I agree 100% on your sentiments with the proposed baseball extra innings rule change. I'm a traditionalist myself I guess you could say and that rule change does nothing for me. In fact, I could see the extra inning playing out exactly how you outlined it. As for eliminating the kickoff in football, the NFL has been flirting with this for a few years now, and while the data is out there that shows that kickoffs are the type of play that causes the most concussions, the NFL still has a long long way to go. You mention the studies of former NFL players who have donated their brains to science and those players weren't special teams players, they were offensive lineman, linebackers, running backs, etc. While it would possibly help eliminate some head injuries, I think the NFL would just use this to take attention away from the larger overall negative impact of how they've handled head injuries for years. Eliminating kickoffs is a step, but in the grand scheme of it, much much more needs to be done.
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True. Eliminating kickoff returns would be a PR move, but if there are 5x more head injuries on those plays, then presumably it would help cut down on the overall number. There's little doubt that other hitting during the game probably gets many players to the same place.