5 Outrageous Sports Rules That Need to Die

Granted, following sport can be maddening at the best of times. Watching your team fumble on consecutive drives is painful, as is paying $150 for a jersey that will be out of date by the weekend, but nothing compares to the frustration of when a referee dusts off the rulebook to penalize a player for a ridiculously obscure technicality.

With so many boneheaded laws and rulings to choose from, here’s a definitive shortlist of the five dumbest rules currently in sport.

5. Cricket's Mankad: A Dishonorable Dismissal 

Granted, cricket has a lot of very strange laws, most of which won't always make any sense to those new to watching or betting on the game. However, traditionally cricket has always been governed by a series of gentlemanly agreements such as walking when you know you are out, never ever contesting an umpire's call… and not running the non-striking batsmen out before the ball has been delivered.

Known as the 'Mankad Law,' it is perhaps the most egregious deviation from the true spirit in which the game is meant to be played. Here, despite the ball effectively being dead, this unethical practice happens when a bowler knocks the bails off at the non-striker's end when they stray out of their crease before the next ball is bowled, leaving the umpire technically no choice but to give the player out.

Last seen when Afghan international cricketer Fazalhaq Farooqi spotted Pakistani batsman Shadab Khan leaving his crease in an ODI game in August 2023, the absurdity of the rule occurs not only because the ball is considered out of play at the time, but arguably worse, it breaks with the gentlemanly protocol of warning the batsman first.

4. MLB’s Automatic/ Designated Runner: Ghostly Run Giveaways

Also known as the Manfred Man Rule, there isn’t an MLB fan in the land who hasn’t suffered the injustice of the 2020 automatic runner rule, which places a ‘ghost runner’ on second base at the start of each extra half-inning during the regular season.

The practice has since been made a permanent ruling in baseball as of 2023; while designed to inject added excitement into an undecided game, the controversy stems from the fact that it grants teams an unwarranted opportunity to score. Here, a fielding team can record two quick outs, yet a single fly ball to the outfield or a slight misfield can allow the automatic runner to score.

Not only does this immediately put teams batting in the bottom half of the innings under pressure, but some analysts also believe it may be chipping away at the benefits of home-field advantage in MLB. Nevertheless, the ruling doesn’t always work, as seen when the Dodgers played the Padres in 2021 - a game that still took 16 innings to decide a winner.

3. The NHL Jersey Tuck Rule: A Scruffy-Looking Penalty

Defying the rules your mother always taught you, the often-forgotten NHL jersey tuck rule seems unnecessarily harsh.  Sure, hockey may share the ice with fashion-conscious sports such as figure skating, but when it comes to athlete dress codes, the NHL makes neatness a punishable offense.

Like with most draconian rules, there is often a seed of rationale behind it, which in this case is designed to ensure a player’s protective gear remains covered at all times. Yet, the disproportionate nature of a two-minute penalty for tucking in your jersey automatically puts your team at a numerical disadvantage.

Not enforced through a penalty since 2013, Philadelphia Flyers forward Trevor Zegras recently found out the hard way there was no leniency for his jersey tuck violation, having been sinbinned for the offense in a 2026 preseason warm-up game, no less. On the bright side, players are usually warned before they are booked for the infraction. Regardless, this one needs to go.

2. Golf’s Unsigned Scorecard: Pros Beaten by Paperwork

Golf too is a sport with several quirky rules and regulations, the worst of which seems devastatingly troublesome given the punishment is dealt out for the most trivial of crimes - when a player, a marker, or both forget to sign a scorecard. 

In fairness, in golf’s defense, Rule 3.3b(2) was designed to enforce accountability, meaning players must certify their hole scores for the entire round, which makes sense. However, given the fact that most golf tournaments have swarms of course stewards, officials, and broadcast recordings, it seems unjust that an administrative omission by a player could see a table-topping performance scratched from the record books forever.

Among those to fall foul of this rule was the larger-than-life Open and PGA Championship winner John Daly, who was disqualified from the 2022 Regions Tradition having shot 68 and 72 in the first two rounds. Since 2023, however, there is an optional caveat to this punishment where tournament officials can put Model Local Rule L-1 in place, which means a forgotten sign-off incurs a two-stroke penalty rather than automatic disqualification.

1. NFL's End Zone Fumble Rule: The Ultimate Gut Punch

By far the most ludicrous ruling found in football has to be the fumble-through-the-endzone rule, which, while rare, seems totally nonsensical. After all, possession is everything in the NFL, so to hand it over without the opposition recovering the ball after a fumble seems absurd.

Picture it - your team is about to punch it in for a touchdown after a 99-yard drive, only to drop the ball before breaking the goal line - suddenly time stands still as all eyes focus on where the ball ends up. Bounce out of bounds in the field of play, and you’re primed for another shot at goal, but graze the pylon or roll out through the endzone, and you’ve just gifted the opposition a touchback and possession at their own 20-yard line.

Nobody is more gutted about this ruling than Leon Lett, who famously almost returned a fumble for a sensational touchdown during Super Bowl XXVII between the Cowboys and Bills. Lett’s only error was to start celebrating too early, allowing Don Beebe to knock the ball loose at the one-yard line, resulting in it bouncing out of bounds in the end zone, meaning the Bills were able to restart their drive again despite losing the ball.

Commissioners Need to Give Common Sense a Sporting Chance

Whether it’s an archaic ruling dating back decades or a more recent inclusion to spice up the game, these five illogical rules all have one thing in common - they spark outrage whenever they’re enforced. Whatever the rationale, it’s time commissioners such as Goodell, Bettman, and Manfred rewrite these rules - or better yet, scrap them altogether.