The National Football League’s annual meeting will take place next week in Boca Raton, Florida and the Competition Committee will be reviewing NFL rule change proposals for the upcoming season. Spoiler: There will be no consideration of changes to the most confounding rule of all the “let’s guess what a catch is rule.” So what is on the agenda for the competition committee? You can find a full list here but we will discuss only those most likely to be of interest. There are 19 proposals in all. Nine of them are by the committee itself with teams responsible for the remaining proposals. Most likely to be most popular for passage is the proposal by the Washington Redskins to eliminate overtime in preseason games.
Competition Committee Proposals:
1. By Competition Committee; Permanently moves the line of scrimmage for Try kicks to the defensive team’s 15-yard line, and allows the defense to return any missed Try.
Already implemented in 2015 and popular this seems most likely to pass without much debate.
2. By Competition Committee; Permits the offensive and defensive play callers on the coaching staffs to use the coach-to-player communication system regardless of whether they are on the field or in the coaches’ booth.
A very common sense approach to technology and allows more freedom for coordinators to choose whether to be on the sideline or in the booth.
3. By Competition Committee; Makes all chop blocks illegal.
What took so long? Hard to believe the NFL would not pass this one.
4. By Competition Committee; Disqualifies a player who is penalized twice in one game for certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct fouls.
In the conference call discussing the upcoming rules, the NFL said 2 players would have been automatically ejected last season under this proposal. A look at the full rule shows why this might easily be one of the more controversial proposals.
Amend Rule 12 (Player Conduct, p. 47) to add a new Section 4 (new language underlined): Section 4 Automatic Disqualification. Article 1. Multiple Fouls. In addition to any penalty referenced elsewhere in the Official Playing Rules, a player will be automatically disqualified in the event that player is penalized twice in the same game for committing one of the unsportsmanlike conduct fouls listed below, or a combination of the fouls listed below: (a) Throwing a punch, or a forearm, or kicking at an opponent, even though no contact is made. (b) Using abusive, threatening, or insulting language or gestures to opponents, teammates, officials, or representatives of the League. (c) Using baiting or taunting acts or words that engender ill will between teams. The player will be automatically disqualified regardless of whether the penalty is accepted or declined by the opponent. The fouls do not have to be judged by the official to be flagrant for the automatic disqualification to occur, and any foul that occurs during the pregame warm-up period will carry over into the game. Nothing in this section supersedes the Game Official’s discretion to judge a foul to be flagrant and disqualify the player based on one occurrence. The addition of a new Section 4 will cause the current Section 4 to become Section 5.
What constitutes abusive, threatening or insulting language is of course subject to interpretation and debate. The NFL did make it clear through Troy Vincent on the conference call this would apply to coaches as well. Oh boy that should be fun to watch next year.
What is unclear is whether there are warnings for abusive speech or whether one of the officials must actually witness/hear the words. That would seem the most common sense approach since it would eliminate teams from intentionally getting opponents ejected as a purely competitive move. Legislating speech is always problematic because of subjectivity. We will have to see what comes out of this one.
The automatic ejection for 2 personal fouls would seem to be a no brainer.
5. By Competition Committee; Changes the spot of the next snap after a touchback resulting from a free kick to the 25-yard line.
Another tweaking designed to reduce injuries on special teams. Could possibly pass a one year looksie much like the extra point rule did last year.
16. By Competition Committee; Expands the horse collar rule to include when a defender grabs the jersey at the name plate or above and pulls a runner toward the ground.
This is a needed change to the rule and should pass.
17. By Competition Committee; Makes it a foul for delay of game when a team attempts to call a timeout when it is not permitted to do so.
Team Proposals
The Baltimore Ravens have two interesting proposals on the table the more interesting of which is this:
7. By Baltimore; to amend Rule 15, Section 2, Articles 1, 4, and 5 (Instant Replay) to provide each team with three challenges and expand reviewable plays.
This makes rather extensive changes to the challenge rule and eliminates the prohibition against challenging inside the two minute warning. It also makes changes to the replay system as well. It adds one challenge but does not allow for returning successful challenges and adds a 15 yard penalty for attempting to challenge a play when all timeouts have been exhausted. Expect this to be debated a lot.
Minnesota has its own version of amending the challenge/replay system:
12. By Minnesota; to amend Rule 15, Section 2, Article 1 (Coaches’ Challenge) to eliminate the requirement that a team be successful on each of its first two Instant Replay challenges in order to be awarded a third challenge.
Washington also weighs in on the subject:
14. By Washington; to amend Rule 15, Section 2, Article 4 (Reviewable Plays) to subject personal foul penalties to Instant Replay review.
15. By Washington; to amend Rule 15, Section 2, Article 1 (Coaches’ Challenge) to eliminate the requirement that a team be successful on each of its first two Instant Replay challenges in order to be awarded a third challenge.
The rule clearly needs revision and it will be rather interesting to see if anything is done this year.
Again, the full list is available via the NFL’s communications website here. Once the meetings kick off we will keep you posted as the debates rage on. Stay tuned to Pro Player Insiders for further developments. You can follow Sharona on twitter at @SportsBysharona and on Instagram at @sharonasports.
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