League considering adding booth referee
The NFL is considering adding a “booth umpire” and a senior technology adviser to the referee to assist the officiating crew.
The league also is looking at other rules changes, including an alternative to the onside kick.
NFL clubs received a list of potential rules changes on Thursday. Owners will vote on the proposals at the upcoming league meeting to be held by video conference May 28.
The league’s competition committee told teams last month it supports studying ways to determine how officiating personnel who have access to a video feed could help on-field officials. A booth umpire would serve as an eighth game official.
If owners don’t approve adding a booth umpire and/or a senior technology adviser, the league could test versions of both in the preseason for possible future implementation.
The proposal that would give teams another option instead of an onside kick permits a team to maintain possession of the ball after a score by substituting one offensive play. The kicking team would attempt a fourth-and-15 from its 25-yard line. This could be done a maximum of two times per game.
Other rules changes that’ll be discussed:
• Making permanent the expansion of automatic replay reviews to include scoring plays and turnovers negated by a foul, and any extra-point attempt.
• Providing the option to the defense for the game clock to start on the referee’s signal if the defense declines an offensive penalty that occurs late in either half. This would eliminate instances when an offense could benefit time-wise from committing a penalty.
• Expanding the defenseless player protection to a kickoff or punt returner who is in possession of the ball but who has not had time to avoid or ward off the impending contact of an opponent.
• Preventing teams from manipulating the game clock by committing multiple dead-ball fouls while the clock is running.
Owners are expected to drop the use of video reviews on pass interference after a one-year trial that caused as many headaches as it solved issues. The competition committee has recommended not renewing the rule that was put in place for last season after an egregious missed call in the 2018 NFC title game affected the result.
Player files suit against airline
An NFL player is suing
United Airlines, saying he was harassed and sexually assaulted by an intoxicated female passenger on a red-eye flight in February.
The player said in a lawsuit that soon after boarding the cross-country flight, a woman sitting in the same row confronted him over a face mask that he was wearing as protection against COVID-19.
According to the lawsuit, the woman made sexual advances, reached inside the man’s jacket to caress his chest, then grabbed his crotch and ripped off his mask.
The player said he and a man flying with him had complained several times to two flight attendants, who gave the woman one verbal warning but ignored other requests to intervene when the harassment continued, according to the lawsuit.
Lawyers for the player and the second man filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The men were not named in the lawsuit. The football player lives in Essex County, N.J., and the second man lives in Philadelphia, according to the lawsuit. They are seeking unspecified damages from the airline.
United confirmed that an incident occurred on the flight from Newark, N.J., to Los Angeles.