The Wilmington morning star., 1945-01-06
NATIONAL GRID
CARS ADVOCATE
u new CHANGES
Heading The List Is Abol'
ishment OF Try For
Extra Point
BY WALTER BYERS
Inited Press Staff Correspondent

United Press StdII Correspondent
CHICAGO, Jan. s. CUP -
Coaches, officials and club own
ers of the National Football
League, long a proving ground for
streamlined gridiron ideas, today
submitted 81 proposed rule chang
es, capped by a joint suggestion
that the traditional try for extra
point be abolished and tie games
rlayed off in a Sudden death
period.
The professional league has in
stituted many revolutionary chang
es in American football, but moth
ink in the past breaches tradition
as much as the proposal by Presi-
dent Bert Bell of the Pittsburgh
Steelers and Coach Earle Greasy
Neale of the Philadelphia Eagles
that two gridiron landmarks be
hlotted out-the conversion at
tempt and the four-quarter game.
The Bell-Neale ideas were made
as one proposal to league head
quarters which will submit it with
the others to the meeting Of the
leagues rules committee here
January 9th, one day before the
national league holds its annual
business meeting.
A crowd likes a winner is the
logic behind the plan which would
eliminate the gridiron deadlock,
long a point of contention among
football experts.
Neale and Bell propose that if
game ends in a tie, the tlN
teams-after a two-minute inter-
mission-start Sudden death
playoff which would continue until
one team took the lead. The play
off would be run in quarters of
Is minutes each, three times outs
per period and the same amount
of time between periods that is
allowed during regulation game
between the first and second and
third and fourth quarters.
The suggestion, which places a
premium on manpower and re-
serves, repeatedly has strong sup
port although leaguge statistics
show the most serious football in
juries occur during the latter halt
of a game and the latter part of
g season.
Neale and Bell reason that boil
ishment of the conversion boot
will speed up the game and end
phase which has lost its crowd
appeal.
Coach Steve Owen of the New
York Giants teamed with Bell and
Neale in making the most pro-
posals. One of Ovens suggestions,
which probably will be accepted,
is prohibition of the swinging fore
arm block on opposing players
above the shoulders, thereby stop
ping the practice of blockers nit
ting players with their elbows
instead of their forearms.
The three football veterans col
Elaborated on the idea that chain.
gang substitutions be permitted
similar to hockey where substi,
tutes shift in and out of the game
without stopping play. Bell, Neale
and Owen would permit a player
to enter the game while time is
running, provided the substitution
were made and the Withdrawn
player cleared from the field in
the time lapse between the end Of
a running play and the start of the
next play. A five-yard penalty
for delaying the game would be
leveled if the substitution were
slow.
Another plan would permit the
point-aftc touchdown attempt to
be made by the kicking team from
anywhere behind the two-yard Line,
the present site of the kick.
The Neale-Bell proposal and the
substitution suggestion are two of
the most revolutionary ever made
to the leagues rules committee,
which has legalized such rules as
coaching from the bench and pass
ing from anywhere behind the
line of scrimmage.
New Jersey, Connecticut, India
ma, Iowa, and Tnnessee, are the