NFL field change: League might consider widening field by 35 feet
The NFL reportedly might consider widening the playing field from 160 feet to 195 feet to make the game safer for players, the National Football Post is reporting.
The new field width would be the same as that in the Canadian Football League.
“I’m not so sure we shouldn’t think about widening the field,” former competition committee member Bill Polian said. “It’s a radical idea, but I think it’s worth thinking about. You would have more space and perhaps a safer game. I say that based on my CFL experience. There are less collisions of that type in the Canadian game.”
The theory: A wider field would mean fewer hard hits in the middle of the field, where a majority of hard collisions take place.
“The farther a player has to run in terms of contact, the less ferocious the contact is going to be,” Polian said. “We know the most ferocious hits come from guys who are 10 yards apart and lay each other out. You have fewer higher-power collisions in the Canadian League than here.”
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