New Year's Resolutions tend to be temporary self-admonishments, band-aids for a paper-cut soul. Offered here are New Year's Revolutions — changes that should occur in a sports world overrun with bad management and neocortex-numbing clichés.
To honor Paul McCartney's appearance at Target Field last summer, these revolutions will number nine:
1. Pop quiz: Is the NFL executive office more evil or incompetent? Correct answer: Yes.
Commissioner Roger Goodell's mismanagement of off-field issues aside, the league talks about player safety, then overturns the suspension of the league's dirtiest player (Ndamukong Suh) for stepping on the league's most important player (Aaron Rodgers), and contemplates an expanded schedule even as Ryan Lindley starts in a playoff game.
Solution: Make Alan Page the NFL's discipline czar. The Viking great and presiding judge would bring logic and gravitas to a silly bunch of circular thinkers. After Page, the NFL's next hire should be an independent player-safety czar, someone charged with caring about the health of America's most popular entertainers.
2. Pay college players who participate in revenue sports.
All the excuses for not doing so are remindful of the complaints Southern businessmen made about the necessity of slavery to their business models. If Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban can make tens of millions, athletes can earn a bigger stipend while risking limb and lobe.
3. Expand the college football playoffs.
Think TCU would have fared better than Florida State? We shouldn't have to test that theory with a computer program. Without a four-team playoff, Ohio State and Oregon might have been left out of the championship game, instead of being given a chance to earn their way to the title.
4. Limit basketball timeouts.
The Lords of Basketball have turned the most exciting aspect of their game — the close-and-late game — and turned it into a series of commercials and huddles. From now on, each team gets one timeout in the last three minutes. That's it.
5. Spice up hockey overtime.
The AHL finally has adopted the long-advocated, previously-ignored Souhan Rule. Where the NHL offers a five-minute overtime featuring four skaters per side that often ends scoreless and leads to a shootout, the AHL offers a seven-minute overtime. The first three minutes are 4-on-4. After the next whistle, it becomes a 3-on-3 free-for-all that often eliminates the need for a shootout while deciding a hockey game with something resembling hockey. The NHL should take it one step farther, and simply reduce the number of skaters every three minutes, until it's one-on-one. Wouldn't you want to see Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin go one-on-one?
