Part of what I love about football is that the rules of the game haven't changed much since the late 19th century; sure, substitutions were introduced, and the goal keeper can't pick up back passes, but that's about the extent of the alterations so far as the rule book is concerned.

Contrast that with the NFL's version of gridiron, which is vastly different than how the game was originally conceived, and how it's still played in the CFL. Now in this article, I learn that chips in the ball might be used for such things as narrowing the goal posts. Ugh.

Can you imagine if these same people got ahold of football? "Let's make the goals wider! Let's get rid of the offside rule! Let's make 'heading' illegal! Let's have minutes-long replay reviews every five seconds! Let's make it so you need to do a handstand before you pass the ball!" It would be a total disaster.

In a way it's broader than just sports; I've noticed in life that some people-- usually conservatives-- are principled and, even when rules were arbitrary to begin with, tend to stick with them until they can be absolutely certain that they should be changed. They also tend to plan better for the future, delay gratification, and so on.

Other people-- usually liberals-- are flighty, neurotic, and emotional, and because they don't have strongly observed principles, they tend to be impulsive and change things on whims based on what feels good at the time.

Football and the CFL seem like they are governed by conservatives, who have a broader moral perspective; fairness is important and we don't want people getting needlessly hurt, but so is tradition and a plethora of other things-- let's not go ape crazy with constant rule changes-- let the game breath, and evolve in a tactical sense versus a rules sense.

The NFL seems like it's run by liberals; the only things that matter are care / harm and fairness-- so they're going to incessantly jerk the rules every which way if it will make the sport .000001% safer, or reverse .000001% of bad referee calls, even at the cost of making it less watchable, less fun to play (the "No Fun League" effect), or unrecognizable from the game people originally fell in love with.