As voluntary workouts for every NFL team roll on, the league finalized new rules for the upcoming 2025 season at the owner’s meetings this past Wednesday. The fate of a controversial play was determined, supplemental technology was approved to modernize first down measurements, overtime rules were changed, new free agent policies are going to be implemented, and touchbacks are being moved once again. Here is a look at the changes coming up for the 2025 season.
Teams voted unanimously to allow NFL players to compete in the Summer Olympics, which will add flag football as an official competition when the world games come to the United States in 2028. The agreed upon policy states that one player from each team would be allowed to compete for their country. The selected player will have extra injury protection. Who could be selected from the Browns? Maybe David Njoku, who would likely represent Nigeria, where he earned the title of chief in his familial village in Nigeria’s Igboland. Myles Garrett would be a fun addition to Team USA as well. It will be interesting to see who competes from the Browns.
Also up for a vote was the fate of the oft-discussed Tush Push, made famous by the Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles. Talks of banning the play had circled for a while, but an official vote to ban it was put forward by the Green Bay Packers. The ban needed 24 votes to pass but fell short by 2 votes. The Browns are reportedly one of the 10 teams who voted to keep the play.
There was discussion of playoff reseeding proposed by the Detroit Lions, but that was thrown out before a vote could be cast. The proposal wanted to seed teams based on record, not on division place. They wanted to reward teams with better regular season records. There’s talk that this proposal could be resubmitted, but for now, it has been tabled.
The league and its owners also voted to pass a rule change that would allow onside kicks in any quarter as long as the team is trailing. This has been changed a few times, with the most recent adjustment being that teams could only declare an onside kick in the fourth quarter of games, and teams were required to declare when they were attempting one. With this new policy, the onside kick will be bumped up a yard starting at the 34-yard line as opposed to the 35.
Overtime rules have also changed for the upcoming season. The NFL used this new format in the postseason last year and is now being implemented full-time. The new rule will allow both teams to possess the ball in overtime once. If the score is still tied after that, the next score wins the game.
Replay assist is getting expanded as well. Under the new rules, replay review can be used to look at fouls on defenseless players, facemask fouls, tripping, and roughing the kicker fouls. It will also be available to pick up flags thrown if there is no clear evidence for the initial call. However, a flag will still need to be thrown to initiate replay assist, so if the officials miss a call, replay cannot be used.
First downs will no longer be measured by the chain gang on the field-the NFL will be using six Sony Hawk-Eye 8k cameras to track the ball’s position, hoping to eliminate the time it takes to manually measure first downs. The chain gang will still be on the field, but they will be used as a peripheral in case something were to happen with the cameras. It’s about time the league implemented technology to measure first downs-hopefully that is a sign that there are more additions to come.
The Pittsburgh Steelers proposed a new rule that would allow teams to speak directly to free agent players and schedule travel during the free agent negotiating window. Previously, teams were only allowed to speak to a player’s agent. This proposal should help streamline the negotiating process for teams. It is being implemented on a one year trial with the opportunity to become a permanent rule after this season.
The final new ruling involves kickoffs. The NFL has been trying for years, unsuccessfully, to encourage more kick returns. This year, in their latest attempt to increase kickoff returns, the league has ruled that touchbacks will now be placed at the 35 yard line. Previously, touchbacks were placed at the 30 yard line. It will be interesting to see if this actually changes anything, because they felt similarly confident about the change before this one and yet teams still barely ever returned a kickoff.
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