Owners in Atlanta to discuss myriad issues

Anthem protests, new kickoff rules, gambling among key topics.

NFL owners and other top executives of the 32 NFL teams will attend the league’s annual spring meetings at a Buckhead hotel today and Wednesday, tackling topics that range from player protests during the national anthem to changes in kickoff rules.

There’s a lot of business on the table for the meetings, including the expected approval of billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper’s purchase of the Carolina Panthers and the expected selection of Glendale, Ariz., and New Orleans as sites of the 2023 and 2024 Super Bowls, respectively. Still, the league’s hottest-button issue remains whether to develop a new rule regarding player protests during the national anthem before games.

After much controversy the past two years about some players kneeling, owners indicated at their March meetings in Orlando that the issue would be deferred until this week’s meetings. But with a new season just over three months away, it doesn’t appear a consensus has emerged on how to proceed, with options ranging from leaving the issue up to individual teams to adopting some sort of league-wide mandate. The issue is not listed on the meetings’ official agenda this week, according to NFL.com, yet is sure to command attention over the next two days.

The meetings will be held less than 10 miles from the site of the next Super Bowl, which will be played Feb. 3, 2019, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. But much

more distant Super Bowls are on the owners’ agenda.

The NFL recently changed its longstanding method of awarding Super Bowls: Rather than weighing competing bids from multiple cities, the league now pre-selects one preferred location with which to negotiate terms for a given year’s game. The Arizona Cardinals’ stadium emerged as the preferred site for the 2023 Super Bowl, with city councils in Phoenix and Glendale last month passing resolutions of support requested by the NFL. Similarly, New Orleans is the only suitor for the 2024 Super Bowl.

But it’ll still be up to NFL owners to vote on whether to award those games after hearing presentations from each city Wednesday. Super Bowls through the 2022 game have been previously awarded. After Atlanta hosts the 2019 game, the Super Bowl goes to Miami in 2020, Tampa in 2021 and Los Angeles in 2022.

In a playing-rules matter, the owners will consider a series of changes designed to limit the risk of head injuries during kickoffs by reducing high-speed collisions. Proposed changes include eliminating running starts for kicking teams; requiring five players, rather than at least four, to line up on each side of the kicker; requiring at least eight of the 11 members of the return team to be positioned in a 15-yard “set-up zone” before kickoffs; and new blocking rules.

Another certain topic of discussion during the meetings: last week’s landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows individual states to decide whether to legalize gambling on sports events. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement Monday that the league has “spent considerable time planning for the potential of broadly legalized sports gambling” and is “asking Congress to enact uniform standards for states that choose to legalize.”

An announcement also is planned during the meetings regarding the site of next year’s NFL draft, with Nashville considered the favorite.