With the draft and other sexier things on the horizon — nothing says sexy like Organized Team Activities — it might have been easy to overlook some of the new rules enacted by the NFL yesterday. Indeed, they were buried at the bottom of an AP account that dealt mostly with a playoff reseeding measure that did not pass. But the changes seemed pretty major in a couple of (bolded) cases. Here they are, as rescued from bottom of that AP story:

The owners did pass several resolutions, including eliminating the forceout on receptions; allowing teams to defer their decision to the second half when winning the opening coin toss; and making field goals and extra points subject to replay review to determine whether the ball passes over the crossbar and through the uprights. … In addition, any direct snap from center that is untouched by the quarterback now will be a live ball; in the past it was considered a false start and the play was blown dead. The 5-yard penalty for incidental contact with a facemask has been eliminated, with the 15-yarder remaining for any grasping or twisting of the facemask.

No more “he would have landed inbounds?” That’s a fantastic move and it actually will impact 1-2 plays per game, no? Can they retroactively instate this rule for the 2003 season? (Sorry, everyone). Also, the direct snap thing was always ridiculous as a penalty instead of a fumble. It basically benefited the team that screwed up. Congratulations, NFL.

FYI: Look for a likely return of RandBites this afternoon!

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.