Issue Date: September 15, 2002

Sports

How would this new team fix football?

Huddle with Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman as they move into the booth Madden and Summerall commanded.

By Dennis McCafferty

As the two most highly scrutinized guys in network TV sports this season, Fox Sports' Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth remain cool under fire -- just like when they played football. Along with play-by-play announcer Joe Buck, Aikman and Collinsworth are serving as color commentators in Fox's No. 1 booth, replacing the legendary team of John Madden and Pat Summerall. All eyes will be watching the "new guys" to see how they measure up.

Judging from a recent conversation with USA WEEKEND Magazine, they'll be candid in assessing their sport -- which every fan knows could use some fine tuning: Unsportsmanlike behavior and high ticket prices are just two issues. We asked Aikman, a future Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl victories, and Collinsworth, a former wide receiver with the Cincinnati Bengals and two-time Emmy winner with Fox, how they would fix the game. They don't always agree, but they present some compelling arguments -- plus the occasional surprise.

OK, guys, the subject is how to fix the pro game. Where do we start?
Aikman: I'd start with the football.
Collinsworth: Yeah, the football. That's been a problem for a long time.

The football? Somehow, we never heard about this one.
Aikman: The problem is that the home team has all the control over the condition of the ball. Every week, these balls come right out of the box, and they've got a wax coating on them. They're slick.
Collinsworth: They feel really oily. They're hard to grip.
Aikman: You have to heat the leather up and soften it up. You towel them down or let the air out of them. You toss them in the dryer with towels. This makes it easier to grip. Everybody has different methods to get different results. Yet the home team determines which way the ball ends up. When I was in college, they allowed visiting teams to prepare their own balls and we used them when we played offense.

Consider your sentiments entered into the record. Let's move on to some topics fans actually may have heard of -- like sportsmanship, or the lack thereof.
Collinsworth: It's getting out of hand. When there's unsportsmanlike gestures made by a player or a confrontation with a referee that goes too far, they're setting a bad example. And it's not just what's happening on the field. Fans need to set good examples, too. It goes beyond pro football. In Little League, I've seen it all when it comes to parental behavior. The kids are pretty good, but the parents are unbelievable. It's time for America to step back just a little bit.

The NFL dealt with a serious loss last year, with the heat-related death of offensive lineman Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings. Are there any lessons to learn from this?
Aikman: Yes. The clubs have to take some level of responsibility. When I played, we'd go to training camp in Austin, Texas, where it would be 105 degrees, and you'd train five hours a day. Players would lose 15 pounds in a practice. I don't see where that's good for the body. Now Dallas is going to train in San Antonio, and they'll be able to practice in the Alamodome, which is environmentally controlled. Other teams need to be smarter as well.

Seems like they never get instant replay right. But you guys have differing opinions here, we understand.
Collinsworth: Yes. I think instant replay is great. I'd even advocate expanding it. I'd like for it to be used for pass interference calls, which they don't do now. These plays happen so fast that no human referee can get it right all the time. And pass interference has the potential to be a 50-yard penalty. It's a game-changing call. They should be able to review it on instant replay.

Aikman: I'd suggest just getting rid of it entirely. It slows the game down. Football should be played by humans, coached by humans and officiated by humans. Mistakes get made. That's part of the game.

What about the crowds? These luxury boxes and expensive seats have taken the real fan out of the game. There are too many suits in a corporate box drinking chardonnay.
Collinsworth: Now, you're not going to take luxury boxes away. But if a stadium is built using any public money, the owner should be obligated to set aside a certain number of seats that people can buy for a reasonable amount of money -- maybe $25. One of the great things about football is that the average Joe could go there, scream his head off, paint his face and forget about his boss eyeballing him for a week. The Super Bowl is the most corporate-driven crowd we get, and it's the least enthusiastic crowd we get. It's getting more like that throughout the season. Hey, I loved Cleveland's "Dawg Pound" fans -- even when they were screaming and tossing batteries at me.