NFL team owners decide eight is enough rule changes

NFL owners followed the competition committee’s advice almost exclusively Tuesday in approving eight new playing rules for 2017.

Probably the most impactful is switching decision-making responsibility on replay reviews from the in-game referee to the league’s central review operation in New York City.

Referees will still be consulted on each coach’s challenge or review, now via the use of a handheld tablet.

Starting with pre-season games in August, one of three men on any given game day will render all replay verdicts: senior VP of officiating Dean Blandino, senior director of officiating Al Riveron or one of the NFL’s officiating supervisors. The move is intended to bring more consistency to controversial plays, such as what constitutes a catch.

That rule, like six of the other seven passed, was proposed and endorsed by the league’s influential 10-man competition committee.

The lone rule passed of the seven proposed by clubs, either individually or jointly, was Philadelphia’s to prohibit the defender who tries to perfectly time a leap over the long snapper and into the backfield to block a field goal or PAT attempt.

The other six rules passed by owners on the last full day of the league’s annual meeting are:

Making permanent last year’s experimental rule to eject a player after picking up his second unsportsmanlike-conduct foul;

Experimenting for one more season last year’s rule to bring the ball out to the 25-yard line, instead of the 20 as previously, following touchbacks;

Giving wide receivers defenceless-player protection while running pass routes;

Prohibiting crack-back blocks by a backfield player in motion, even if he’s not more than two yards outside the tackle when the play begins;

Making it illegal for a team to commit multiple fouls during the same down in a designed attempt to manipulate the game clock (this, after the Baltimore Ravens last season brilliantly burned the final 11 seconds off the clock by having their punter dance around unmolested in his own end zone while every other Ravens player egregiously held or tackled a defender, and legally so at the time, as games can only be extended by penalty when the defence commits a foul).

Making actions to conserve time illegal after the two-minute warning of either half.

Similarly, the competition committee’s three bylaw proposals all passed, while three club bylaw proposals did not. The three that passed:

Loosening for one year rules for timing, testing and administering physical exams to drafteligible players at a club’s facility;

Changing procedures for returning a player on either the reserve/physically unable-to-perform or reserve/non-football-injury-or-illness lists to active status, to equate to those for returning a player on the reserve/ designated-to-return list.

Releasing to clubs on Sundays during training camp and preseason a list of all league transactions.

Four of the six club-proposed rules that did not pass were withdrawn. Those include Washington’s proposal to further protect the long snapper; Philadelphia’s to expand the crown of the helmet to include the hairline in such targeting fouls; Philadelphia’s to expand replay by adding a third coach’s challenge, and Washington’s to allow for unlimited coach’s challenges after three, so long as the previous challenge was upheld.

The only two rules proposals to be voted down, as expected, were (1) the joint Buffalo/Seattle pitch to allow coaches to challenge virtually everything, including uncalled penalties; and, unfortunately, (2) Washington’s cool pitch to have the ball on touchbacks come out only to the 20, instead of the 25, as a reward when the kickoff specialist boots the ball over the crossbar and between the uprights.

The competition committee’s proposal to shorten overtime from 15 minutes to 10 was tabled.

Three club bylaw proposals, all submitted by Washington, did not pass. They included the elimination of the 75-man cutdown before the fourth pre-season game, a club’s ability to opt out of colour-rush uniforms, and the option to place a concussed player on the exempt list and replace him temporarily with a practice-squad player.

One of three resolutions passed: the competition committee’s proposal to permit a contract (or non-contract) football employee to interview with, and be hired by, another club during the season, as long as the employer club consents.