NFL owners have managed to actually make some good decisions in their latest round of rule changes. Following word that the league has removed the 75-man roster cut, we have a couple new interesting changes. First, the league will remove several restrictions on player celebrations. Second, the league will allow a second player to return from injured reserve.
Not everything was positive. The league cut overtime from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. Some will claim player health and safety, but that’s a bunch of nonsense. If the league actually cared about health and safety, they would get rid of Thursday Night Football. In this new OT rule, it’s about useless window-dressing/
Celebrations
Tom Pelissero was the first to report on the significant changes to celebrations (official NFL announcement). The league will allow group celebrations, using the ball as a prop, snow angels, and so forth. They will not allow anything “prolonged,” miming weapons, or “sexually suggestive stuff.”
Roger Goodell is expected to tell NFL owners group celebrations, using ball as prop after TDs, going to ground, snow angels are now allowed.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) May 23, 2017
Prolonged acts, miming weapons, offensive gestures, sexually suggestive stuff still expected to be banned. That includes twerking. Sorry, AB
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) May 23, 2017
Goodell has been meeting with players for months on this. Emphasis on spontaneous exuberance. Result should be more fun, fewer flags.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) May 23, 2017
I’m not sure why it took this long for the league to realize how ridiculous the excessive celebration rules have been. It’s a game and people are trying to have fun with it. Allowing for these kinds of celebrations will offer a little more enjoyment, and less frustration when a flag is thrown because a player is having a good time.
Speaking of which, you might recall this play from last year resulting in a penalty.
Injured reserve
The league is slowly making its way toward and MLB style disabled list. A long time ago, teams could move players off and on injured reserve. There were concerns about good teams stashing players, and so the league changed the rule so that once a player was placed on IR, he was not allowed to come off during the season. A few years ago, the league changed it to allow one person to return. This change to two players moves us closer to a system similar to what we saw back in the day. I get not wanting everybody coming back quickly, but allowing for more people to return instead of simply being lost for the year is a solid step in my opinion.