NFL Week 11: Magic Mike

One of the NFL's many advantages over the college game.

 

My hot take is NFL halftimes should be a lot longer. It's the fucking NFL, people aren't tuning out. They've got money on the games. Make it at least 20 minutes. These dudes are in a fucking car wreck every half. They should have more time to get taped and shot up. And the coaches need more time to "make adjustments" (remember when Belichick was the best at making adjustments LOL then what happened).

 

Somehow college halftimes, which are almost a half-hour, don't make people tune out. Gotta get those NFL games done in three hours on the nose, donchaknow. If anything, halftime should be longer for the fans at the game. Want to get a beer and a pretzel at the half? In addition to paying $27.95 for those two items, you also will be treated to missing the third quarter.

 

Peyton and Eli laugh at "halftime adjustments".

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SVSB4b99dKA

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q5oAaeKE-Og

 

I help out a local high school and their offensive coaches.

We for sure review, "OK this is the look they're giving us; these are the plays we can run against that look," but there's no re-inventing what we do or what we've practiced. We might talk to players about that look, and how we should be blocking Play X against it, but all these things are done in the context of the offense we practice.

 

I cannot believe there are people here arguing for longer halftimes.

 

The Bengals were last in their division before last night.

 

Teams can lose draft picks for that, which might make a more lasting impression.

 

At one of the high schools I cover regularly, I go inside their fieldhouse at halftime to add up stats and take a piss, so I'll often overhear a bit of their halftime assessments with each other. It's just as you described. They'll spend maybe two minutes talking about which players they need to swap out, or a play that is working or not working that they need to use more or use less, but they're not drawing up new plays on the whiteboard.

 

Yeah we'll go into a game with basically the roster of, "we think these will work" plays on our sheet. And halftime is mostly just crossing some of those out and writing others in. Or adding tags.

Like, "OK we were going to try to run Syracuse Strong 990 Power; instead lets try Syracuse Strong 990 Power G."

 

Why not? As Junkie noted, it buys fans more time to get food. It buys players and coaches more time to rest and recalibrate. And you're gonna be stuck in a throng of 40,000 cars getting out in an hour-and-a-half anyway. The extra eight minutes aren't going to make a difference for your ride home.