"That King Kaufman was right! Placekicking drags down our great sport. Football games should be decided by football players making football plays -- and yes, I know the word 'foot' is in football. The word "head" is in head cheese, but they don't make it out of heads."

Alas, King Kaufman was in fact wrong. Head cheese is made out of heads. See http://www.foodreference.com/html/fheadcheese.html.

And I disagree with Mr. Kaufman's opinion too. Field goals are "football plays" -- almost by definition. They are dramatic and can't be set up absent football players making football plays to get advantageous field position. Successful field goals involve blocking and proper snapping and the whole coordinated series of improbable events that mark other football plays. They just involve another specialist -- the kicker -- who plays but little, looks small compared to his teammates and may speak with an accent.

But kicking is still part of the game. Leave it alone, please.

King,

Your screed against the NFL kicking game was the perfect chance to talk up yet another great CFL Grey Cup final. Unlike the Superbowl (with perhaps a couple exceptions in my lifetime), the Grey Cup is routinely a barn burner. Not to mention, the CFL kicking game is far superior to the NFL one - no fair catches, no touchbacks or downed punts, and missed FGs are live balls...

Without FGs, how would U of Miami fans taunt Florida State fans for the better part of a decade?

Ok, it's totally predictable in a King Kaufman column, especially one about field goals, that you are going to get a least a single slanging comment about real football (or what some of you so quaintly call "soccer"). In this piece he actually manages to make two. But still, in his list of boring sporting events he leaves out a really obvious one--six out of nine innings of any average major league baseball game. Talk about watching paint dry! But then King has his own little peccadillos, such as doing his best to maintain that there's something significant about a "world series" in which Chicago manages to deafeat...who was that again? Some little local team from Texas I believe, but the name slips my mind. Oh well, it is his column afer all, and he's allowed to be as parochial as he wishes.

I agree with King completely. Get rid of the kicker in Football, no field goals, no extra points kicks, no kick-offs. As far as the kick-offs, hell, just adopt the touch football rules of having someone throw the ball deep.

When we get rid of the field goal, the NFL should adopt the rule that you get 2 points when you get the ball past the 20-yard line. So you get 2 points when an team get the ball to the 20-yard line, four more points for scoring a touchdown and 1 point for the point after touchdown. This will make the end of the close games more exciting, knowing that a team only has to get it to the 20 yard line to win a tie or one-point game.

Bukk63 beat me to it, but...

Yes, in fact, they do make headcheese out of heads. Some other parts as well, but mostly heads.

Perhaps a better way to have put it would have been:

"The word 'cheese' is in head cheese, but there's no actual cheese involved."

King, I know you don't like soccer, so it's useless for me to protest, but I'll do so anyway. Just watch some World Cup games next year and you'll be swayed. There is no sporting event in the world that can match the World Cup -- not in the U.S. or anywhere; not even the Olympics. There are literally billions of people across the world that will be glued to the Cup games next summer.

Apparently we Americans prefer our sports chopped up into bite-sized slices, with commercial breaks at every opportunity, plus any number of time outs and network breaks to further delay the action. We end up watching as much inaction in baseball and football as action, and the overwhelming majority of pitches or offensive plays have no excitement in them whatsoever.

Soccer, on the other hand, is continuous, with pauses kept to a minimum and a clock that stops only for halftime. There is constant activity, and possession of the ball can be swapped several times per minute. There's always something there to hold your attention ... and yet you find it more boring than baseball or football?

Perhaps this says more about the state of the American attention span than anything else. Soccer is far and away the most popular sport in the world. Not in America, though -- we can't live without our commercial breaks.

It's sad, really.

All those exciting games that end in blocked field goals (e.g. that Philly/San Diego game) or, better yet, game-changing 108 yard missed field goal returns.

Kicking is a part of football just as much as passing and blitzing. Games in all sports are decided on equally fluky things as field goals. The beauty of the 3-pointer is the strategy it brings to all facets of the game, from field position considerations, end-game score permutations, time out usage, etc.

From Norwood to Vinateri, some of the most exciting Super Bowl moments revolve around the maligned field go.

It stays... I'd much, much, much rather see the 3-point field goal in basketball put to bed!

The idea of getting two points for passing the 20 yard line is so ridiculous, I can't even believe I'm dignifying it will a response.

Boy am I in a lousy mood today. To read King's column I had to violate my personal rule against reading anything football related on the day after an awful Giants' loss, and this was unquestionably an awful loss.

When the Giants got Jay Feeley all I could remember about him was that every time I saw him on Sportscenter he was missing a critical kick late in a game. I figured that must have been just coincidental and he really was a good kicker like his numbers say. Then he started off the year well and I forgot about those old sportscenter highlights. Now it's all coming back. He really is that same guy who couldn't make a big kick.

Missing the one at the end of the fourth quarter was forgivable I thought, every kicker misses one sometimes. The 53 yarder was a decent kick, can't blame him for that. But how does an NFL kicker come up short from 45 yards. That I cannot forgive. 45 Yards and you come up short! Not quite as bad as the two most famous Giants faux pas like whiffing on a punt or not running the clock out and fumbling the handoff to lose a game, but still its only 45 yards. Pathetic. Feeley has lost credibility with Giants fans. Only something heroic will win it back.

Anyway, I agree kicking should go. It's bad for the sport. I would abolish punting also. Then I would make all touchdowns worth one point (or goals or some other snappy name). Not sure how to deal with safeties, but there are ways to deal with that, give the team the ball at the opposing 20 or something like that.

For all those Patriots fans out there who talk about how exciting kicking is you're missing the point. The issue is whether it is more exciting than what is being lost, which is more smashmouth football. That is a no-brainer.

Abolish false start penalties too. they ruin the flow of the game and they too are stupid. Why not let the offensive lineman flinch? If the D-lineman is relly fooled and crosses the line then consider it offsetting penalties and no one gains. the rules should be the same for the offense and defense. You can't cross the neutral zone. anything else is OK. It's a ridiculous penalty, especially the way it is enforced, which gives the defense an incentive to make the O-lineman flinch, kind of like making a subtle face during a staring contest, which I think is what the Seahawks were doing all game yesterday.

And while we're in the abolitionist mode, let's abolish soccer too and make the world a friendlier place for real sports. I am just sick of soccer fans who try to make everyone else feel inferior because they don't appreciate their totally boring sport. My favorite sport, baseball, is boring as hell sometimes, but I love it anyway. partly because it is so laid back and for the exciting moments which are always lurking. But if you don't like it I don't care. Go enjoy your lousy soccer game.