NFL Draft Hypothetical

[prohornblower]

Just a hypothetical I was thinking about driving back from Austin all by my lonesome, earlier today...

What would happen if the NFL split the draft into 3-4 rounds of Offense only, and 3-4 rounds of Defense only? Meaning that teams couldn't really "load up" on D, or O, in any given series of years.

I'm guessing within 5 years or so, teams that are either really good offensively (say Colts), and really good defensively (say Bears), would move more to the center, creating more..not "parity"..but say less variance during singular games.

I understand that, like boxing, "style" makes for great games (big offenses versus big defenses, etc.) but would the games be more exciting due to the assumed decrease in variance? Or would football turn into "coinflipping"?

Overall thoughts on the subject, please. Would you like, or dislike this idea? Would it even change variance, or parity like I'm imagining it would, or not? I haven't thought too much about it, but I want to see what more knowledgeable folks have to say.

[Max Raker]

How would you determine who gets the first pick in the O draft and the D draft? I have never thought about this an it is an interesting idea.

[prohornblower]

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How would you determine who gets the first pick in the O draft and the D draft? I have never thought about this an it is an interesting idea.

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Good question...I suppose, of the two worst teams (record-wise) the team with the worst D would get the #1 D pick, and the other team would get the #1 O pick. Or, whichever of the 4 stats(team 1 O, team 1 D, team 2 O, team 2 D) is the worst? Of course this would get tricky because people would argue over how to truly measure how good a team's O and D is. But we're learning more and more every year about how to assess teams' abilities.

[PITTM]

you would have to figure out a way to make sure defensive players are actually picked as defensive players and vice versa.

[Assani Fisher]

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you would have to figure out a way to make sure defensive players are actually picked as defensive players and vice versa.

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exactly. The whole idea seems to lack practicality due to this.

[prohornblower]

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you would have to figure out a way to make sure defensive players are actually picked as defensive players and vice versa.

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exactly. The whole idea seems to lack practicality due to this.

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Have the players declare before the draft what they want to be drafted for (O or D). If they get signed, and move from OLB to TE, then levy some penalty against the team that converted him. Nothing major, just enough to keep the funny business from happening. Maybe the player who gets converted (whether by his choice, or the team's) has to donate 10% of his salary to charity, and it has to be matched, or doubled, by the team as well.

This is probably a ridic. solution, but I'm just trying to keep the conversation rolling. Moreso, I'm interested in what you guys think this would do for the NFL, hurt it or help it.

[TheNoodleMan]

The bad teams would get better much quicker. Having the worst record would basically give you 2 top picks instead of one.

[prohornblower]

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The bad teams would get better much quicker. Having the worst record would basically give you 2 top picks instead of one.

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I'm not saying it has to be like that. Like I said, I hadn't thought much about it, but the idea isn't to give the worst team 2 top picks. Perhaps the draft rounds go D/O/D/O, etc. or o/d/o/d, ...maybe the worst teams decides if their first round pick is O or D, but exactly 2 of their first 4 picks have to be O, and 3 of their top 6 picks have to be O, etc.

[prohornblower]

Forget the logistics of the draft, just assume it all works out.

MOre importantly, would this make the league/games more exiting? If so, how? If not, how should I die? In a grease fire, etc?

[PITTM]

i like this idea quite a bit.