The NFL made some changes today.
Among them, Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that NFL owners agreed to change the bylaw and increase the number of players that can be designated to return from injured reserve from two to three.
NFL owners also approved three rule changes in total during their meeting on Thursday:
- By Philadelphia; to amend Rule 15, Section 2, to make permanent the expansion of automatic replay reviews to include scoring plays and turnovers negated by a foul, and any successful or unsuccessful Try attempt.
- By Competition Committee; expands defenseless player protection to a kickoff or punt returner who is in possession of the ball but who has not had time to avoid or ward off the impending contact of an opponent.
- By Competition Committee; prevents teams from manipulating the game clock by committing multiple dead-ball fouls while the clock is running.
The game clock rule change stems from Bill Belichick exploiting a loophole the point that other teams began to do it also.
While up 33-0 on the Jets and facing a 4th-and-2, the Patriots intentionally took a delay of game penalty but the Jets declined it. The Pats then took an intentional false start penalty, which was also declined, before finally punting it away.
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Because the clock was running at the time of the first penalty, it kept running after the play clock was reset. That allowed the Patriots to run more than a minute off the clock.
“No, it was just the way the rules are set up,” Belichick told reporters. “We were able to run quite a bit of time off the clock without really having to do anything. That’s probably a loophole that will be closed and probably should be closed but right now it’s open.”
He was right and now it is closed.
