Possible NFL rules changes being considered

By Keith Myers | Mar 18, 2015

The NFL’s competition committee met this week to discuss 23 proposed NFL rules changes for next season. Some of them are good ideas. Others are completely asinine and only worth a laugh. They will make recommendations to the league owner for any potential changes at the owner’s meetings at the end of the month.

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13 of the 23 proposals have to do with instant replay. With that many teams suggesting changes, it is safe to say that we’ll se some tweaks to the system this year.

One proposal involves the removal of coach challenge flags. Instead, the coach calls a timeout and then tells the official he wants to challenge the play. If he wins the challenge, he is given his timeout back. This idea won’t change the system except to remove the red flags.

The Lions want every penalty reviewable. While there is merit to that idea, that’ll never pass. The Titans and Washington have introduced variants of that proposal. One asks for personal fouls to be reviewable, the other asks for any penalty that results in an automatic first down to be reviewable.

The Patriots have asked to remove the ban on coaches’ challenges in the last two minutes of each half and in overtime. They’ve also asked for fixed goalline, endline and sideline cameras to help make reviews better.

The most insane idea came from the Indianapolis Colts. They suggested that every team be required to go for two points after every touchdown. A successful 2-point conversion would then result in an extra-point try from 50 yards out. This rule change would means that teams could get nine points from any touchdown.

Speaking of changes to the PAT system, the Patriots re-introduced the PAT idea from last year, in which the PAT is pushed back to the 15 yard line. The idea gained enough support a year ago to get a 2-week trial in the preseason. This proposal has a good chance to pass this year.

As expected, the league will vote on making it so that both teams get a possession in overtime. Given the outrage that we saw when Aaron Rogers didn’t get to touch the ball in the NFC Championship Game, I wouldn’t be surprised if this change actually happened.

The league will also discuss the definition of a catch again. That Dez Bryant non-catch in the playoffs still has some people annoyed. There is no official proposal for a rule change though, so we won’t see a drastic alteration of the rule.

What is likely though is that we will get a more precise definition of what a “football move” is. The rule is too vague at the moment which leads to inconsistent interpretations. There are a lot of problems with this rule, and clarification can only improve things.

One thing that isn’t on the agenda is expanding the playoffs. This feels inevitable since the owners want to make more money, but it won’t happen until 2016 at the earliest. That means, we should get at least one more season that doesn’t include extra mediocre teams in the postseason.

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