It’s the offseason which means the NFL has nothing better to do with their time. While twiddling their thumbs over cocktails at the annual spring meeting, team owners approved a new kickoff rule without any regard for the fans or the game itself.

The new kickoff rule essentially eliminates the return game as a weapon in special teams. Each year, the NFL takes steps to drastically reduce the chances of another Bill Belichick ever rising through the ranks by eliminating special teams altogether.

Belichick cut his teeth in the NFL as an assistant special teams coach with the Detroit Lions and Denver Broncos back in the 1970s. He continued his journey as the New York Giants‘ special teams coordinator from 1979 to 1984. Today, the entire football world pretty much agrees that Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots is the goat of NFL head coaches in the modern era, if not of all time.

However, he got his humble beginnings as an assistant special teams coordinator. If there is anybody in the entire league who understands the importance of special teams, it’s Billy Goat. Ask Belichick a question about anything related to the game that was just played and you will be stonewalled with a cold blank stare or a response so short, you’ll miss it if you blink.

However, Billy Goat once famously gave a 1,039-word response to a question about what it was like for Gino Cappelletti to kick field goals back in the 1960s. The fucking sixties, man. Billy Goat would have been a schoolboy at the time.

A friend of a friend was buzzing around one of the Super Bowl game balls on Belichick’s mantle when news broke of the kickoff rule changes. Rumor has it, his facial expression was unchanged but there was a sense of disappointment in the air to complement the stench of second-hand clam chowder fumes.

Other coaches went public with their displeasure over the rule changes. Andy Reid, the head coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, didn’t hold back his suspicions while addressing the press through the league-owned NFL Network.

“My thing is, where does it stop, right?” Reid said. “We start taking pieces and we’ll see how this goes. But you don’t want to take too many pieces away, or you’ll be playing flag football.”

Is there a conspiracy brewing in Roger Goodell’s favorite coffee? Big Red is suggesting there might be a plan in place to gradually shift the game toward flag football permanently. Fans are in an uproar as reported by flies hovering around fresh steamy piles all over the world. Nobody wants to see the game become more suitable for fucking pussies.

Current and former players are chiming in on the issue right now. Pat McAfee, a former punting and drunken skinny-dipping standout of the Indianapolis Colts, gave zero fucks with his on-the-record response, “It’s the most amateur, bush-league-looking bullshit I have seen in a long time when it comes to the NFL.”

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to people who have been following the rule changes of the game over the past few decades. The NFL has essentially made grabassin’ illegal, as outgoing Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder can attest to.

In the past, other rule changes have sparked outrage amongst the most elite NFL alumni members. Other players have come out in full support of making the game as safe as possible, even if that includes bubble wrap and manicures. 

The NFL’s own golden boy, Brett Favre, chimed in on the state of the game recently as well. It seems as though he supports the NFL’s eventual shift to flag football.

“You have to believe that every time a kid is tackled, that she or he is doing detrimental things to their brain that may be irreversible.” Favre continued, “That is really scary.”

When he’s not busy putting all the mustard on it, Favre still manages to stay in the headlines years after the glory of his playing days have long gone. He really can do no wrong, so it makes sense that he’s in on the conspiracy to swap the NFL rulebook out for a flag football manual.

From his upstanding off-field reputation combined with his Super Bowl winning year in Green Bay to his unforgettable season as a New York Jet, you’d have to dig really deep to find any dirt on one of the greatest cheeseheads to ever grace the gridiron. That’s probably why the league is using Brett Favre as the player safety spokesperson for their shift to flag football.