The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Competition Committee Breakdown

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante get together to analyze, debate, and collectively vote on some of the rule change proposals that were recently announced by the NFL competition committee. Topics include: The tush push ban (3:41) New kickoff rules (20:27) Overtime changes (36:28) Instant replay expansion (48:19) Automatic first downs for defensive penalties (57:01) Playoff seeding (1:07:52) The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producer: Chris Sutton Social: Kiera Givens Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Masked Man here, David Shoemaker. It's officially a WrestleMania season, and we've got you covered here on the Ringar Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my gosh shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal, and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling Worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of mass men's and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out, tap in to the Ringer Wrestling Show feed now on spot.

or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. The Ringer NFL show, Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz and Deontay Lee. We are convening the first ever meeting of the ringer NFL competition committee. This is what the NFL teams are doing. Now we're not in the fancy five star. I don't know what that place costs per night.

We're at our own homes, but we are going to go over the rule changes that are being discussed in Florida at the league meetings. We're going to give them a little bit of help, maybe provide some suggestions, and then do a little vote. This is the beauty of the three-person pod. You know, you're going to have a winner. We're going to have no ties here. So we're going to go over some of the stuff being discussed. Some stuff's interesting. Some of it's like, all right, you know, get over yourself a little bit. But we're going to go over all those and have votes. Ruiz, are you ready for this? I put in so much effort.

to this. I did some research. I got some data. I got some proposals. I'm more than ready. I'm ready to go to the actual meeting and make some proposals. All right. Deonté, maybe we fly. If he's very convincing, maybe we, you know, get a little private jet and get him down there. I think they vote on Tuesday morning. So that we still have some time. Yeah, I think we need to put together some emergency committee so we can get some of Stevens' proposals laid out there. You know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the NFL's process on that is like or if it's anything like Congresses or the Senate's. but if we need to convene in a short amount of time to get Stephen stuff on the board, I'm definitely down to do so. I mean, there's this document that has all the rule proposals that we are going off of.

And when we were just discussing the pod, like I opened it up, 38 pages. I don't know if you guys got to the part where there is like, I don't know how many words it is. It is a lengthy paragraph on the kicking tea. It says note, colon, and I was going to just read it out to start the pod. I'm not going to do that. But this is like, you know, it's got to be 200, 300 words on just the kicking tea where it's like if we wonder why we're watching games on Sunday and Sundays and stuff doesn't make sense or it seems complicated.

You can look at this. Again, it's available for everybody. It got tweeted out by NFL media. And you can tell why it's so complicated. The amount of words to get across very simple points, in my opinion, it's quite astonishing. You know, I tell my kids, don't, you know, don't use. there's all these word counts and stuff in school. I'm like, no, don't use more words if you can use less words. I think that needs to be, that message needs to get across to the NFL. But nevertheless,

let's get to it. The most controversial rule. So there's five playing proposals. And then there's one that has to do with playoff formatting that we wanted to get to as well. So it's kind of like six topics here overall. The most controversial is the tush push ban proposed by the green Bay Packers. So the Packers propose a rule to prohibit an offensive player from pushing a teammate who was lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap immediately at the snap. And you kind of have to give reasoning for all of these. And they say player safety and pace of play. And they're proposing a 10-yard penalty if you do this. Now, guys, there has been some fun reporting on this topic. Diana Rossini of the Athletic, Kaelin Kailen Kailer of ESPN. Kailen-Kailer

reported that there was a heated back and forth when this was being discussed on Sunday. She reported that Howie Roseman and the Eagles assistant GM were seen in a hallway, having a quote, private and animated side conversation with Sean McVeigh and Sean McDermott, who are both on the competition committee. And so the league presented injury risk based on the push sneak. That's one of the reasons. But there was no data that anybody has gotten injured with this play. So you have all these things going on at once.

There's some other juicy quotes in there, one from an NFL coach who calls it petty and says it reeks of jealousy. And so now we see you got to get 24 votes to get any of these proposals passed. Deontes and Eagles fan. I do a podcast called the Ringers Philly Special. So Ruiz, I feel like we should start with you. The Tush, push ban. Where are you on this?

Do you think it should get passed? Do you think it will get passed? Do you buy the reasoning at all? I don't buy the reasoning at all. I think until they come up with a logical reason for banning it, I don't think it should be banned. The injury thing is just a total non-starter for me. When there's no, there hasn't been one documented injury on Tush-push-push play,

and there's been hundreds of Tush-push plays at this point. The Eagles have run hundreds of them and never suffered an injury from them. And we have seen very high-profile injuries on regular QB-Sneek. So that's the reason for banning that maybe we should just ban the QB-Sneek altogether. And then also the idea that this is a lot of, a football play. Like this is the football play. This is the first football play ever. Going back to Walter Camps, his shoving wedge,

that was like the first play ever devised in football. And the sport evolved from that starting point and it evolved from that starting point because teams back then figured out how to stop it. Like that's the thing here. Like coach, coach. If you're a defensive coach, you should be figuring out how to stop it. It is stoppable, obviously, because they stopped it

100 years ago and teams had to start passing the ball downfield because of it. I just think every argument about it, is bad. And I will say this. I do think the idea that teams are like the Eagles are getting punished for doing it well. I think that's like kind of off base. It's not that they do it well.

It's that they're the only team that's committed to doing it. Like when you look at the actual percentages, they're around league average on QB sneaks with multiple players in the backfield. Oh, that covers most of these QB sneaks. They're around 70%. There are multiple teams who only ran like five or six of them that are at 100%. including the Packers, who were the ones that proposed this rule. They do it with the tight end.

They don't do it with the quarterback, but it's the same concept. So I think the only viable argument you can really make is that it's a boring play to watch, like just because we know the outcome for the most part. And I would push back against that even, just with my numbers. If it's a 70% success rate, like that's not a given play. That's like saying we should ban the free throw from basketball because players make 70% of them. So like really any argument you can come up with doesn't work for me unless it's this is boring. And I mean, it is kind of anticlimactic when you know the Eagles are going to get a fourth and one every time.

But all these other teams could be doing it instead of complaining, they should just start doing it themselves. Yeah. And even if it is, you know, the boring thing, and I'll get to sort of the entertainment stuff in a rule later, I feel like. But, you know, is a quarterback sneak without the push going to be that much more entertaining? and also, you know, this ESPN article did the numbers, and it accounts for 0.28% of all NFL plays. I mean, fewer that, you know, like around one in every 400 NFL plays we're talking about is a tush-push. So like that I don't think anybody's turning off the TV or is, you know, disappointed with the product because you're running this once every 400 plays.

Deonté, where are you? where are you with this? At first, it really kind of like annoyed me that this was even a talking point. And then just like the more you start to research the data on it, the funnier and funnier the idea of this proposal existing became.

It's like, okay, as you guys noted, no injuries recorded here. It's funny because by volume, the Eagles really aren't even, they're not even like that crazy of an outlier in terms of running sneaks, right? Like, and they're not, it's not like they're the only team that's effective at running sneaks. Other teams

do this just fine. It's also funny that we're talking about this in a various particular language to try to outlaw the tush push. Because this was a conversation about getting rid of sneaks. Okay, that might be a little bit more interesting to me. You could lay out an argument for, hey, we want these plays to look a little bit more

like our typical scrimmage play. Fine. I'm willing to live with that, even if I disagreed. But so much of this just comes back to the fact that, like, this rule change exists because the Eagles win a bunch of games and they score points in goal-in-go-in-line situation, using this and they convert on third and forth down using this. And teams are just tired of not being able to stop it. Right? Like that, that's really all that this comes down to. I'm fascinated to

hear, I was fascinated to hear Diana Rossini's reporting about the middle of last week that there might be a little bit more of a groundswell behind this than people initially thought, A, that's come up before, right? People have tried to address this play before and then going into owners meetings, there was reporting of like, oh, you know, people might be more open to hearing about outlawing this play than we might have ultimately thought. But at the end of the day, what you're presenting, there is not enough data to support that it makes a football game safer, better in terms of pace of play, or more competitive by removing it, right?

Like, yes, players say that it sucks. I believe Jason Kelsey, when he says it to play sucks. Oh, yeah, I would never want to run it. Right. I believe all the offensive linemen who say they hate to play in the defensive linemen, who said they hate to play. So I definitely want to pay some respect to that. but that's anecdotal, right?

Like, that's not enough for you to put together a rule proposal to get this done and obviously listening to a lot of the reporting out of coming into owners meetings and while this proposal was being put up and you realize that it's Mark Murphy on his, you know, kind of on his way out laying out one more rule change. And I just think it's just a really funny thing for the current current CEO to be making his walk-off rule proposal, this one of all things, as though this is the reason why the Packers lost to the Eagles or why the Eagles won the Super Bowl to begin with.

It's also funny that Sean McDermott is bringing up the health concerns. When the bills ran it with their most important player, a guy they paid like half a billion dollars. If you really were worried about the health risks involved, you would not be subjecting Josh Allen to do it. The problem is about the touch push. You would outwalled

the sneak if it was about player safety. And let's say this thing passes. You know what Philadelphia does? You get to third and one. You go tempo, get under center, and you run a sneak behind this humongous offensive line, and you probably converting anyway. So where is this actually going? The thing I don't understand is the pace of play

part of it. Was there an explanation for that? Because I don't understand how that slows down the pace of play. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, you're right to question it. It's from the NFC championship game where the commanders committed four straight defensive penalties. Remember Frankie Louvo was

jumping over because the Eagles had the ball at the Washington one yard line. And so the commander said, go for it. Because at the worst, we're giving up half the distance to the goal. And then the ref, which I think we talked about at the time, I didn't know it was a rule that the ref could be like, if you do that again, we're just giving them a touchdown. I'm like, oh, I didn't know the refs could actually do that.

So yeah, that was, I think they ran it four times, six times, something like that. But you're right to question it because that's the only time that that's happened. And that was because of the defense's actions, that because of the offenses actions in that moment. So, yeah, usually the Eagles do just, you know, sometimes they go hurry up and they run it. back, it's literally the same pace of play as anything else there. So that one doesn't make any sense either. And Ruiz, I liked your point about, like, the whole nature of sports is a team tries to

come up with something that the opponent cannot stop and opponents try to stop it. And eventually they do stop it. And then the initial team has to come up with something else. Like, that is sports in a nutshell over hundreds of years. And so it's like, you know, all right, you have to come up with a way to stop. it. If you can't stop it, the other team's going to continue to do it. But the reasons you're giving here, like you guys mentioned, safety, there has not been any reported injury from this play in three years. Now, maybe, you know, they said, hey, some medical people in the NFL are pointing

out it could be dangerous. It's like, this is the NFL, you know, like, show me a play that is not dangerous. There's no evidence that this is more dangerous than a typical NFL play. And then the pace of play one, that doesn't really pass either. I think what makes this a little more annoying is like it's not like the league hasn't made these rule changes where there isn't some justified reason for doing it, like health concerns or pace of play. Like the change to the defensive holding rules in the 2000s, that was very blatantly to drive up scoring or just to benefit the Colts and Bill Polly and actually if you ask Bill

Belichick. But that's basically what the game. It was like, let's make the game a little more entertaining. Same in like basketball when they put in the hand-checking rules. It's like, let's make the game a little more entertaining. If that's what you want to do, then just come out and say it. And I think it's easier for all of us to discuss this, instead of coming up with these illogical explanations that have no data supporting them whatsoever.

Yeah. An NFL coach told ESPN, he thinks the proposal is motivated by pettiness because some clubs don't have quarterbacks capable of running a push sneak. It's weak. The coach said it's punishing a team who became excellent. executing the play. In 2022, Philadelphia was the only team doing it.

There was a concern that it made the game less compelling because fourth and short was no longer in doubt. Then other teams copied it and they can't do it as well. It reeks of jealousy. And then just the language of it. That's not even true though. Because other teams did that do it,

do it as well as the Eagles do it. They just don't do it as often. Everybody who commits to it is good at it. Because it's a good play. The Cardinals committed to it after Gannon went to Arizona and they were running it better than the Eagles where they just weren't running it as much.

So even that explanation is kind of like that misses the mark for me. But yeah, like teams should just do it more often. If they want like it to become more normalized and for some defense eventually figure out how to stop it, that's how you do it. Just everyone should run it. Yeah, no, no doubt. NFL GM, again, told ESPN, they can't regulate every successful play that a team comes up with.

If it passes, it'll be rewritten about six times. I thought this was an interesting point. They said, how do you determine what, quote, immediately is, because the way it's written, like it can only be enforced if they're pushed immediately

after the snap. I mean, I don't know. I guess that, maybe that's self-explanatory, but I don't know. If you wait, you know,

a second and then do it, does that, I guess you probably couldn't do that, but yeah, it's not the easiest thing to, you know, officiate.

I will say, I would be in favor of them pushing, are, like, banning players pushing, teammates pushing ball carriers. Like, that's fine.

I feel like we've had that rule at other, there is the famous push push, and I believe that was against the rulebook, the USC. It was against the rule at the time, yeah. Like, why did that rule go out?

Like, just bring that rule back, and I think it makes it far easier to legislate. And I remember last time we brought this up, like someone on Twitter like yelled at me because he was like, oh, if you didn't take out pushing the ball carry, you're going to fundamentally change the sport. How? What place could you guys recall where someone pushed a ball carry?

I mean, I'm sure it happens, but we don't need it to happen and to maintain the integrity of football as the sport as we know it. I do enjoy a play, Deonté, where it looks like a running back stopped, and then the offensive linemen all charge forward, and they push him three more yards, and then they're all fired up. It's a great point. It wouldn't change the sport, but I do enjoy those plays. 1,000 percent.

Who cares? 1,000 percent. I mean, it's just a fundamental piece of the game, right? Like, that's all that it is. It's a fundamental piece of the game. The same with defensive players, gang tackling, to stop forward progress. right? Like all this, these are not conversations that we've lacked having in football. There's plenty of space to have them in terms of pushing and where you stop for progress and all those things. And there's usually every year some controversial play where a running back for progress looks like he stopped and then somebody forces a fumble and then we're having a conversation about that in the moment. All of those things already exist. None of these things apply to the actual play that they're trying to change. And again, the reason why it is so funny to me is because it is so meticulously. crafted to only be about this one play, right?

This one play that this one team got good at. We're not talking about sneaks. We're not talking about shoving players, period, like Stephen brought up. We were talking about the specific way that Philadelphia uses it to be effective in short yardage situations. And if that's the case, then why don't we address all short yardish plays that are very successful, which we wouldn't because that would just lead us down this illogical rabbit hole, right?

So it's just a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It's something that we usually don't see in football on this. granular a level, right? Like, it's defensive holding, like Stephen said. It's looking at passenger appearance. It's looking at the face mask penalty to get the incidentals out. So that way, officials don't have to try to judge on the field what the intent of the player was.

All those makes sense. This is not one of those instances. The Mark Murphy thing is interesting, too. So he's the CEO of the Packers. And like Deontes said, he's written on the Packers website, I believe, about this. And it sort of feels like Matt LaFleur and Brian Gutikuntz, I don't know if, they're fully on board with this either. Because it doesn't make you look great that you lost to a team in the first round of the

playoffs and then you're proposing a rule change for something that they do. And I feel like when they're asked about it, they sort of no comment. They're trying to distance themselves a little bit away from it. So I do wonder if this is a Packers organizational thing or if this is one guy who's, again, like you said, making this his mission and made it his proposal. And then Ruiz's point about Sean McDermott. Like, I don't want to just that to be lost. That's very strange that you were the team that ran this play the second most times of any team in the NFL with the quarterback who just, let's be honest, keeping everyone's job solidified, keeping your team in contention, maybe as much as any quarterback in the NFL.

You ran this play with him the second most times and now you're saying it's not safe. What were you doing then? If you didn't think it was safe, how are you going to run that with Josh Allen of all people? so that doesn't pass the sniff test either. So I think so far the coaches who have been on the record, Vrable, I think is saying he's a no, like don't ban it. Stefansky's a no, don't ban it. Sariani said Stuyken and Gannon can't vote for it

because they wouldn't have jobs if it wasn't for his play. I think he told NFL network that, Kellynne Moore as well. So Shane Stuyken said, yeah, he's not for banning it either. So we'll see. That's a handful of coaches. now owners, I guess, could technically vote differently. I think your owners are the ones who vote or whoever you assign to vote. But that's a handful of coaches who say, don't change the rule.

It needs, again, 24 votes to pass. So even if it gains some momentum and you're getting 20 teams to pass it, it's still, you're not going to change the rule with that. This is probably going to get cut. But imagine Sean McDermott. Before they call the Tush push, he's like, you guys, it's dangerous. But do you know who else who did something? Oh, God.

That is dangerous. There we go. I'll leave. Dot, dot, dot. You can fill in the blacks. That is a perfect time for us to take a break on the Ringer NFL show. Oh, wait, we have to vote. Let's vote real quick.

I think we're, I'm a no. This is unanimous. Don't change it. Unanimous. Okay. You can tell by what we said. So sorry NFL, according to the Ringer NFL competition committee. Do not amend the rule.

Do not change it. The push push stance. All right. We'll take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to some of these other. rule proposals. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Next one, changes to the kickoff. So the main thing here is that right now or last year, if you had a touchback, the ball then got spotted

at the 30-yard line. So teams that were kicking off decided that's not that big of a deal. Go ahead and kick it into the end zone. Let's take the touchback. We're not losing that much field position. However, the proposal now is to change that. that the ball would get spotted at the 35-yard line instead of the 30, the idea being, hey, maybe teams will not opt for the touchback as much. Kicking teams will not opt for the touchback as much if you make it the 35-yard line. So that is the main one. There's a couple other little details to this one.

One of them is that you can declare an on-side kick at any time. Previously it was you can declare an on-side kick in the fourth quarter, but you couldn't do it. earlier in the game, which, I mean, I can't imagine that that one is going to have any type of impact on the games, but you guys can tell me if I'm wrong. And then there's just some rules about the alignment for the kickoff where you're bringing the teams closer together, the idea being to reduce speed and space on the kickoff, presumably to limit injuries there. Deante, let's start with you. Where are you with this kickoff rule now that we saw it for a year? we saw the touchbacks go to the 30. Are you four moving it to the 35?

Do you think something more drastic needs to be done? Do you have another idea altogether? Where are you with the rule to change the kickoff? I like the proposal. I like having this more competitive dynamic kickoff that we've had over the last year. And I think that if they were going to edit any part of the proceedings of the play, they made the right call by making the touchback more punitive for the kicking team. I know that there was kind of a debate before the proposal.

who came about whether or not you should move the kicking spot back for kickers. And I don't think that that's the right way to approach it, right? I think the right way to approach it because touchbacks are a legitimate strategy in the game, right? There are game situations where it would serve the kicking team to try to kick it out of the end zone. The issue is that you just have to make it so it's not incentivized outside of those situations, right? And if the goal is to make this play more like other scrimmage plays, then you need to take away the ability for teams to just opt out of it all to together by kicking it into the end zone and just taking the touchback, right?

So I think that that's good. I think from a pace of play perspective, it's great. I think that trying to approach it this way should bring the touchback percentages, which I looked over the last few years or so, outside of 2023, where I think it was like ridiculously high. It was like in the high 70s, if I remember right on touchback rate. All the other years before that, you're talking like high 50s, low 60s, right? I think that this past year was about 65% on touchbacks.

I think that adding a rule like this makes it just punitive enough that you can maybe get it below that 60% mark. And if that's the case, I do think they're probably dealing with the sweet spot in terms of returns versus kickbacks. So I don't really have any notes or changes I would make to this rule. I thought the kickback, I thought the kickoff and the current touchback rules were effective. But maybe you just want to give offenses a little bit more of an advantage of teams are going to opt out of the play altogether. Are we being a little hypocritical by saying what we said about the tush push and then also being like, ah, who cares?

Like touchbacks, like get rid of the, like, it feels like it's kind of. of in the same vein where you're trying to make the game a little more entertainment and adding more action-packed place to it. So I feel like there is a little, like we're being a little hypocritical here. I will speak for yourself because I have a take that will not be hypocritical. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Let's see. No, no, because I'm for this. I don't see any reason why we would, who wants more touchbacks? I don't want more touchbacks. I think the dynamic kickoff or whatever you call it has been it was good last year. It was fun to watch. We saw some more return. So and anything that adds more strategy to the game where right like i think that's that's fun if anything you can make the argument

that the tush push like takes away the strategy because it's more just like brute force whoever's stronger wins uh so yeah i'm all for this rule you can do anything with the kickoff i really don't care that much about it maybe this well i think all right that leads in well to my point i don't know if this will be controversial or not but i have argued against this from the get-go i mean i am still looking for the one person who finished the 2023 season with the thought, man, NFL this year, just not entertaining enough for me. You know, like, all right, I like the other plays, but those, I'm not going to watch football anymore. Those kickoffs during the game ruined it for me. Those touchbacks, they were so

boring. I cannot live with this sport anymore. It's a desire. Did anyone in your life make that argument? I didn't hear from anyone who said the NFL wasn't exciting enough. You know what I liked that after the team kicked the extra point, I knew I could go to the bathroom. I could get a drink. I could get some food. I could look at my phone and I got a couple minutes where I didn't have to pay attention until there was a play at the line of scrimment. That was okay with me.

I'm okay with a little break there in the middle of a game on those whatever eight to 10 times during a three hour span where a team scores a touchdown. So in my opinion, and again, I know that I'm in the minority here, They're trying to fix a problem that didn't exist. Bring me all the touchbacks. Eliminate the kickoff. Start at the 25-yard line. Would anyone actually care?

I'm fine with that. If after a score, you just said, all right, let's get some commercials in. Let's pay the bills. We come back. The offense has the ball at the 25-yard line. I mean, honestly, what would be wrong with that? That would not take a single ounce of enjoyment out of the game for me. So that's where I am with it. I know people will vehemently disagree.

but that's honestly how I feel. That was a terrible argument, quite frankly. Because the argument is based on you just getting a few extra time, a few extra minutes to go to the bathroom. It's about fixing a problem that didn't exist. It wasn't a problem. But isn't every rule change? Doesn't that apply to every rule change ever proposed?

No, most of the time you're trying to fix something. What is the last rule change? This doesn't improve the game. It was such, it was a dud. It does. The return rate went to 33% from 22%. That's what we're talking about. We need the new rule to make that go even higher.

By the way, hold on. How about this? And then there's the whole thing like, okay, the player safety stuff. So they're arguing for this for the tush push. And now they're trying to sell this to me that, hey, the concussion rate dropped in 2024. However, there was the same total number of concussions. Why? Because you had more returns.

So more returns will lead to more concussions. So I don't care about the person. That's a good argument. This is your message. Why didn't you leave it? If you lead with this, you got me. Yeah. Yeah.

Listen, when I speak to the NFLPA, it depends the audience. When I'm speaking to fellow podcasters, I lead with one thing. When I speak to the NFLPA. So shouldn't the total number of concussions be all that matters? If I'm a brother or a father or a cousin of a player, I don't care that the rate and I have a, you know, fringe special teamer. I don't care that the rate went down. care that the number of concussions was the exact same.

You didn't reduce the number of concussions that players suffered on kickoffs at all with this new rule. So take it out. How about eight fewer players who have to worry about a lifetime of issues because they suffered a concussion on some stupid kickoff rule because someone thought that the game wasn't exciting enough. What are we talking about here? That's a good argument.

That's great. That's way better than I have to go to the bathroom. Yeah. And first of all, I mean, I'm always just skeptical, period, anytime the NFL starts offering up concussion data, right? With trying to present that the game is getting safer because of something that they're doing in the NFL, concussions wouldn't be the selling point for me. I know that it's great for the headline because of the NFL and liabilities and lawsuits

and all of that. I would have gone more with lower body injuries because I do think if there's an argument to make that by bringing this closer, you're not asking guys to fly at full speed. you're not risking people's lower body injury, lower extremities, period, right? But I get that. I definitely get that. I like that argument from Sheal. I just think that if the kickoff is going to exist,

then we do need to make it a play that actually happens, right? That's my thing. That's more of my thing. If we're going to go by what Sheila's saying, I'm off for putting an tacking an extra minute to the commercial break, because that's all the play ends up being anyways. That's right. That's my least favorite thing about football.

Team scores. take a commercial break, come out, touch back, other commercial break, and now the offenses on the field. That used to tick me off. I used to hate that from a pace of play perspective. But if we're going to, if we're going to follow Shields logic here, I would rather just outlaw the kick off altogether. And then we can have a conversation about possession intent, right? Your first play, of your possession, do you want a tier where you start your drive versus how many yards you have to gain to move the chains for your first series? That's something I'd be interested in. talking about. Oh, wait, that's interesting. What do you mean by that? So you mean, what do you mean?

I don't know if you remember like in the XFL, right? I think or was it the USFL where you can get a fourth and 15 if you went for two or something like that? Something where like it was an end of game strategy where you could risk field position. Right. Exactly. You could go for a fourth and 15 around midfield. And if you converted it, you would effectively be around where you'd be if you were to get a first down after recovering an onside kick. Right. So that. I'm with. If you want to say possession and 10, if you want to start with them inside the 20, you've only got eight, you know, or five yards to gain to move the ball and move the change on the first time. If you want to move up to the 30 or 35, you've got to gain 12, 15 yards to get

your possession going because you'd be right around midfield after. That's interesting to me. I would like to get. If we're not, if we're going to talk about the kickoff or just talk about possessions for the offense, that's something I think would be a little bit more interesting to talk about. I don't think that would happen because now you're taking guys jobs. off the field. I think that that's probably why the kickoff is always going to be here. It's just from a rostering perspective. It's hard to make the sales pitch to get rid of the play. But I do think that there's something to talk about if the kickoff were to be outlawed, how would we go about possession? Because I don't think just planting the ball at the 25 and saying,

you know, to all offenses to have at it is something that works for me. I think the most obvious miss for the NFL so far is not adopting that style of onside kick, quote, unquote. Like that would be the most exciting play. Yes. Put the quarterbacks back on the field. Put the quarterback back on the field. That's all matters. Yeah, yeah. Please, please. Like, that's the rule. If we could vote on that, I would vote on that. But before we vote on this rule, I want to ask Shield one thing. Because I'm kind of buying what he's selling with the injury data. But if the NFL could still have their kickoffs and there's going to be returns and there's going to be concussions, but it didn't save you that extra, you know, it didn't give you, provide you those couple of minutes to go to the bathroom.

would you still want to ban the kickoff? Like what is your incentive for banning the kickoff? Your number one priority. You specifically. I mean, it's all those. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you're selling me a bill of goods on player safety. It's, I don't find it to be the most entertaining part of the sport. And I had like, I never once sat down and go, I can't wait for the net.

Can't wait for that. Even like 10 years ago. As a kid, was anyone as a kid, what got you into football when you were a kid? What was your, oh, it was the kickoffs, man. Now, there were some exciting kickoffs. Devin Hester, well, listen, you still get punt returns. That's kind of the exception that proves a rule, though, right?

Yeah, that's true. Listen, if there's a Devin Hester out there, we can change the rule for, you know, whatever, five years that person's in the NFL. Devin Hester ain't walking through that door. I was just trying to get you to admit that you care about your bathroom time more than NFL head injury. Well, I mean, no, I can't even make a joke about it because NFL head in. Yeah, but obviously, I think for a viewer

experience. If you're at the game, you know, it's a nice time to go get a break. You need those. What are you going to do? Go get a drink. Go get food. Go to the bathroom. If you're at home, so many people now have second screens. It's like you're not sitting there watching the commercials. You're doing fantasy. You're doing gambling. You've got Red Zone. Like, this is not an issue to have these little breaks in the game where the commercials play and you don't need a play. So that's where I am. So I don't know how I would vote on this because I would give my, you know, changed rule proposal to just start at the 25, but I don't think you guys are voting yes on that. So that's what I would do. So I would be no on this. And my proposal is see a kickoffs. If we really missed this in a couple

years, we can bring them back. But the offense is just going to start at the 25. You've convinced me, though, I'm voting no. I came in intending to vote yes. But the point about the volume of head injuries increasing. Like that would be my main concern is like more players getting hurt is not what I want to see. Which is what would have if you just look at a very basic model, if you If you're having more returns, if you run more football plays, yeah, you're going to have more concussion. You're adding more concussions to the game here. Is that tradeoff worth it?

Yeah, and I like these new returns, but I don't like them that much, where like I'm willing to sacrifice the players out for that. I'd be like, now. So I'm with you. I'm voting no. I'm against it. No. Deontes?

I'm against me. I'm voting yes. I'm voting yes. Strictly on, just strictly on, does this rule address a problem that I think existed in the play? Yes, I do think that changing the touchback, the positioning of the touchback, chain, you know, kind of helps, you know, the sport in terms of pace of play and making sure there's more offense and that it's punitive for kicking the ball into the end zone.

But I will say, I'm voting yes and then I'm sliding a note to the rest of the competition committee. Like, hey, don't forget my rule proposal because I'm coming to this, you know, same way you would say what you would in any other committee, right? I'll cave on this one as long as we come back to my great idea next time around. So we're putting to stay on my original idea, but we'll be okay. will move in the touchback line for this one. So I think your rule is kind of comparable to like the two-point conversion rule they had

where like you could take it from the two and it's only worth one point, take it from the five and it's worth two and then go from the ten and it's worth three. It's kind of in that same vein, but it's like first and ten. Like first and five if you get it from this yard line, first and ten, if you get it from the 35 and so on. I would be interested in that. If it's a four-minute drill, right? If it's a four-minid drill, would you back up further to have less yards to gain because that's going to force a team to take timeouts, right?

Like, to me, I think there's an interesting little interplay strategically, right? And those are the kind of situations you talk about at football practice, right? You guys have been to NFL practices. You see, though, bring everybody together and lay out the whole situation on the card. Hey, this much time left, they're starting to possession here. They need to gain X many yards, right? Like, I think that there's a way to kind of incorporate that in the game that might be interesting from an NFL perspective. Yeah, that goes to Ruiz's point.

I'm with you that. Anything that adds a little strategy, when we can come on and make fun of the coaches a couple days after for making the wrong decision. I am all for those things. I'm celebrating the right decision. On occasion, on occasion. That would be, yeah, because you're right, Deonti,

and then if it's, you know, there's 18 seconds left and you need a field goal. Obviously, you want to go as far as possible because the downs don't matter as much. So that would be kind of fun. What do you do just in a random second quarter possession? Does it matter who the opponent is? If you're facing a juggernaut offense,

are you like, all right, let's take the shorter distance because we want to possess the ball a little bit here. So I like that, Rick. Yeah, I would definitely be interested in hearing more about that. But Ruiz and I vote no on this. So sorry. So far, we're 0 for two, the Ringer NFL competition committee says, no rule changes. Do not change our beloved game of football. All right.

Number three here. Change to overtime. This was proposed by the Philadelphia. Eagles. Last year, we had different overtime rules for the regular season and the playoffs. So here we're making it the same rules for both. What are those rules? Instead of 10 minutes for overtime, which we had in the regular season last year, we're bumping it up to 15 minutes for overtime, which we had in the playoffs. So regular season or playoffs, game side at the end of regulation, you have a 15 minute overtime. The other big change, both teams must have the opportunity.

to possess the ball unless the defense produces a safety. So in the past, offense gets the ball first. If they score a touchdown, the game's over. Not the case anymore. If they score a touchdown, the other team gets the football back and you play out the 15 minutes. Again, that's regular season and postseason. Now, after each team has one possession, whoever has more points wins.

If the score is tied, it's kind of sudden death. Next score wins. and if the score is tied after 15 minutes in the regular season, it's a tie in the playoffs. If the game's tied after 15 minutes, you go to another 15 minute period, a double overtime here. So that would be the change.

If we kept it the same, it would be no 10 minutes for overtime in the regular season. And if the team that gets the ball first scores a touchdown, the game is over. The other team doesn't get the ball. Ruiz, what do you think? Do you like this change? Do you have any tweaks to it?

where are you with the overtime rule? I think we should just keep it the same. I'm fine with one team. They score touchdown. You can't stop a team from scoring a touchdown. It's an extension of the game. It's not like a new game. And I feel like if you're giving teams two possessions

and you're making it a new game rather than an extension. And also I'm just pro player. And I think players shouldn't be subjected to playing more when they're not getting paid for it. If you want to run this 15 minute overtime where you're almost guaranteed to get like 10 minutes into it, then give the players a bonus whenever they go into overtime. Like any team,

that go into overtime, the player should get paid a little extra then. And if that's the case, then I'm all for it. But if they're not going to give them extra money, I don't think we should be subjecting them to even more hits. If I'm going to vote against the kickoff rule, then I almost have to vote against this. But just looking at the last year, we only had six games where a team can get to touch the ball.

And I think the Eagles proposes, the Eagles haven't lost a game where they didn't get a possession in overtime since 2018. So I will commend them because this is not one of those like, hey, this happened to us last year, and we're going to try to run. rectify it like the lions we'll get to that later. Sorry, so you said six games where one team got the ball in overtime and scored touchdown and

the other team didn't see it. Yeah, it was. Honestly, the team that was burned most by this was the Falcons. They lost their last two games like this to the commanders and Panthers. And that's the reason why they missed the playoffs. So if any team has an argument against this, it's probably them. But maybe they didn't want to get embarrassed in the playoffs and didn't want to make it anyway. But yeah, I'm voting against this.

I think we should just keep it like we have it. If you can't stop a team from scoring it touch you. don't deserve to win the game. I will say this. This is my proposal. The team that touched the ball last, the other team gets the ball first in overtime. No coin flips. I do, I am against bringing this game down to a coin flip. Wait, but why? Isn't that unfair to the team that's, that had the, what is it, the team that had the ball last in regulation doesn't get, it gets, the ball second in overtime? Yeah, yeah. I think the other, I think you should be an extension of the game. I think the game should just continue. Oh, I see what you're saying. But what if they're just taking like a knee or

something. There's like 18 seconds left. And they get, so then actually there would be some strategy there because you wouldn't want the ball at the end. That's a good point. I didn't think about that part. But then a team would have to come up with the rules. They would be punning back and forth. But no, why can't we just continue

the game and just do next point wins? Why do we even need, I don't understand why we need like to start over is what I'm saying. Yeah, but I think you need the coin flip because of what we just said. Otherwise, I don't know how you would decide because otherwise teams would just wanting to get rid of the ball at the end of regulation.

No, no, no, I'm saying like, so let's say a team scores with like 10 seconds left. They tie it up and they kick it off to the other team. Oh, I see. We just don't start over. We just keep playing. Like, we're going from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Okay. Huh.

Okay. Deiates, so it's not really a break. Yeah, okay. It's like going to the fifth quarter. It's not half time. That's what you're saying. Yeah. Okay.

That, okay. If I would have understood that part as you were proposing it, I think I probably would have, I would have walked into it maybe being a little more amenable. Because you guys pointed out a fault in my proposal. It's okay. Okay. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

What you're selling there, I'm with you. If we're going to get rid of the coin toss, that's the best way to address getting rid of the coin toss. If the coin toss exists, both teams need to have an opportunity to possess the ball. That's kind of the way that I'm looking at it. I would say I'm okay with this rule proposal with some notes. I don't think you need a 15 minute period. for what Stephen saying, right?

Like, we don't need a whole additional quarter to adjudicate who's going to win this game after four quarters of football. Keep it at 10, and both teams get an opportunity to possess the ball on the assumption that the first team with the ball doesn't take all the time out of the quarter. And guess what?

That's part of football too. If a team gets six third down opportunities and they convert all six, and then they get to sit on the ball in the red zone and then score as time expires, that's part of the game, right? So I do think if you're going to make this a separate period, right?

if overtime is its own period and you're not talking about what Stephen is saying in terms of a fifth quarter so to speak where the ball is just placed where it was at and play continues until you get a winner in which case I would say for Stephen we should go back to what the original overtime sudden death rules were where if you kick a field goal game is over right I will be okay with that and the reason why I'm supporting what's being proposed here by Philadelphia is this is a this is a this is trying to get rid of half measures with the ending of the game That part I'm okay with, right? I didn't like the differences between the regular season and postseason overtime rules.

I didn't think it made sense logically, right? That to me is more of a management of the game time, the total runtime of a game, than it was actually giving teams a fair opportunity to go win in an overtime period. So I would say keep it at 10 minutes. Maybe I would be even in support of that in postseason situations as well. You keep it 10 minutes. You keep the coin toss. But if you score a touchdown, the other team gets an opportunity to possess the football and try to score to.

That's it. That's it. And I would just leave it at that. So I was thinking, Ruiz, as Deonté was talking, I was also thinking about your proposal. Here would be the issue is that the end of regulation would then would not be as exciting. Because let's say you're driving and you, if it's the rules that are currently in place, you could kick a 52-yard field goal for the win in regulation. but now if you're getting the ball in overtime still, keeping the ball, then you're not kicking that. You're just trying to possess the ball.

So you might actually end up adding more overtime games than you previously had. Otherwise, I like, I think there might be something there. That's an interesting counterpoint. That's an interesting counterpoint, though. I should have thought of this rule before I came on the pot. All right, I'm adding one more. No, I'm glad that you didn't. I get to walk this whole situation out, right?

Like, I think that what she was saying is something I really didn't consider either, right? So now teams do kind of sit on the ball. You get the ball. After the game gets tied, there's 44 seconds left, right? And it's like, well, just like you would at the end of half, right? If the game were tied, oh, let's take a chance, see if we move the chance. If we get a 15, 18 yard game, then maybe we push really quick to see if we can get into a long field goal range. If not, we'll just hand the ball off.

You don't need your time out. You can run the ball. Yeah, no, you can't do that. But I think you could just do the setup they have now where field, goal doesn't win on the first drive. Like if you, like if you're sitting on the ball, you have a 52 yard field goal, then you're kicking it at the end of regulation. Okay, that's interesting.

So do you want to go into overtime and try to score a touchdown or do you want to, all right, all right. I think we're talking through it. But you know that you're risking giving the opposing team another opportunity to score. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. All right.

So what are we doing with timeouts in, Stephen? I kind of like this. So now we get to grill, get to grill our co-host here. What are you doing with timeouts? Are you just rolling over what you have in the second half? Whatever they have. Are you just giving them eight. timeout. They give them an extra timeout right when they go into overtime. Just keep extra timeouts

in overtime. Yeah. Yeah. I say one not two, right? Just keep the margins tight, right? I don't want teams totally just bogging the game down so that way they can run more plays, you know, or try to stop the clock. I would be down with adding a timeout. I think we're getting somewhere here. We're getting somewhere. It definitely feels like this is the one where there's a better way to do it. I'm with, like I kind of understand, but I'm on the fence here because I'm with Ruiz. that if you're adding the number of plays and adding the number of time, then yeah, if I'm a player, I'm like, all right, what's in it for us? You're going to add, you know, another game and not like, we need to see something from this because this is just you're trying to sneak it in where it's

not really, you know, collectively bargain. You're just saying, all right, you have to play more snaps. And what's the last thing we want? What do we hate? We hate doing mid-December podcast where we're talking about a key injury that totally alters the playoff picture, that late in the season. So this just adds more opportunity to do that. So I don't like that. I'm also with Deonté that. What are we talking about here having different rules for regular season and playoffs? Like, what is this?

A Mickey Mouse, you know? Like, is this a you? Who does that? Yeah, that in other sports? Do that? You're talking about it? Yeah, the NHL does it with the runner on second base? Like, there are different.

The MLB, all right? Well, there's 162. Yeah, they're trying to clicking up the. But baseball does have to be mindful about runtime of games, right? Like, yeah. I think that we can all think back to our childhood games. that have gone, it's like the 17th inning, because you're just going one, two, three,

you know, one inning after another. You know, you definitely don't want that in the sport. I don't think the football has the same problems in terms of the flow of game that baseball can have. Other sports do do it. So I think I would vote. I think I would, I don't know. You guys vote first.

Let me see if I need to be the deciding vote or not. So Ruiz, if you had to vote on this, what are you doing? Or are you offering another proposal? No, I'm against it. And I would propose the one that I came up with because I came up with it. I'm not going to vote against it.

Deontay? I'm voting no because I want to see the changes made that I suggested, right? This is not even just being self-serving. I like it. For all the reasons that I say I like it, I do genuinely like it, right? Like, let's try to get some uniformity. Let's take some of the half measures out of the scoring procedures, right? I think that if you're going to have the coin toss, like I said, the point of the coin toss is who possesses the ball first, not who possesses the ball last. That to me is what the coin toss is there for, right?

And there should be, even though there is some strategy in, oh, how are we working halftime versus end of game? It's overtime. It's not the same. So both teams should have an opportunity to possess the ball. But I am saying no, because I don't think you need an extra 15 minutes. I don't think you need that extra five minutes tacked on to the end of the game. Yeah, I think it's fine how it is.

You know, you still have to score a touchdown. It's not that easy. Right. Yeah, I think I would need a bigger rule, a bigger change to vote yes to this one. So I'm going to say no as well. Man, we just love our NFL the way it is. We're all old, crusty. Don't change the rolls.

Rules are great how they are. We love our, don't change our game. If we were doing baseball, nothing would have ever gotten done. We would have just been like, all right, yeah, keep him how it is. All right, don't worry. We still have three more. Can we get a yes on one of these? We'll take one more break.

We will come back and go over the final three. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. Number four, expanding, officiating, assistance. This is proposed by the competition committee, not by any team. So this would expand instant replays' ability to advise the on-field officials on specific objective aspects of a play and or to address game administration issues when clear and obvious video evidence is present. The reason for this permits instant replay to correct an obvious specific objective officiating error,

including providing specific objective information regarding a play, advising on the correct application of a playing rule or assisting to nullify certain fouls if incorrectly called. So key phrase in there is when clear and obvious video evidence is present. So stuff like if they call an unnecessary roughness and the replay official looks at it and goes, no, no, no, no, like the defensive linemen did not land with their body weight on the quarterback, pick up that flag, a face mask, where it looks like a face mask and it's like, no, no, no, he didn't get his hands in there, pick up the flag. Those are some of the examples here. Now, my understanding is, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, this can only

apply when a flag is thrown. You can't say, hey, there was a obvious face mask there that you guys missed. Go ahead and throw the flag. So you cannot advise them to make a call. You can only tell them, hey, the call you made was incorrect, and this doesn't change coaches. They can still use their challenges for anything that is actually challengeable. So the Rams darnal play wouldn't have been

reversed. Wouldn't have applied? Yeah. Which honestly, like, I'm still surprised that people made such a fuss about that. It literally had nothing to do with the outcome of the play. And I think if you're just looking for that, like, oh, well, it's like we should have gotten this, like, no, like win the play. That's Colbyo. Yeah.

Okay, but what if there was a play like that that did affect the outcome. Oh, I'm just talking specifically about that play, which was like a big talking point for the week when it was like the play was bad by the Vikings. And then he got face masks after the play had been, I don't know, I just didn't think it had to. But I'm totally for this rule.

If we could take any power away from the rest, I'm for it, like the refs that are on the field. I don't understand why any ref ever has to go to the replay booth, like the replay monitor on the sideline. Why don't we have someone in New York just looking at it and buzzing down and being like, All right, yeah, let's overturn that play. It would take five seconds.

And I think we saw that with the expanded assistant replay last season. And I'm all for that. So whatever we got to do to get rest out of the game more on force. I'm voting yes for this. Spoiling my vote. The expanded replay is one of like the first things I can think of that the NFL procedurally nailed. Yes.

There was like I never had an issue with anything that came down from New York that they were doing. I think it helped pace the play. And I think most importantly, and the reason why this might be, be my favorite rule proposal that they have here is that it does take stress off the refs hands, right? Like you think about all these rules that get introduced or all these emphasis, you know, all these different emphasis that are given to refs as you open the season. You think about the illegal formation stuff with offensive tackles to start the year.

If that's looked at upstairs, now a ref can just throw the flag because he thinks the guy is not lined up and somebody in New York can look and say, hey, no, that's a good play. The play is fine. Continue on, right? Whatever the result of the play was, you can roll on. the referee doesn't have to be, the distress to be perfect and to met out all of these new interpretations or emphasis on certain wording within the rules aren't on these guys' shoulders because it takes away from the enjoyment of the game.

I love this. I love the way that it's put forth because it is on penalties that would be called, right, and not trying to retroactively apply things to what happened within the flow of the play, right? I do think that if this passes, you're going to open up the door to people complaining the second, there is a face mask, right, that would have given a team an automatic first down or an illegal contact or a defensive hold or whatever the case may be that would have moved to change or would have changed the flow of the game. I do think that that's going to be a conversation point. But as this is proposed, I don't really have any complaints with what's laid out

here. I think that this is the right way to use your replay booth because as Stephen said, I don't need the latest Hockley having to walk over to the book, walk over to the hood to go watch a play just to hear from New York what they're seeing so that we can come out and relay the message. Let's just make this process as efficient as possible so that we can get back to the things that actually matter in the game. Yeah, I'm with you, D. I was thinking the same thing that this is like one of the few things where it's like, when this happens in a game, I'm like impressed, like, all right, they got it right right away. It didn't, you know, take an extra. I mean, these NBA games are crazy. Oh, my God. The amount of time. Did the ball bounce off of. It's a disaster.

It's a disaster. So if someone's just watching it and can call down, hey, this is what happened. Okay. That's what happened. They change it. Move on. There's always that balance between trying to get the calls as right as possible without adding time or, you know, whatever else. And I think this is a good balance.

I'm with you. There will obviously be a game next year where there's an obvious face mask. And then the announcers explained, you know, all right, there was no call. Well, why didn't the officiating booth call down? No, you can't do that. And that'll take up a lot of talking that week. And I don't know, maybe down the road, there's some way to incorporate that. But I feel like this is a good balance where you're not adding more flags to the game.

And you're trying to get it as correctest. But you're basically trying to remove the egregious bad calls, which if we're, you know, there's always somebody who's sticking up for the refs. Hey, you know, it's a hard job. And all right, fine. Okay. I understand they're watching it live. It's a hard job.

will then come up with some quick way to adjust it to try to get to as fair of a place as possible. And I'm with you guys. I think this one's unanimous that we all vote yes to this. And I always feel like the penalties that are missed don't frustrate me as much are leaving me unsatisfied as much as the penalties that were bad calls. Incorrectly. I think there is some gamesmanship to getting away with a penalty, like holding as a defensive back and knowing how to do it without getting called.

This is different. Like when you call it bad, like a face mask that didn't happen, that's way more frustrating than calling, than not calling one that did happen. Also, this is the last point I wanted to make. I think that this is the best way to make sure that defensive play

is allowed without having to change the nature of the rule changes that exist, right? I think that every rule change that they have made to try to improve player safety, even though it is disadvantaged defense in some way, they all make sense and they need to exist. The issue was always just the adjudication of these rules. And now having this makes it more likely

that a guy who just grabs the end of someone shoulder pad or into someone's jersey as they're pulling them down is just called a tackle instead of a horse collar because the ball carrier got yanked backwards, right? This just makes it more likely that the wide receiver who's tiptoeing who gets shoved and then falls, that it's just counted as a tackle and a first down maybe instead of unnecessary roughness after the play because the ref can only see so much of the play and is trying to gauge intent and how the guy fell and how hard did the guy get shoved and they do make contact around the neck area. All of those things are very difficult to see on the field, right?

Again, you guys have been to practices. You guys have reported on the NFL. You go to practice and you see, even though they're not going live, you see how fast some of this stuff is happening, it's hard to pick up, even for an untrained or trained eye and now having this as a way to kind of backfill against or a way to kind of backstop officiating that's happening on the field. It can only help the product that we get. and for me as a defensive guide, this means more likely than not we are going to see the game called properly.

We're not going to see defense is punished because of a judgment called by an official who did not have all the information based on their vantage point or where they're looking at and all those types of things. Yeah. I think Ruiz nailed it with his first point. It makes the officiating will be less impactful than it is now because when they throw a flag that's incorrect, it will get fixed. I'm with you. Those are the plays. Because the ethos of football is like, you got to. play you know you got to play through it you're not going to get every call you might get held

you might whatever you got a battle you know they might be pass interference who cares go and make the play anyway so that still stands when the officials get a little too aggressive with being too much a part of the game this takes some of that out of it so this is a unanimous yes from us all right speaking of defensive guy what defense is allowed to do number five the Detroit lions proposed to eliminate automatic first down on defensive holding and illegal contact. So it's a five-yard penalty, but as you know, if you watch the NFL, it's a five-yard penalty that results in automatic first down. So third and ten, defensive holding, five yards, automatic first down. So this takes the automatic first down out of it, both those and the reasons are competitive equity

and the current penalty enforcement is too punitive for the defense. The Detroit Lions are arguing. Ruiz, you look like you're looking your chops over there. Your take on this proposal and how you feel

about the lion specifically proposing this. They're full of shit. That's my take on it. They were flagged the most for defensive holding. And if the argument is it's not proportional to the,

for the defense, the average defensive holding play, the EPA for the offense is 1.005. For offensive holding, it's negative 1.2. So offensive holding hurts the offense more than defensive holding hurts the defense. So it is equitable. If anything, offenses should be the ones complaining about offensive holding being too punitive. And then... Why is offensive holding 10 yards and defensive holding 5 yards?

I don't know. It doesn't really make sense. But that's part of it. have a proposal. I think we could get rid of the automatic first down, but make it a 10-yard penalty. The thing that frustrates me is when it's like, when it's like third and 15 and a five-yard penalty makes it a first-down, like that is annoying and frustrating as a fan watching the game. But if you make it 10 yards and it's like second and eight, then yeah, you deserve to give up a first down in that case. But based on the data, there's no, there's nothing to their

argument. There's no substance to their argument. This is just a team that got called for this penalty a lot because they play a bunch of tight man coverage and they're mad about it. But no, there's no data to back it up. Message versus Messenger, man. That's really what this comes down to. I'm okay with looking at illegal contact and defensive holding as being automatic first down. I do think that we should probably take that language out of the penalty

because it does kind of rely on an assumption that because the holding happened had it not that that pass would have been complete to that specific receiver and that it would have moved the chains, right? And I understand trying to get it out of the game. But five to ten yards, you know, I think that a lot of times that can be punitive enough. If it's third and seven, it's going to move the chains, right? And if it's illegal contact, then it's third and two now,

the offense still has a relatively good chance of moving the chains without necessarily having to reward them with an automatic first down. So to me, I'm okay with making the change. Again, just like as Stephen said, we know why this team proposed this rule. And it's because they have corners that can't keep their hands to themselves. That's a problem. Just to add some more data to this, like,

So defensive holding, it's usually EPA of one. That's equivalent to like a 15-yard completion. Which that makes sense to me. Like to me, that's equitable. Like a 15-yard, if you're trying to hold a receiver, you're probably trying to stop like a 10 to 15-yard gain by that receiver. So, I mean, I think it's justified, like the penalty right now. But like DeAndi-olde said, like that's my proposal.

10 yards. No automatic first down. If you're in third and 15 as an offense, then you don't deserve to get bailed out by one of these calls. but if you're in third and seven and the defense is holding, that I think you do deserve it. I think you guys have convinced me. I came in thinking,

I kind of like this. I don't like when it's third and 12th. Because in my head, and there's no data, Ruiz gave the data backed argument. In my head, it's like these are often the most tickey tack, subjective,

was that defensive holding or not? I mean, when you turn on film, like there are a bunch of, you know, that could have been defensive holding. That could have been defensive holding. Sometimes it gets called.

Sometimes it doesn't. So I don't like over rewarding the offense because the reps felt like throwing a flag on that specific play. So like just doing the five yards seems more fair to me where it's like you do five yards. But if it's third and 12, you're not bailed out. You got to go again. And it's and it's going to be third and seven. So you get the five. I don't know why.

Why is automatic first down a thing? You know, like why just give the yards and continue? That part doesn't make sense to me. why it would just be an automatic first down if you had more yards to go. So I'm with you. You kind of, this is, it can't be a middle ground here. You know, it should be either you're increasing the yardage penalty, but do away with all automatic, do away with the automatic first down regardless.

So I think if I were actually there, I would vote to do this. I think it's a step in the right direction to do away with the automatic first down, although I think I probably do like Ruiz's proposal better. Offensive holding is 10 yards. Should defensive holding just be 10 yards? If it gets you a first down, fine. If it's third and 20, it's not getting you a first down. So you can't just automatically hold on those.

So that makes sense to me. And just to add some numbers about like the equity between the offense and the defense and how much they're punished, like for offensive holding, there were 700, around 700 offensive holding calls last year. There were 285 defensive holding calls. And when you think about it, there are just as many interactions. in coverage as there are with pass blocking every down. So like those are kind of like those aren't really equal.

If anything, offenses are getting punished way more than defenses are for holding. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I guess I get, I get that the day. And I don't like the way that you're presenting the data. I think I'm with shield from the sense of like, you look at what the other automatic first down penalties are.

And they're all either personal fouls or penalties, penalties that exist because they're a non-competitive place. right tripping non-competitive play should be an automatic first down illegal hands to the face non-competitive play you teach technique that should keep you from putting hands in a guy's face automatic first down i get face mask non-competitive play right and it's a player safety issue even with roughen the passer pass interference right that's a non-competitive play or at least the language of the rule is to try to take away non-competitive plays i feel like getting away getting rid of the automatic first down in this instance also reflects the fact that we're in a

different time in the NFL. When these rules were, when these rules are introduced, passing volume wasn't anything like what it is now across the NFL, right? It's just like living at the NBA and how spaced out it is, right? Like, you need to have rules that better reflect how fouls are called when the game is more spread out, when passing volume is higher, when you have more speed on the field, when some of these things are happening, you know, way wider out in the formation than it would have 20 years ago, 25 years ago before these rules were implemented. So I think that the rule should stay. I would be okay with making it more uniform in terms of all illegal contact and defensive

holding, even if you just wanted to wrap them all into one, right? It's all illegal contact. It's all 10 yards. And wherever the ball lands is where it's going to be. So if it moves with chains and you get a first down, but it's not rewarded to you automatically. And then you keep passing interference of the spot call, right? Like that to me, I think is the best way to kind of look at defensive pass penalties.

I think that that's more equitable in terms of what's punitive and what's not. The one problem with like bucketing illegal contact and defensive holding is like they're kind of different. Like holding no matter where you're holding is a penalty. Like even if it's within five yards and like obviously the illegal contact, you could jam someone. But if you're jamming someone legally but it's six yards downfield, then it's not legal anymore. But the one more argument against the getting rid of the automatic first out. If it's just a five yard gain that the offense gets, that's equal. to about 0.13 EPA,

which is like nothing compared to every other penalty. It's like 10% of what every other penalty does to punish your team for committing it. So now you're going like in extreme. It's not even going in the other way because right now it's more in line with every other penalty we have. Now you're just making it like basically not a penalty.

And teams are going to be incentivized to do it more often because they're not going to call it every time. Yeah. That's my favorite illegal contact rule thing is I learned from Rishman. Mr. Sherman and the Seahawks is that did you know when the quarterback is out of the pocket? Yep. There's no such thing as illegal contact.

Yep. I didn't know that. So the Seahawks, that quarterback leaves the pocket. They would just level these shoes and you're watching it going, that, I'm watching the press box going, that can't be legal. That's, oh, my God, that didn't get called. They get away from one. And then after the game, they're like, nope, go check the rules.

And sure enough, you check the rules, illegal contact cannot. I'm surprised it. Maybe it would be, maybe it's too hard to coach. I'm just surprised we don't see more of that, especially with these, you know, with some of these teams with quarterbacks scrambling around, like level the receiver. It literally, you can't hold them, but you can level that and it cannot get called. All right, that was my, I feel like, I feel like after learning that many years ago, it's my, I have to do a PSA anytime I think about it to let people know that that's an actual role. All right, I'm on the fence here. Ruiz kind of convinced me those EPA

numbers, you know, he did the work. I feel like the work should get rewarded. gut coming in was I like no automatic first down. It's not perfect that I like that better than it is now. I'm going to say yes. Let's change it for a year. No, no. I'm going against you, Ruiz. I'm saying change the rule. I'm saying change the rule. Let's see what it looks like for one year. If it ends up being an issue, we can change it next year. But for this upcoming year, no automatic first down for defensive holding. I am a yes on the rule change. You're rewarding the lions for teaching bad technique. The Terry and Arnold rule. All right, Deontay, you're the tiebreaker here.

Of course I want this rule changed. Of course I want this rule changed. I just don't know. We're like, nah, we still think it's cooler to... My actual proposal, though, is 10 yards, no automatic first down. That's the best version of this rule. And I don't understand why offensive holding and defensive holding are different. I would work for that.

I would be a yes on that. Even if you say they're different, which they are different. fouls, illegal contact, make it a 10-yard penalty. Defensive holding is a 10-yard penalty. Wherever the ball lands is where it is. All right, so let's do that. We're allowed to change the rule on the fly. That's the rule.

10-yard penalty, no automatic first down. That's where we've landed. Everybody's happy. We can go have a, what do you think, a beer cost at that resort that they're like $13 or something for an amstall light or something? I don't think anything costs less than $15 a minute. All right. All right.

We settled that one. Last one. So this doesn't have to do with actual playing on the field. This has to do with playoff formatting the Detroit Lions. Lions active here. Change the seating rule. So as it is now, the four division winners get the first four seeds. They get home games if they're playing in the first round.

The next three teams are wild cards. Regardless of the record, they are going on the road. The Lions say, no. Seated by who has the best record. not by who won their division. So, for example, last year, the Minnesota Vikings, 14 and 3, they were the 5 seat. They would have been the 2 or the 3 seat. The commanders were 12 and 5.

They were the 6 seed. They would have been higher. The Packers were 11 and 6. They were the 7 seed. They would have been higher. Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Bucks and the Los Angeles Rams both got home games as the 3 and 4 seeds because they won their divisions, but they were only 10 and 7. I can lead us off here. I like this one for the reason that you're going to make week 18, I think, even more fun because

there's going to be, you got something to play for. You didn't just lock up your division. You have to worry about the record. You have to worry about every other team in the conference. Are you going to win the tie break? So I like that. You know, you're going to limit the number of teams that can sit their starters in week 18. Also, it just kind of seems more fair. Like, the divisions are arbitrary. If you end up in a division that sucks one year, you already get the advantage of playing those crappy teams twice each. Why should you also get the advantage of now, you know, it's easier to win that division because the other teams in your division stink. So I'm with the Lions. I like this one. Just seat it. One to seven, based on records, you already have the tiebreakers.

I am voting for the Detroit Lions. Yes, on this one. Deion, Dante, where are you at on this one? If you win your division, it should get you win the dance, but it should not guarantee you a home playoff game. That's just been my stance. Oh, I didn't think about that. Okay. That's always been my thought, right? Like, if the divisions are going to exist,

then there needs to be some sort of incentive for having the best record in your division, right? So if you go nine and eight, and that means that an 11 and 16 misses the playoffs, because they didn't win the division and you won yours, then yeah, that's the way that this works. But you might just be the seven seat as a division winner, right? the home playoff game should be awarded to the teams that have the best overall records,

because this is the league that goes to painstaking lengths to try to make their schedules as even as scientifically sound as possible in terms of road games or home games, who you're cross-lead, you know, who your cross-conference teams are, right? They go through all these things to try to line teams up where first-place teams play are the first-place teams and all of that. That's there for competitive equity. Competitive equity in the playoffs look like, you know, the team, with the best records are the ones who get to host the playoff games.

I don't know if that would have changed the outcome of any of these playoffs over the last few years. Because I think for the most part, we've gotten a pretty representative sample of who the best teams are, at least by the time we get to the conference championship games. But in terms of rewarding teams who win games, yeah, reward the teams who win the most games by giving them home games into playoffs. But you do have to win your division to make the dance, to guarantee your spot in the dance in the first place. Yeah, I'm all for this too. Like, I don't see really any argument against it.

The only thing that I will say is, like, last year, we would have got the Rams and Vikings playoff game would have flipped where it was at. It would have been in Minnesota. The Bucks and Commanders would have flipped. And then the Chargers in Houston would have flipped. It would have been in L.A. instead of Houston. But interestingly, the Bucks and commanders played, and the Bucks beat them in the regular season.

So, like, it's kind of fitting that they got the home game. And the same with the Rams and the Vikings. The Rams beat the Vikings in the regular season. So I'm not too mad that those teams got to host those games. But it just, I don't see the purpose of giving a team like Deonti, the two benefits of winning the division. They get the one, they get into the playoffs, where otherwise they wouldn't get into playoffs,

like in the Bucks case. They don't need a home game on top of that. Like, we didn't need to see the Bucks go to Washington in 2020 when Brady was there and have to play on the road against Taylor Heineke. That should not have been the case. Yeah, I think we're all, it just, you know, if you explained it to like a seven-year-old,

what should it be? Oh, it should be the teams that win the most games. You know, sometimes it comes down to a very, simple thing. That's why you have an 18 week regular season. There should be some reward also for, hey, you had a great regular season, but you happen to be in the division with a juggernaut that also had a great regular season. Should you get penalized for that? Probably not. You still had a great regular season. You know, even like last year, the Vikings Lions that comes down to the wire there. But, you know, this would have still, I guess it would have made that game. No, you still have

something to play for. You're still playing for the buy. So it doesn't take that out of the equation. All right, we are a unanimous yes on this one. So I think this leaves us at, let me go through the list here. Tush push, Tush push allowed. We are not voting yes on the Tush push ban. The changes to the kickoff, we are a no. We want to come up with something better, but we are not just going to change it from the 30 to the 35. Change to overtime. We are a no. We are keeping it as was last year. Again, let's table that. Let's discuss it.

There's a better way to do it, but this doesn't change it enough. We are saying yes to expanding, officiating assistance where they can just call down. Hey, they didn't grab his face mask, pick up the flag. Cool. All right. No penalty.

Everyone booze. Move it back. Yeah, Ruiz. Can I add something to that? The ref should have to be like, I'm sorry for making that mistake. You have to apologize. Showed up more is what I'm saying.

We keep track of how many of, Which officiating crews made the wrong calls the most? They get towels on their jerseys. Yeah, I like that. Some way there. That's a good one. Eliminate automatic first down on defensive holding and illegal contact. Terrible.

We're enforcing it. I sided with the defensive guy in Deonté there. No automatic first downs. And then changing the seating to best record, not division champs. We are a yes. There. All right. This was good.

some good disagreements. Ruiz bringing some data to the table. Me saying, I need to go to the bathroom more because I'm getting older. So we don't need kickoffs. That got all those things. You know, listen, you got to be able to adhere to all different types of fans, media, everyone consuming your sport. So that's where we are. We will see where the NFL lands this week. We will be back later in the week to talk about a bunch of stuff from the NFL owners meetings, all the coaches, the GMs and owners are talking. We'll see what news comes out of that. We'll also revisit to see which of these rules ended up passing

and where the NFL landed. All right. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Deonté Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'm Shield Capadia.

We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show.