Colin Sheridan: Embracing versatility would make NFL even more watchable

Here's a dangerous idea, by American standards anyway: what if NFL teams halved their rosters and embraced the crazy notion that players could have more than one job?

The NFL feels wildly overstaffed. Pic: Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Last night, the Baltimore Ravens travelled to Pittsburgh to face the Steelers, their season hanging in the balance like a loose Christmas light that nobody ever got around to fixing. No strangers to ice or snow, the Ravens would have made the four-hour drive knowing that defeat would likely end their year, despite having been talked up as contenders since early September. They would have arrived with a 53-man roster. Only 46 of them would dress, and only 11 would take the field at any one time. Eleven.

This is the NFL in microcosm: maximum headcount, minimum participation. A league that once felt compelled to cap travelling staff at 70 for away games - excluding players - in the name of health and safety. At home, of course, the gloves come off. A modern NFL sideline resembles the departure lounge at JFK: around two dozen coaches of varying seniority and emotional fragility, a small army of medical professionals, IT specialists to keep the iPads alive, equipment managers, nutritionists, hydration experts, and what one assumes are at least a few full-time ego massagers and a doula, just in case. Anyone who recently attempted to move their family across Ireland for Christmas will understand the scale of the operation.