The initial flurry of free agency moves is over, and we know how different some NFL rosters will look next season—but how different will the onfield product be come September? That’s the question being addressed at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando this week.
Beginning on Monday, the group of 32 owners will closely look at over 10 proposed rule changes and could come to a final decision on the possibility of playoff expansion from 12 to 14 teams.
While some of the changes appear to be obvious, here are five of the main discussion topics for the week.
1) Pushing the extra point back: Moving the line of scrimmage for the point-after-touchdown kick to the 25-yard line.
Roger Goodell and Bill Belichick have openly discussed the need to consider changing the extra point play. It is outdated and has essentially become automatic. Kickers only missed five of 1,267 extra point attempts (99.6 per cent completion rate) last season. As Belichick said, that’s not what the extra point was intended to be when it was put in place over 100 years ago.
The current proposal would have the extra point kick moving from the two-yard line back to the 25-yard line — making it a 43-yard field goal. At the same time, the two-point conversion would still take place at the two-yard line.
Will rule change be approved?: Unlikely. The more plausible scenario appears to be a trial and error period in future pre-season games. “We are going to propose … to the membership during one of the preseason weeks that we move the extra point back to the 20-yard line and see how that goes. It’s on our radar.” St. Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher told reporters on a conference call.
2) Moving kickoffs up to the 40-yard line: The Washington Redskins made this ‘player safety’ proposal to help reduce collisions on kickoffs.
In fact, this might entirely remove kickoff returns from the game. Just three years ago, the NFL owners agreed to move kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line. That largely increased the number of touchbacks and hurt the value of kick returners and special teams players around the league.
The Redskins want kickoffs moved to the 40 yard-line for “safety and historic consistency,” although doing so might totally eliminate returns. But some coaches hint it could lead to more pooch kicks, which wouldn’t make the kickoff any safer.
Will rule change be approved? Unlikely. There isn’t enough evidence that adding an extra five yards to the kickoff would do much to increase safety. You might as well eliminate the kickoff if you move it to the 40-yard line. They’ve already done enough to limit the play and limit the value of special teams players involved in kickoff returns.
3) Raise the uprights of the NFL goalposts: The New England Patriots proposed raising the height of the uprights to 35 feet.
Currently, the NFL uprights are 30 feet tall. The Patriots believe that added height on the uprights will help with some judgment calls on field goals. They believe there’s too much grey area on kicks that go over the top of the posts. The goal is to help eliminate human error from referees on this play.
Will this be approved? Likely. This came up last year during the playoffs when Matt Prater was awarded with a field goal that likely should not have counted. It would be good for the league to get rid of these mistakes that could decide games and it wouldn’t be expected be a huge cost for the 32 teams.
4) The “Navarro Bowman” rule: Allow for replay to review a fumble and recovery even when a official rules the ball carrier as ‘down’.
This became an issue during the NFC Championship Game last season when the San Francisco 49ers linebacker stripped the ball from Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse near the end zone. The refs couldn’t see what was happening and the referee ruled Kearse down, negating the Bowman takeaway.
In this scenario, even if a referee rules the ball carrier as down, a play can still be reviewed and overturned. In the current format, if the ball career is ruled as ‘down’, it is not considered a reviewable play by the officials.
Will this be changed? Very likely. This appears to be a minor tweak to the current rule and one that would help ensure that the game is being properly officiated. The mistake by the officials on Bowman’s play could have a had major impact in the NFC Championship had Marshawn Lynch not fumbled on the following play. There’s no reason not to change this.
5) Increase active roster from 46 to 49: This rule would apply for teams that are playing on games that are not on Sunday or Monday—basically just Thursday night football.
This is another safety issue. Many believe that the weekly Thursday night games are incredibly challenging on players to prepare for. Players are not given enough time to heal from their last game and their bodies are not prepared to play with just three days off. The NFL owners love all the revenue that comes with the weekly Thursday night football games, but it has been clear that the product has been watered down over the past few years.
Will this be changed? This could go either way. Skepticism remains. Changing just a small number of active roster spots won’t do much to help the issue and starters would still see the majority of the playing time during the short weeks.