"Trump got his ass kicked in these debates, so they want to change the rules. It’s like a football team that can’t pass, so they want to make it illegal to pass."

Said Stuart Stevens, "who was Mitt Romney’s chief strategist in 2012 and who worked against Trump’s reelection in 2020," quoted in "Trump blows a hole in 2024 presidential debates/The RNC's move stamps former president’s imprint on future debates" (Politico). 

What is the rule change that is the equivalent of outlawing passing in football? What was Trump so bad at that it corresponds to "a football team that can’t pass"? 

What Trump opposed was the use of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which he accuses of bias, to set up the debates, so I think the analogy should be something more like a football team that believes the referees systematically favor their opponents.

Republicans have long complained that debates and their media moderators are biased against them — what Saul Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, called “a very serious frustration among Republicans in general, and many of the candidates in the campaigns, that we don’t necessarily get a fair deal.”

I pause my reading this long article and just search the page for "candy." Finding none, I decide not to plow through the entire text. 

ADDED: Stuart Stevens was Mitt Romney’s chief strategist when Romney suffered the most egregious display of moderator bias in the history of televised presidential debates, the thing that made me do the search for "candy." Speaking of getting your ass kicked in the debate! And now he turns around and trashes Trump for directly speaking out about the bias. I guess what Stevens wants is for Republican candidates to endure and just keep trying harder... or maybe enjoy the pleasures of serving in a party that is systematically in the minority.