14-0 at the time, and the Jets scored 19 unanswered points to win the game, including a backup QB Curtis Painter fumble that was returned for a touchdown.

One of the options likely to be considered would be awarding teams that play their starters draft choices.

Personally, I think I’ve got a better idea–how about you get the labor negotiations solved, and make sure to preserve some of the ideas that have kept the league competitive (revenue sharing & salary cap) in place, so that the likelihood that teams will have the opportunity to rest players in 2-3 games remains on the low end?

Realistically, I would think that rewarding teams for playing their “starters” seems more likely to cause problems–I’m guessing that some teams would find some loopholes, and manage to get some backups declared as starters so they could rest their stars and get the extra picks too.

Additionally, unless the picks were earlier picks–probably 2nd or 3rd round selections–I really wonder if teams would consider it worth the extra risk.

Another alternative, raised by a friend of ours over drinks this evening, would be to reward teams not with extra picks, but possibly with moving them up in draft position–and not just for playing starters, but for actually winning–by coming up with a point system for determining draft order rather than pure record, and figuring out some way to reward teams with extra points when they win games that they don’t need to win late in the season.

(Admittedly the details we have on this idea are slim, but I’m guessing that the league has some PhDs in an office somewhere that could fine tune things).

That way, at least teams are being rewarded for performance rather than just participating–and it wouldn’t add picks to the draft–which the NFLPA should and probably would be against in the first place, since it would reduce the amount of the rookie pool available for players, possibly cost more veterans spots, and reduce the number of guys that could negotiate where they go if not drafted late.

Anyone have any other thoughts on how the league could encourage teams to compete in late season games, without making a mockery of the game?

Former Indianapolis City-County Council President Beurt SerVaas apparently wasn’t too happy that the Colts decided to rest key starters in the second half of their loss to the Jets on Sunday.  The Colts led the Jets 15-10 with about 10 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter when Colts’ coach Jim Caldwell, who had led the Colts to a 14-0 start to the season, decided to pull them.

The Jets came back to win 29-15, and Caldwell and the Colts have been taking heat ever since, including a Yahoo! Sports reporter ridiculously calling it a bigger mistake than Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind rather than the ball to start overtime.

But none of the criticism appears to be more ridiculous than that of SerVaas, who has said he will petition the council to ask for refunds for all fans upset about the loss (he hasn’t found anyone on the council to sponsor his proposal).

“They came to see a game played honestly. It was not played honestly, ” he said.

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The Reverend Al Sharpton has a reputation for sticking his nose in places it doesn’t belong, and raising racial issues where they may or may not be warranted, just to see his name in the papers again.

The NFL is no stranger to Sharpton, who has been critical of hiring practices for coaches, assistant coaches and general managers in the past.

Now, Sharpton is targeting another level of the NFL–ownership. And he isn’t just claiming racism–he’s declaring that a potential owner is…”Anti-NFL?”

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In a Thursday column on CBSSportsline.com one of the site’s writers made an argument that Major League Baseball is better than the National Football League because the league has “stayed true to itself” and doesn’t have 20 teams that exist in a “perpetual haze of mediocrity.”

My first thought was that the column was ridiculous. Stayed true to itself? “Pace-of-life rhythms”?

Baseball has “stayed true to itself” by instituting the gimmick of using the glorified exhibition called the All-Star Game to determine home-field for the World Series?

By instituting interleague play into a game whose greatest traditions for nearly a century included the leagues only meeting in the All-Star Game and the World Series?

By continuing to water down the playoffs by splitting into three divisions and adding a Wild Card game, a move clearly made for money and television?

By insisting that its economic issues are a thing of the past despite a $60-plus million gap between the highest and second-highest payrolls in the league?

By claiming parity in a league where three of the four playoff spots in the American League have been claimed by the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels for five of the last years?

And worst of all, by actually allowing a World Series to be canceled for labor reasons?
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Last night, the team worth the second least in the NFL hosted the team that’s worth the most.

Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, decided it would be a good time to open his mouth regarding the upcoming labor negotiations with the players union, under the guise of encouraging the people of Minnesota to deliver a new stadium to Zygi Wilf and the Vikings.  As usual, Jones was wrong.

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