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4 potential changes to speed up NFL games

Mark J. Rebilas / USA TODAY Sports

The NFL might be listening so offer up your suggestions.

After years of fans complaining about the commercial breaks they have to endure every time someone scores a touchdown, the league announced Wednesday they will eliminate the "double-up" advertising stoppages.

With the NFL looking for ways to speed up the game, here are a few potential changes that could help shut up the "football is too slow" crowd:

Staggered start times

Imagine every NFL Sunday was like the first weekend of March Madness. Fourteen games starting 20 to 30 minutes apart from one another from midday to prime time. Non-stop action.

Individual games wouldn't be shorter, but the viewing experience for everyone not at the game would speed up and allow for much less dead-air time. Only one pregame ceremony to sit through. There wouldn't be a lull in the middle of the afternoon when all the games are at halftime. No more attempts to decide which game's finish is most worthy of watching.

Automatic spikes

Late in the half, driving down the field in search of crucial points, there's a break in the action as 24 men scramble to the line of scrimmage so the quarterback can throw the ball into the dirt as fast as he can. Is this really necessary?

It wouldn't save a ton of time, but a simple solution to this anticlimactic play would be to allow teams to signal an automatic spike. Teams could signal to officials almost as if they're calling a timeout, but instead of simply stopping the clock, the team would be docked one down and a predetermined amount of time would be run off the clock.

Yes, this would eliminate the possibility of a fake spike play, but that's only happened about three times in over 20 years.

No more chain gang

Does anyone else think it's a little strange there's still a group of men running up and down the sidelines between every first down?

The conversation about putting a computer chip in the ball has been going on for long enough now that the league should be able to develop the technology to have some sort of automatic chain system. Or if they can't figure out that technology, wouldn't it make more sense to have four or five chain gangs set up along the sideline so no one has to run the set of sticks 75 yards after a big play?

Soccer-style advertising

This one is a little out there and would drastically change the way we watch football, but hear me out.

Like soccer games, the NFL could cut all commercials out of each half, allowing for a quick, smooth viewing experience. The trade off would be that sponsors would be allowed to advertise on jerseys and there may be a banner show up on the lower third of the screen from time to time.

Putting sponsors on jerseys had always scared North American fans, but it wouldn't need to be as outlandish as a European hockey jersey. Ads could be much more subtle and stylish, not too different from the promoting Nike already does.

It would be much better to just see a little Burger King logo a bunch of times than hear a guy say he's going to text every human he's ever encountered in his entire life one more time.

(Photos courtesy: Action Images)

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