Dean Blandino on Possible Peanut Punch, Kneel Downs & Spiking the Ball Rules

Cam Heyward has turned into a weekly rules committee of one on The Rich Eisen Show, pitching a new rule change every time he visits. So Rich ran the latest one past Dean Blandino, and added a couple of rules questions of his own.

Heyward's idea this week: no kneel downs.

Blandino didn't dismiss it. He pointed out that arena football and the CFL had a version of exactly that rule. "You couldn't kneel down at the end," he said. "You had to run the ball, and if you didn't gain yardage, the clock would stop."

The room liked that one. The logic, as Rich relayed it from Heyward, is that every play should at least go forward.

Rich then brought up something he expects the league to look at, and it involves players at Heyward's own position. Defensive tackles have been trying to jump the spike to catch the ball, crashing into centers and knocking them over, which has led to plenty of pushing and shoving afterward. The idea of banning the spike altogether, for player safety, came up in the conversation.

That got a firm "no." The counterargument was that the spike adds drama. "The spike to me is exciting, cause you're not sure if they're going to get lined up and you want them to get another play," came the reply. Throwing the ball out of bounds would also take more time than spiking it.

College football handles it differently, and Blandino explained how. "It's a first down and they're going to wind the clock, you got to have at least three on the game clock to spike it," he said. "If it's two or less, you got to run" a play.

That triggered a painful memory for Rich. He recalled how Michigan lost to Iowa because one of Michigan's players got hurt and stopped the clock, giving Iowa a whole extra opportunity to call a play, "which they used to beat us. But that's for another day."

The most serious topic was the peanut punch. Rich noted that more and more of those punches are catching players in the helmet, with "actual right crosses" landing.

Blandino expects the league to address it. "I think that'll be an off-season discussion. I think that'll be a point of emphasis next year," he said. He was quick to credit the technique itself. "To me it is the most impactful technique that we've seen in the last however many years. I mean, how many turnovers are caused by that?"

The problem is the misses. "Striking an opponent is a foul in the rule book," Blandino said. "If I just get a piece of your arm," that's one thing, "but if I catch a right cross in the head, I mean, that's got to be a foul."

Rich asked whether that meant a rule change or a message delivered to all 32 clubs that peanut punches better make contact with the ball and not the head. Blandino framed it as the latter kind of emphasis, and said the timing matters. That's an offseason conversation, and "you wouldn't want to do that midstream."