With the 2024 NFL common season simply across the nook, the members of the NFL’s competitors committee and sport operations groups have begun reviewing the preseason to collect data that may assist additional enhance the sport, and educate the league and its groups about latest rule adjustments.
In a convention name with reporters Thursday morning, Jeff Miller, the league’s government vp of communications, public affairs and coverage, stated the league is proud of how issues performed out with the modified kickoff.
Miller stated 70 p.c of the kickoffs throughout preseason video games had been returned. Most groups used the preseason to experiment with coverages and techniques, and gamers seized the chance to showcase their abilities whereas vying for roster spots. NFL officers suspect that the numbers will decline in the course of the common season, although. It’s doable that fairly than danger giving up kickoff yards, groups will accept touchbacks, regardless that the brand new guidelines name for the ball to be positioned on the 30-yard line fairly than the 25.
This 12 months, the NFL carried out the brand new kickoff format in an try and each cut back the danger of significant damage and to additionally return the relevance of the kickoff.
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Members of the NFL’s competitors committee have allowed for the opportunity of additional modifications to the new-look kickoff, however for now, Miller stated there have been no discussions to implement any adjustments earlier than the beginning of the common season.
The opposite main level of emphasis of this season’s rule adjustments concerned the enforcement of the hip-drop swivel sort out.
NFL officers need gamers and coaches to take away this harmful tackling method from the sport after seeing a spike in decrease physique accidents during the last a number of seasons. The now unlawful sort out entails a participant grabbing a participant from behind or the facet, unweighting his physique whereas attempting to carry the ball provider to the bottom after which touchdown on his decrease physique.
Miller stated two hip-drop swivel tackles had been noticed by the sport operations crew throughout evaluations of the preseason video games. Penalties weren’t known as in these cases as a result of the brand new guidelines stipulate that referees should see clear indicators of the method being executed. In an occasion the place the method wasn’t picked up in actual time, the sport operations crew would observe up with offending gamers and subject warnings, schooling and presumably a high-quality.
The ultimate aspect of the preseason research concerned experimentation with utilizing digital know-how to measure first downs. If the NFL opted for this change, it will get rid of the standard chain gangs. Miller stated that regardless of testing such know-how, together with using chain gangs this preseason, the NFL isn’t but prepared to maneuver ahead with this transformation. So this common season’s video games will proceed to depend on the chains and first-down markers to measure the road to realize.
“I feel that’s nonetheless an thought whose time is coming,” Miller stated. “After consideration, it’s not prepared but.”
In different information:
- The NFL has deliberate for a gap weekend jam-packed with festivities because the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs host the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday, Sept. 5, after which the next night time when the Philadelphia Eagles and Inexperienced Bay Packers face within the NFL’s first sport in São Paulo, Brazil, on the Corinthians Enviornment. The Eagles and Packers will every host watch events at their residence stadiums and the NFL will host a slate of occasions and interactive alternatives for the followers in Brazil, in addition to a watch celebration in Australia.
- Whereas plans for past this season have but to be finalized, the NFL hopes so as to add Brazil to its annual docket of places for worldwide video games together with London, Germany and different rotating worldwide cities. Peter O’Reilly, government vp of membership enterprise, worldwide and league occasions, stated the league is “dedicated to Brazil for the lengthy haul.”
- With the U.S. presidential election simply months away, the NFL’s common social justice initiatives have expanded to emphasize the significance of voting. The league has held academic periods at every crew headquarters to make sure all gamers and crew workers know the best way to register to vote. Greater than half of the NFL’s stadiums will likely be used as polling places on election day, Miller stated.
- The NFL is attempting to supply followers with extra behind-the-scenes appears to be like and elevated perception, so this 12 months’s tv broadcasts will characteristic in-game head coach and coordinator interviews, in addition to a pre-game interview with a participant from the house crew. Broadcasts additionally might characteristic sneak peeks into locker rooms earlier than kickoff.
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(Photograph: Terence Lewis / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Pictures)
