From new research exposing the severity of concussions in the game to a constantly revolving door of rule changes, the NFL as we know it might look very different down the road. With that in mind, here are some predictions of what professional football might look like ten years from now:
- Seeing as how increased fines failed to curb the plague of touchdown celebrations, the punishment will now be Roger Goodell’s choice among an array of medieval torture methods.
- Concussions will be rebranded to “funcussions.”
- With helmet technology reaching its apex but brain injuries continuing, the NFL looks elsewhere and uses pumpkins as helmets. It does not go well.
- To increase media coverage and player safety, the league goes ahead and stretches the season by four months and schedules one game every night (two on Sundays still) from May through January.
- Remember Mutant League Football? Look at J.J. Watt and tell me that MLF won’t replace the NFL in ten years.
- The New Orleans Saints and Miami Dolphins will be contracted (or relocated) because their cities will be underwater.
- Cleatus from Fox Sports will gain sentience but becomes despondent when he finds that his only purpose is “To dance…just to dance.”
- As the NFL gains a lobbying stronghold in Congress, a new law will be passed leaving Bud Light and Papa John’s as the only legal food options left in America.
- Due to injuries, Marshawn Lynch will have his legs replaced with advanced robotic technology. His dominance on the field will be known as “Beast Wars Mode.”
- Nations have ceased to exist. We now live in vast, warring kingdoms, overseen by the cruel and fickle DraftKings. They spend their days organizing violent FanDuels for sport.
- God will admit He’s the reason for each team’s success and will sentence the losing team of every game – and the fans who didn’t tailgate to help ensure a victory – to an eternity in hell.
- The irony of calling a game where the ball is mostly controlled with your hands “football” finally becomes too great for anyone to bear. It is decided that a change will be made, and all players will have their hands surgically replaced with feet.
- Bill Belichick will finally be revealed to be a burlap sack filled with 900 snakes.
- Brett Favre will unretire again and “just have fun out there” until he’s ripped limb-from-limb by men 1/3 his age on the second snap of his first game back.
- Peyton Manning’s floating head leads the Denver Broncos to the AFC championship game.
- “It’s almost Tebow Time…anytime now,” says Tim Tebow to himself, sitting in a dimly lit room surrounded by his many, mostly alive cats.
- The new Madden NFL game lets players at home take control of the actual teams on the field every Sunday. Tea-bagging becomes more popular than ever.
- DraftKings has continued to experience unforeseen growth. You can now play in a fantasy fantasy football league where you draft actual fantasy football players and get points based on how well they set lineups, maneuver the waiver wire, negotiate trades and successfully complain about the start time of the draft.
- Due to breakthroughs in body augmentation technology, allowing anyone to run fast, throw a spiral 100 yards and jump 15 feet in the air, the term “armchair quarterback” takes on a whole new meaning.
- The instant replay will become irrelevant with the invention of time travel, allowing fans to jump back in time to see their favorite plays all over again. There will be no negative consequences whatsoever.
- Air Bud, signed to play quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in 2021, is put down unceremoniously in 2025 after failing to help the team get to eight wins in any season, a streak that has now lasted for 18 years.