Lombardi Ave » NFL Competition Committee

NFL Competition Committee: No pads, no play

Raymond Rivard — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:33:33 +0000

The turf at Soldier Field isn’t known for being the best.
Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

The rules they are a-changin’ in the NFL.

A couple of the changes are no-brainers, such as the dropping of the “tuck rule” that has caused so much consternation across the league for the past decade or more and the “Jim Schwartz rule,” which got the Detroit Lions coach in deep too-doo and nearly ensnared Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy in the same scenario.

In addition to six rules changes, the league’s competition also recommended three by-laws changes and a couple points of emphasis which will enrage wideouts and another rule that could get the Chicago Bears in a whole lot of trouble.

The first point of emphasis is the uniform regulation that will require all players to wear thigh and knee pads. Many wide receivers and defensive backs abhor wearing the pads because they slow them down. Well, the game may be a bit slower this year because no player will be allowed on the field without them.

The second point was that all fields must conform to NFL specifications, which might put the Chicago Bears in jeopardy because of the condition of the Soldier Field turf in the past. I guess they will have to spend a few bucks and hire the right people to get the job done there.

All of the rules were posted today by David Smith of profootballtalk.com. You can click on over there or just scroll down for the rules suggestions:

Proposed rule changes

1. A play that would have been automatically reviewed by instant replay will still be reviewed even if a coach throws his challenge flag. Any coach who challenges a play that he’s not permitted to challenge would be charged a timeout, and wouldn’t get his timeout back even if he wins the challenge, or would lose 15 yards if his team is out of timeouts. But the play itself will still be reviewed. Call this the Jim Schwartz Rule. The league will also consider reviewing incomplete passes that are ruled a fumble all the way through the fumble — if a play is ruled on the field to be incomplete and overturned on replay as a fumble, the replay can consider everything that happens after that fumble.

2. Player safety: On field goals and extra points, restrictions are added to what rush teams can do. No more than six defensive players would be permitted to align on either side of the snapper, defensive players can’t push their teammates across the line, and the long snapper is considered a defenseless player.

3. Eliminate the tuck rule.

4. Allow tight ends and H-backs to wear 40-49.

5. Player safety: Offensive players will not be allowed to block low when going toward their own end lines in the tackle box. Can’t go low when peeling back anywhere on the field.

6. Player safety: Initiating contact with the crown of the helmet is a foul if the runner or tackler delivers a forceable blow against his opponent when both players are outside the tackle box.

Proposed bylaw changes

1. The waiver period will be such that a team that claims a player only needs to keep him for one day, not two days.

2. Adjust the physically unable to perform status to allow players on PUP to practice for any three-week period from Week Six through Week 11.

3. Move the final roster cutdown date one day earlier.

New points of emphasis

1. Mandatory thigh and knee pads. This isn’t a new rule but the officials will start actively enforcing the rule, rather than just urging players to wear the pads as they did last year. A player who refuses to comply with the rule won’t be allowed on the field.

2. Fields must be maintained up to NFL standards, and the league can require clubs to maintain their fields up to the league’s high standards, at the club’s expense.

Rules changes to be considered at NFL meetings

Raymond Rivard — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:10:51 +0000

Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy is a member of the competition committee that will be considering rules changes at the upcoming NFL meetings. Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

There are some interesting rules changes that will be considered at the upcoming NFL meetings, namely those that would change the horse collar tackle, overtime rules, the handling of replays, and moving the trade deadlines, among others.

Probably a couple of the most interesting changes would involve the ever-present instant replay rule and the overtime regulations.

The replay proposal would put the final decision into the hands of the official in the booth and not the official on the field. Makes sense to me. If instituted, it could speed up the decision – something that’s been a rock in the shoe of the NFL for years.

In addition, the new playoff overtime rules that went into effect last year may be now included for all regular season games. It only makes sense, IMO, that the new rules be used in the regular season games. Teams and coaches argue that they shouldn’t have to prepare differently for playoff games when it comes to overtime.

In a splendid look at each of the rules that will be considered by the NFL rules committee, these explanations were recently posted at espnmilwaukee.com.

It includes an explanation or clarification of each of the rules by Rich McCay, chairman of the competition committee.

Read on:

• Changing instant replay so the replay official up in the booth makes all decisions as opposed to the referee on the field. The rule change was proposed by the Buffalo Bills.

“(The Bills’) theory would be there that you speed up the review process just by the sense that their following a little bit of the college model,” McKay said. “The thing about our system is we developed our system based on our experience the last time. In other words, when we were in, I guess, ’86 to ’92 or whatever it was that we had the old system of replay – that’s how we developed the idea that the referee would be the decision maker because we felt like he had the best ability to one, talk to the on-field official and two, have complete command of the rules and the application of the them. This is a proposal that will definitely, I think, generate discussion but I think it was directed at trying to speed it up.”

• Modifying the horse-collar tackle rule to remove the exception for tackling the quarterback inside the pocket. Proposed by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the new rule would state that if a quarterback inside the pocket is tackled by a horse collar tackle, it would be a 15-yard penalty. It currently is not.

“(It’s) a very narrow exception that does not happen very often,” McKay said. “Every once in a while a defensive lineman reaches over and grabs the quarterback and pulls him down. They just believe that should be a foul, because today it is not. With respect to the horse collar in general, we looked at a lot of plays. You will see in our report that we will talk about the horse collar, because it is still too much a part of our game and has too much of a high risk of injury. It is something we definitely want to see out of our game.”

• Applying the postseason overtime rule to regular-season games as well. Proposed by the Steelers, the ‘opportunity to possess rule’ would become uniform for the entire year, not just the playoffs.

“If I have my statistics right, which I think I do, in the last 32 overtime games in the regular season, 27 times both teams have had a possession. So there are only five games where you had only one team have a possession,” McKay said. “What the coaches’ feeling was, and dealing with the coaches sub-committee certainly supports the change to the regular season also – strategically they like to prepare the same way in the regular season that they do in the postseason, and they really don’t want to have different rules and have to change their approach to overtime.”

• Adopting the college rule for too many men on the field, a change that would make the penalty a dead-ball foul as it is in college.

• Expanding replay-booth reviews to all turnover plays, just like all scoring plays are now automatically reviewed by the replay official upstairs and then confirmed. The rule change would potentially save coaches a challenge. That rule change was proposed by the committee.

The noteworthy by-law proposals include:

• Moving the trade deadline to after Week 8. It currently is after Week 6.

“We thought that would potentially open up more trading than has gone on in the past,” McKay said. “The trade deadline has traditionally been a little disappointing. There is a lot of talk about it but then not very many transactions because of the nature of our sport being such a team sport. But our thought is that there could potentially be more trades now because of the salary cap and adjustment to it, and this was a way to give people a little more leeway.”

• Increasing the offseason/training camp roster limit to 90 players. It is currently 80 players. However, the 90-man limit would count unsigned draft picks, which under the 80-man limit currently do not.

• Adding an injured reserve category in which if a player is carried on the roster through the first weekend of the regular season, that player could be placed on a reserve list and be allowed to practice six weeks later and play two weeks after that.

“The idea being that you’ve got that marquee player, you’ve got that central-core player on your team. He gets hurt really early in the season, whether it’s in training camp or whether it’s at the start of the season, and there’s still that chance that he could come back,” McKay said. “Yet, if the coach knows and the general manager knows that this player is going to be out for eight weeks, they may just write the player off and say, ‘I need the roster spot.’

“This gives you a little more flexibility to keep that player and keep that player potentially eligible to come back. That was the object. It was directed to that player that’s a core, kind of marquee-type player that you may think has a chance at coming back late in the season and just giving you a little more roster flexibility to do it.”

• Designating a roster exemption for a player with a concussion.

The proposals will be presented to the teams on Monday and voted on on Wednesday, before the meetings adjourn. For a rule change to pass, it must be approval by 24 of the league’s 32 teams.

Ten years, Charles Woodson, and the Tuck Rule

Raymond Rivard — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:37:45 +0000

How 10 years fly by – just ask Charles Woodson.

It was 10 years ago today that he hit Tom Brady on a snow-covered field in Foxboro Stadium, causing the New England Patriot quarterback to fumble the football. What ensued was the recovery of the ball by Woodson’s teammate, Greg Biekert, which seemingly put the Oakland Raiders in a position to run out the clock and give them a win in the playoff game.

That was before the game’s referee, Walt Coleman, went under the instant replay hood and came back to overturn the decision on the field utilizing a little known rule, the tuck rule, to give the ball back to the Patriots. New England went on to tie the score on a field goal by Adam Vinatieri and later won the game in overtime with another kick by Vinatieri.

How many times the rule has been used since then couldn’t be counted but it’s become one of the most well-known, and most misunderstood rules in the books.

Since that day, Woodson has gone on to win a world championship with the 2010 Green Bay Packers and that particular day is a distant memory for him.

Here is how the rule reads:

NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2. When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble.

According to Wikipedia, the rule isn’t appreciated by all. Here’s an excerpt:

While the NFL has defended the call, not everybody has agreed. Bruce Allen, who ran the front office for the Raiders at the time of the game, still believes it was a fumble. “The rule itself doesn’t bother me,” he said. “But the way the rule is written, it was a fumble.” Nevertheless, when the NFL’s Competition Committee re-examined the rule after the 2001-2002 season, they made no changes to the rule; Mike Pereira, the former director of officiating of the NFL, notes that attempts have been made to revise the rule, but such revisions have always proven to be more difficult to enforce than the current rule.

In honor of that particular day, here is a video from the day.