Hot Take Alert: Mel Kiper Jr Demands the NFL 'Outlaw' a Standard Defensive Alignment in Order to Save Football

Like virtually everybody else in the country, you might be watching the first two weeks of the NFL season and like what you're seeing so far. After all, even in a world where your entertainment options increase exponentially every few days, the league continues to set TV ratings records.

But if you think you're having a good time, you'd better think again. There's a problem in pro football. An existential crisis in the making. And it's not injuries, or the threat of CTEs, or substandard officiation, or proliferation of Kansas City Chiefs ruining every commercial break. It's something much more sinister:

Passing touchdowns are down. Way down, as a matter of fact:

With three passing TDs Monday night, that still only brings the league wide total to 69. (That'll be enough, Gronkowski.) And to some, this disturbing trend is a threat to our very way of life. A situation that calls for something to be done about it, before the problem gets even worse.

Now sure, we could address this by conventional means. Just let the league evolve as it sees fit. Trust the coaches and players to figure out ways to make adjustments, identify and exploit weaknesses, and let nature take its course.

Naaahhh... This moment requires a swift, decisive, radical, and ridiculous overreaction be taken. Why, you may ask? Because Mel Kiper Jr. is old enough to remember watching Terry Bradshaw and Johnny Unitas, that's why:

Here, in graphic form, is the source of all our woes:

Curse you, Cover-2!!! How long are we going to allow all that is good and decent in our world be crushed under the yoke of two safeties splitting the field in the back of the secondary? Why must another generation be poisoned by this "deeper than the deepest" ideology? In Bob Dylan's words, how many must die before split safeties are forever banned? The answer, my friends, is blowin' through Mel Kiper's helmet of hair.

It's remarkable that in 2024 anyone would be making the argument that the real problem in pro football is that it doesn't have enough rules. That what we need is more flags. More officials huddling together like zebras around a watering hole. More incomprehensible paragraphs added to the rule book that are subject to interpretation. More explanations from Mike Pereria while we watch the same play from six different angles. As opposed to - radical as this might sound - letting the people in the game figure it the fook out for themselves.

It seems to me that if you choose to deploy a Cover-2 to prevent deep shots down the field, than you leave yourself wide open elsewhere. The run game. Flats and curls. Post routes, which are commonly referred to as "Cover-2 beaters" for a reason, because the middle of the field is left open (MOFO). In other words, doing what offensive coaches have been doing since the forward pass was legalized, which is find a place on the field they're not defending and attack it.

But don't go by me. I was under the impression Cover-2 has been around for generations. And that Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner, Warren Moon, Brett Favre and half the QBs in the Hall of Fame found ways to wipe their asses with it. Obviously I'm wrong and it was just invented to stop Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and force young guys to make stupid decisions:

Hey, what do I know? I keep noticing that the more rules the league makes to create more offense, the less offense we get. It's almost as if forcing artificial changes to any system in order to make it easier, has the opposite effect. The very people you're trying to benefit are harmed, because they're not required to find their own solution to the challenges they face naturally. As Cyrus the Great put it, "Soft lands breed soft men."

I can guarantee you that an over-correction like the one Kiper is proposing will, sooner rather than later, result in even less offense, including his precious "deep shots" to today's John Stallworths or whomever. And then we'll need yet another, even more draconian rule change. Like defenses having to play 10-on-11. Or, to take it to the illogical extreme, if we just ban defenses from the field altogether, then we'll achieve football perfection.

But sure, go with his plan. And enjoy those timeouts while the officials try to decide if your strong safety was playing back too far or not. Should be a blast.