Grantland. . . and No Kickoffs in Football

As much as I dislike Bill Simmons ("The Sports Guy" ESPN), which is kind of a lot, I have been captivated by a lot of the non-Simmons pieces on his new daily, ESPN backed sports-pop culture venture with Chuck Klosterman, Grantland. I don't really like Klosterman that much either, but for some reason I'm excited about Grantland. (EDIT: Here's where I should have mentioned that Grantland has lured in some pretty considerable talent, guys who don't have the initials BS or CK.)

Who knows where time will take Grantland, but I like its ambition, and I think it's a good idea. My initial impressions are that the writers could stand to be a less self-indulgent but it seems like once they run out of pet-stories that noone else would ever publish it (Grantland) could really turn into something good. Also, I love the use of footnotes, and the way they lay out said foodnotes.

I recommend checking it out if you haven't. Grantland.com

Whilst purusing an article on Grantland today I ran across this tidbit:

According to the Newark Star-Ledger's Steve Politi, Schiano has proposed a plan that would eliminate kickoffs and onside kicks in college football, replacing them with the option to either (a) punt, or (b) face a fourth-and-15 from one's own 30-yard line. The idea behind it is that kickoffs cause the greatest number of serious injuries — including to Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand, who suffered a severe spinal-cord injury last season — and that eliminating them is an obvious way to mitigate the full-speed collisions that cause these injuries.

After the obligatory, "Wha? No kickoffs? No kickoffs!?" I began to think that no kickoffs would actually be a great idea. A 4th and 15 would be way more exciting than an onside kick, you'd get a return on every puntoff, you could do fake puntoffs, you could try to block them. . . . Oh and fewer players would get paralyzed. I say do it. What say y'all?