For years (actually decades), the Competition Committee has served as the primary generator of potential NFL rule changes. A subtle shift in that approach seems to be developing.
Or, if it already existed, there’s now tangible evidence of it happening.
Case in point. The Lions’ proposal to seed the seven playoff teams in each conference without regard to division championship wasn’t something the Lions formulated during a brainstorming session at team headquarters. The suggestion to make the suggestion came from 345 Park Avenue.
Here’s how it happened, as explained by Jeremy Reisman of PrideOfDetroit.com.
As the winner-take-all, regular-season finale between the 14-2 Vikings and 14-2 Lions approached, Detroit receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown spoke out about the unfairness of the loser having to go on the road to face a division winner with a lesser record.
“It’s crazy,” St. Brown said at the time. “I think the rule should be changed. Obviously if you win the division, you should obviously make a playoff spot, but having a 14-win team having to go on the road is kind of crazy. But I guess I don’t make the rules.”
No, St. Brown doesn’t make the rules. But his comments could have a hand in changing them.
As St. Brown’s remarks went viral, NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent took notice. And, instead of adding the possibility to the agenda of the Competition Committee for the usual bill-becomes-law protocol, Vincent made a phone call to Lions president Rod Wood.
“Troy Vincent from the league reached out to me and said, ‘I tend to agree with [St. Brown],’” Wood said this week at the league meetings. “‘Would you mind partnering with us on making a proposal on that?’ So we made a proposal.”
They did. But it wasn’t presented as a partnership with the league. It was a proposal from the Lions, and only from the Lions. The effort resurrected a conversation that has happened in the past. While the broad-brush proposal to potentially put division champions on the road in the Wild Card round was tabled until May, the placement of the subject on the owners’ radar screen could result in a more focused tweaking to the playoff format.
“What if you said, ‘Win the division you get a home game and you keep it the way it is, unless your record is .500 or lower? Then you don’t.’ I think there’s some talk about that,” Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said this week. “So I think people want to keep looking at it.”
Regardless of what happens in May, there’s an alternative recipe for the NFL’s rule-making sausage. Step one, nudge a team to make a general proposal. Step two, allow that proposal to start a conversation. Step three, steer the discussion toward a lesser measure that feels like a compromise.
There’s a certain amount of genius to the approach. Instead of going straight to a middle ground that might have gone nowhere if it were the original proposal, the league has engineered a method for teeing up the topic, talking it through, allowing others to take ownership of the conversation by proposing something not as sweeping, and hoping that 24 owners will eventually get behind whatever the final proposal becomes.
It’s a new way of looking at the proposals made by specific teams. How many of them carry the fingerprints of the league office? How many were deliberately put on the radar screen as a way to spark a conversation and to enlist others to participate in the shaping of a consensus around some variation to the original proposal?
That’s possibly what happened with the tush push prohibition from the Packers. That started as one team making a proposal that, while flawed in its formulation due to the focus on an “immediate” push, started the conversation. Through that process, momentum has developed regarding a related rule change (no pushing at all, anywhere).
In the end, the Lions’ proposal regarding playoff seeding and the Packers’ proposal regarding the tush push could result in no changes at all. But Wood’s candor has peeled back the curtain on the reality that, in some situations, the league can and will make a strategic decision to create the impression that a potential rule change bubbled up from one of the teams, in lieu of being crafted and presented by the Competition Committee.
The precise reason(s) for that approach isn’t known (other than to say someone in 345 Park Avenue believes it will be effective). Regardless, it’s something to keep in mind when assessing all future proposals from individual teams.
While it might be something a team came up with, it also might be something the league office deliberately instigated and quietly supports.
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