The NFL’s owners are landing in New Orleans on Monday for a two-day annual league meeting. In most years, this is an interesting but not critical weekend. With the NFL labor situation, this is becoming an incredibly important league meeting.
NFL Owners Meetings Begin In New Orleans
Here’s a run down of what will be covered in the league meetings on Monday and Tuesday.
Labor talk: Obviously the focus of much of the meeting will be labor. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is expected to address the media on Monday and Tuesday and he’ll be asked about the lockout, among other labor issues. Until a new deal gets done, this will be the focus of everything NFL-related.
Rule changes: There are several rule change proposals on the books including moving the kickoff from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line and touchbacks from the 20-yard line to the 25-yard line. These were proposed essentially to combat the high injury rate we see on kickoffs. There are other alterations to the rules but this will be the most visible change, if it goes through, and there’s no guarantee that it will. They will also be voting on a proposal to have referees review all scoring plays, and taking away a coach’s third challenge.
No schedule announcements: The owners usually announce the schedule for some of the primetime games in the opening weekend of the season but they won’t be doing that this week. The schedule release is still expected to come in mid-April sometime but we’re used to getting a taste of the schedule during these league meetings.
Compensatory picks won’t be announced: According to Mike Reiss of ESPN, the league is not expected to announce compensatory picks. We’re not sure why they would wait but apparently they will.
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