Tinkering Tops "Beckham Rule"

The most interesting argument/comment/contention I’ve so far read on the Beckham, er, “designated player rule,” appeared near the bottom of Greg Lalas’ Sports Illustrated column. Basically, how will the “special player’s” salary sit with the rest of the players on their team? Maybe Kansas City’s Eddie Johnson has some locker room horror stories to relate...can’t say for sure...

But the league essentially doubles down on that problem if the clearest benefit of the rule fails to materialize: e.g. if America’s youth fail to swap up the million-plus David Beckham LA Galaxy jerseys. Then again, maybe they can hawk ‘em in Japan because no one beats that culture for super-sizing a fad into a mania.

As for what this will do to the level of play, I’m still dubious. In fact, I see this playing out in a fairly familiar way: think DC United led by Christian Gomez, or Houston with Dwayne DeRosario when that team gets into one of their funks. I see a lot of the league’s teams expecting too much of one guy, trying to play through him all the damn time. This won’t help.

In any case, I don’t know what will happen with this change and, as I often do, I hope I’m wrong. But I don’t think Beckham, or any other player, is going to give the league anything more than a flash-in-the-pan boost. Once the excitement dies down and August turns teams torpid (alliteration...yes!), it will be the same teams plus one famous-to-semi-famous dude playing on the same fields, in front of the same crowds.

This is like buying a 1978 Datsun B210 wagon and buffing the bejesus out of the hood, painting a flaming eagle on it etc. - that one section of the car looks showroom ready but it’s still attached to the same cut-price car (a damned fine one, mind you), covering the same rusted engine. All in all, I’m not expecting much. And Lalas paints a scenario where we may yet get some excitement, only of the wrong sort. Anyone know if Ronaldo’s knees can survive a practice-field cleating?

In any case, this rule change doesn't excite me nearly as much as the reformatting of the playoffs: changing to a top eight format - i.e. after the conference winners, the rest of the playoff spots go to the next six teams - will do as much to make for more competitive games as anything. That, and all the soccer they're stuffing on the TV, has me more excited than the thought of any one - or even 13 players - coming to the league.

Some sources
1) Short write-up from LA Daily News (LINK)
2) From Goal.com: LINK
3) Greg Lalas manages the most original, single thought on the subject: LINK

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