NFL TEAM MEETING: New Orleans

[BaumerJet]

By Mark Maske, Tuesday, March 22, 4:15 PM

Washintton Post.com

NEW ORLEANS — NFL owners approved rule changes Tuesday to improve safety on kickoffs and require instant replay review for all scoring plays.

On kickoffs, the ball will be placed at the 35-yard line, instead of the 30 as it is now, and members of the coverage team will be allowed no more than a five-yard running start before the kick. Both moves give tacklers less time to build up speed before hitting the kick returner.

Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, which had proposed the changes, said the modifications would make the kickoff a safer play.

What “we wanted to achieve is changing where the coverage team lines up . . . Hopefully that changes the [injury] numbers. We think it will,” he said.

No changes were made to where the ball will be placed on kickoff touchbacks or rules that allow two blockers on the kick return team to line up shoulder-to-shoulder in a “wedge.” The competition committee originally proposed placing the ball at the 25-yard line , instead of the 20, on touchbacks, and eliminating wedge blocking entirely.

But after objections were raised Monday by coaches, particularly to the spot of the ball on touchbacks, the competition committee modified its proposal.

Baltimore Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said earlier Tuesday: “The two-man wedge hasn’t really caused injuries. The three- and four-man wedge was a good elimination. The two-man wedge, that protects the returner.”

The changes would take effect at the start of the 2011 season.

Cincinnati Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis, a member of the competition committee, said earlier Tuesday that the modifications to the proposal were intended to generate the votes necessary for ratification.

“We knew it was going to be a really drastic change,” Lewis said at the coaches’ breakfast with reporters. “It really caught everybody off guard.”

Lewis said he understood the resistance by some coaches to the proposal. But coaches need to understand, Lewis said, that the changes are being made in the name of safety.

“Sometimes as coaches we need to really take a look at the bigger picture,” Lewis said. “Being on this committee, you take a different look at things.”

Harbaugh said at the coaches’ breakfast that he supported the idea of making the kickoff safer but believed the changes would favor the kicking team over the returning team.

“To me, it will swing the balance of the play dramatically to the kickoff team,” said Harbaugh, who coached the Philadelphia Eagles’ special teams for many years.

McKay predicted that the number of touchbacks will increase modestly from last season’s 16 percent. He said he understood why teams with productive kick returners opposed the measure, which needed at least 24 votes among the 32 teams and passed, 26-6.

But McKay also said: “We are always going to have player safety trump the competitive aspect of the game, period.”

The new replay rule was approved by a vote of 30-2, eliminating the need for a coach to challenge a scoring play before it can be reviewed. Coaches, in fact, are barred from challenging scoring plays. The challenge system for replay otherwise remains unchanged.

The proposal was modified to continue giving a team a third replay challenge if it gets its first two correct. The plan originally would have eliminated the third replay challenge.

The owners also ratified a measure that requires league approval before a team can color its home field anything but green.

There was no vote by the owners Tuesday on plans to expand the protection for a defenseless receiver making a catch and to ban a tackler from launching himself at an opponent in almost all cases. Those measures might be resubmitted to the owners at their next meeting in May as two separate proposals, McKay said.

Guess this means they are following the standards of the NCAA these days - what do you think?

[THE ILK]

Yeah but will the trapezoid still be behind the net?

[visajets]

NFL moves kickoffs up to 35-yard line, keeps touchbacks at 20

Published: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 4:27 PM Updated: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 4:39 PM

By The Associated Press

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerThe NFL today approved rule adjustment's the league feels will make kickoffs safer.

NEW ORLEANS -- The NFL will move kickoffs up 5 yards to the 35-yard line, keep touchbacks coming out to the 20 and allow the number of players in a blocking wedge to remain at two.

Kick coverage players now will be limited to lining up 5 yards or fewer from the spot of the kickoff.

Team owners also voted today to make all scoring plays reviewable by the replay official and referee. But they tabled a proposal to ban players launching themselves to make a tackle, and will reconsider it in May.

The league's competition committee proposed placing the ball at the 25 after touchbacks on kickoffs and banning the wedge altogether. Several coaches expressed concern about making too many changes to kickoffs, also saying bringing touchbacks out 5 more yards would affect field position too much. Coaches worried about an increase in touchbacks from the 16 percent of kickoffs last season.

"Any time there's a touchback and now it's not coming to the 20," Saints coach Sean Payton said, "I think that that probably was the most drastic of the four or five items that constituted one rule."

Making kickoffs safer was the objective, and Payton believes the owners met it, voting 26-6 for the new rule.

[4HCrew]

what's next no kickoffs at all?

[Vudu]

Who cares if there won't be a season?