4 revolutionary rule changes that never came to be in the NFL

Most of the rule changes implemented by the NFL are boring and incremental in nature. Take for instance the recent change to move the extra-point distance back 13 yards. It has taken several years to get the rule changed, with kickers nailing chip shots at almost a 100 percent rate.

But fans are looking for something more substantial. Give us a money ball! Have the uprights move side to side! Coaches can gamble for an extra possession on a coin flip at halftime? Sure why not.

The NFL is so slow to change that it didn't even have forward passing until 1940. Teams were penalized for multiple incomplete passes in the same series and, at one point, hashmarks didn't exist, meaning the ball could be snapped one yard from the sideline if that's where the last play ended.

Along the way, the game has changed substantially, most would argue for the better. However, here are some rule changes that never came to be, which would have completely altered the game we know.

Playoff re-seeding to eliminate division winners

The NFL has always pretended to be concerned about fairness. So it makes absolutely no sense that teams with winning records should have to go on the road and face a team with a substantially worse record in the playoffs. That's precisely what's happened 10 times in the wild-card era. Four of those 10 times, a team had to travel to play a division winner with a record at or below .500.

While the rule has been proposed and kicked around by the league for years, nothing has been done to correct this lack of competitive fairness. A proposal to change the rule so that teams with better records would not have to travel in the Wild Card round has been proposed in 2007, 2010, and 2013. The league has yet to correct the anomaly, meaning disastrous results for good regular-season teams.

Since 2002, 10 division winners with worse records than their wild-card counterparts have won games in the comfy confines of their home stadiums.

Nine-Point Touchdowns

The concept was introduced by the Indianapolis Colts this offseason. The new scoring system would allow a team to accumulate a maximum total of nine points per score.

The Colts' idea was for a bonus kick to exist should a team complete a two-point conversion. The kick would be taken from the 50-yard line and would add a single point to a team's score should it be converted.

An extra point on top of a two-point conversion? Sounds like overkill, though the purpose is to incentivize going for two-point tries. The current two-point situation does not adequately encourage teams to try for additional points. What's more entertaining, a chip shot from a kicker or a two-point try? Obviously, the two-point try.

The other attraction of this rule is that it would keep games interesting longer, with a nine-point lead no longer sufficient to close out a win. It feels gimmicky, but like all proposals, it has its merits.

Nixon and blackouts

For years the NFL's policy to black out games that weren't sold out on local television loomed large for fans of unremarkable franchises. Unable to tune-in from their couches to watch their beloved team bungle away another win, fans had nowhere to turn. Remarkably, they had an ally in the malevolent figure of the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

In the early 1970s, the rule was even more onerous, with blackouts extending to playoff games, so Nixon had his attorney general call commissioner Pete Rozelle in an effort to, at least, televise non-sell out playoff games.

According to the famous Nixon tapes that exposed Watergate and other amoral political machinations, the president told his Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst to tell Rozelle, "If you make the move, for these playoff games, we will block any – any – legislation to stop anything else. I will fight it personally and veto any – any – legislation."

Ever the opportunist, Nixon was attempting to quash a rule that did not benefit fans using a cunning political compromise. He also wanted to take credit, telling Kleindienst, "But let me say, that I want us to get some publicity out of this, I just don't want to do this to accomplish it."

Rozelle rebuffed the offer and blackouts remained an annoyance to fans until 2015, when the owners voted to end the archaic rule due to streaming capabilities.

Has there ever been another rule so unpopular that a sitting president actively attempted to get it changed?

Elimination of the kickoff

When kickoffs were moved from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line in 2010, the idea to completely eliminate the kickoff was considered. Removing the potentially exciting play was a response to injury concerns after studies showed that kickoffs accounted for a large percentage of catastrophic injuries (including concussions) in the NFL.

The NFL saw an immediate increase in touchbacks (43.5 percent in 2011) and an immediate decrease in injuries (40 percent in 2011, 13 percent decrease in concussions).

Had the desired effect not been achieved, the league was strongly considering eliminating the play and forcing teams to start each possession at their own 20-yard line. Consider all of the incredible plays we would have missed out on in the absence of kickoffs. Even the simple anticipation of a game getting underway would be gone.

But, the realities of CTE and its increasingly evident link to repetitive head trauma will be the single biggest factor in the rule changes of the league's future. Though NFL led studies began in 1994, the league would not admit the connection between football and concussions until 2009. Now it's playing catch up and any rule that could insulate the league from further negative concussion public relations will be considered.

It hasn't happened yet, but kickoffs may soon become a thing of the past.