The NFL announced Monday that they reportedly might consider widening the playing field to Canadian Football League standards in order to improve player's safety.
The National Football Post reported that the league has talked about widening the field sideline-to-sideline from 160 feet to 195 feet, which is the CFL standard, and the league might look into the idea again this offseason.
The National Football Post said the competition committee discussed the idea a year ago. In theory, a wider field would be safer for a league that has much bigger and faster players than it did decades ago.
"I'm not so sure we shouldn't think about widening the field," former competition committee member Bill Polian told the National Football Post. "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 idea is that the wider field would give players more space to run around--and thus decrease the number of concussions. It would also probably increase the amount of scoring, and teams would have to make adjustments to their style of play to deal with the changes in the field.
However, the truth is we will never really know if widening the field will help prevent injuries until the actual changes are done, but as of now a field change most likely won't be done anytime soon, at least not this season.
