Football is a game of details, and the NFL’s Competition Committee is its anal-retentive bookkeeper. On Sunday through Wednesday at the Biltmore in Phoenix, the committee will consider proposals ranging from whether players can wear the number zero to whether game clocks should show tenths of a second. In pro football, no idea is too small, and no proposal is too esoteric. Maybe this focus on small changes is why the league keeps missing a large and obvious one.
The NFL should institute a draft lottery. Why wait until a public relations disaster forces the league to do what the NBA, NHL and MLB have already done?
Recent events should worry the league. In the final week of the season, the Texans went to Indianapolis, tried to win and got punished for it. Meanwhile, the Bears sat starting quarterback Justin Fields—he said his strained hip was “80%” and trainers shut him down—for their finale against the Vikings. The Bears split snaps between Nathan “Please Don’t Make Another Nathan Peterman Joke” Peterman and Tim Boyle. The Bears lost, the Texans won and Chicago passed Houston for the No. 1 pick. The Bears used the proceeds to get a haul from Carolina. Houston will now get the second choice of available quarterbacks instead of the first.
