Mel Kiper, Jr., says the NFL should outlaw two-high safeties

Lou Holtz once said, "On television, you talk until you think of something to say." The endless jawboning of morning television is 99.9 percent verbal garbage, but every once in a while the 0.1 percent produces something smart... or, alternatively, something so dumb that it leads to smart discussion.

I'm not sure what bucket Mel Kiper, Jr.'s comments fall in, but I'll give him points for trying.

On ESPN's "Get Up" Thursday morning, the panelists were talking about how passing and scoring numbers are way down through two weeks of the 2024 NFL season. 

In response to that, Kiper argued the NFL should ban defenses from playing two-high safeties. 

"I grew up with the best of the National Football League -- the 60s, 70s and 80s. You're talking about deep shots, right? The go route, the 9 route, the post... It's a beautiful thing to watch. That's what I want to see brought back to the National Football League. Check Down Kings, Bubble Screen Sensations -- boring football. Uh, uh. Game manager, I get it, but I want to see those deep shots. 

I was at games where I'm thinking, hey, two-high? They're out in outer space, I couldn't even find them. They're playing with nine guys. Where are the other two? They're playing so far back they're out of the damn play. I'm telling you, we've got to change this thing. You can warn them, 'Guys, you've got to get up a little bit. You're too far back.' Competition committee, somebody's got to figure out what that depth is, but it's too far back right now. The NFL is being ruined by these two-high safeties."

Again, points to Kiper for trying. You and I may disagree, but at least he's pushing an idea out there. As the king of crazy ideas around these parts, we should never discourage people from thinking outside the box.

That said, a few thoughts.

1) Kiper is making his argument from an emotional place. "I grew up with the best of the National Football League -- the 60s, 70s and 80s," he said. As a pure entertainment product, the NFL has never been more popular. So, the audience and the NFL may disagree that the 60s, 70s and 80s were "the best" of professional football. (Having said that, NFL Films shots of a Johnny Unitas or Terry Bradshaw deep ball spinning, and spinning, and spinning its way through an endless sky went a long way toward building the mystique of the NFL. So Kiper's not entirely wrong there.)

2) Before we discuss the impact of Kiper's proposed rule changes, I want to bring up a few charts other sports.

This is the number of "true outcome" hitters in Major League Baseball. As you can see, the number has grown by nearly 50 percent over 40 years. "True outcome" is defined as when a hitter either cranks a home run, walks or strikes out. While the number of "true outcome" hitters rose, the number of balls put in play plummeted. If there are fewer runners on base, there strategy required to move runners over and drive them in evaporates.

As you can see, the midrange jumper totally vanished from professional basketball over the first quarter of this century. NBA teams realized they can score 0.18 more points per possession if they double the amount of 3s they hoist, and thus win 0.07 more games per season (all numbers approximate). Such is their prerogative. But as everyone has come to the same conclusion, the end result is that the NBA viewer is "treated" to 70 combined 3-point attempts per game, and thus 44 bricked 3-pointers per game. Nearly one per minute. It's often mind-numbing to watch.

Personally, I live in fear of the day where the NFL similarly gets "Moneyballed" to death -- a day where teams realize that launching 30 deep balls per game is worth it, because those 30 deep shots will lead to 10 completions, which leads to 1.1 more yards per attempt, and thus 0.7 more points per game, which over the course of a 17-game season will generate the average NFL team a 53 percent chance to win 0.6 more games. 

In sports, what's good for the goose is not always good for the gander. Deep balls -- whether it be a 3-pointer or a 9 route -- can be exciting to watch, but so long as it's part of the normal function of an offense, not a statistically-induced means to an end.

Thus far, the cat-and-mouse nature of football has prevented football from turning into baseball and basketball, where the middle outcome -- the base hit, the 15-foot jumper, the slant route  -- gets algorithm-ed out of the game in favor of boom-or-bust long ball shots. 

Give offenses enough time to realize defenses are inviting them to rip off 12-play, 7-minute touchdown drives, and offenses will start going on 12-play, 7-minute touchdown drives. Once that happens often enough, defenses will start moving safeties into the box, and offenses will start throwing deep more. 

Or, under Kiper's plan, the NFL can force safeties to play within 12 yards of the line of scrimmage, teams can realize the deep ball is suddenly open, and this beautiful 22-man game can be reduced to a 2-man exercise where the rules invite the quarterback to launch enough go routes to his wide receivers that he'll eventually hit enough to score 11 more points across an entire season.

That sounds like the opposite of the Johnny Unitas glory days of the NFL, but that's just me.