London – Finally. The National Football League is moving with the times.To date, the United States is the only First World nation to not make the metric switch. It requires conversion and probably some long division or something.
But it changes everything. The new length of the field is 91.44 meters. Offenses will now need 9.14 meters to convert a first down. Tennessee Titan Chris Johnson, 200 lbs, (oh, sorry, 99.79 kg, or .00998 metric tons) led the league in 2009 with 1.834 rushing kilometers.
Jerry Jones was skeptical, “I don’t think there’s a gram of truth to it.”
An angry mob of mathematically challenged jingoists protested outside of NFL headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City. Chants and picket signs were everywhere, including "Don't give an inch! Down with the Brits!" and "Say No To Rugby!" and "Save our Rulers!"
All of this as former presidential advisor Karl Rove, joining forces with Tea Party leadership and Sean Hannity, issued the following statement at the pulpit: "It's Un-American. It's unpatriotic. And this current administration is doing nothing about it."
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I think it's a good idea. Much better system of measurements. They can still go by tens, just make the field larger. :)
ReplyDelete1 m = 1 yd. 0.28084 ft.
ReplyDeleteThe National Football League would be easy to metricate for real. Football fields are 100 yards long which comes to 91.44 m (actually 120 yards or 109.73 m counting the end zones) and are 160 feet wide which comes to 48.768 m. The football fields could easily become 120 m long and 50 m wide making the football fields minutely larger than they are now. There would still be numbered lines and would still go from 0 to 50 then back down to 0 again for 100 meters total between end zones which would both be 10 meters long. This makes it easy to also know how more meters your favorite football team needs to go while they have the ball to make a touchdown.
Heck even Major League Baseball can go metric. The bases are 90 feet apart meaning they are 27.432 m apart (they could be distanced at 27.5 m apart). Baseball bats can be no thicker than 2.75 inches at the bat's thickest point which is 6.985 cm (can be increased to 7 cm), can be no longer than 42 inches which is 1.1 m, and can weigh no more than 36 ounces which is 1 kilogram (kg).
Personally, I think it would be wonderful for USA sports to go metric. This would increase curiosity by the fans and allow people to actually visualize and learn how long a meter is and how much things weigh in grams.
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BTJustice