NFL, Players Association reportedly mulling offseason schedule changes for NFL Draft, free agency

We interrupt your regularly scheduled posts for some interesting NFL news! ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that the NFL and NFL Players Association are on the verge of some changes to the NFL's offseason schedule. The changes include pushing the NFL Draft to May and moving up the start of the new league year to before the NFL Scouting Combine.

These are significant date changes. The NFL Draft is usually in mid-late April, and the start of the new league year is in early-mid March. This year, the Scouting Combine was held from Feb. 20-26, and the new league year began on March 12.

Moving the beginning of the new year does seem to make sense. The NFLPA likely wants it done so they can protect the interests of veteran free agents around the league. Starting the league year before the combine gives free agents more time to find a team, and before the rookies get a chance to show their stuff, too.

As far as moving the draft back is concerned, I don't really know why that's happening. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but the only thing this will do is push all relevant minicamp dates back and give us another few weeks of meaningless draft rumors and, of course mock drafts!

How does this affect the 49ers in particular? Well, the start of the new league year moving up is somewhat significant due to the fact that the 49ers are likely to be playoff and Super Bowl contenders for some time. It's less time spent in preparation for these things with the new league year beginning in the same month as the Super Bowl.