PITTSBURGH — Aside from the size of in-stadium crowds, the National Football League discovered a decline in three areas during the 2020 season. And the recent rule changes approved by the owners — let's call them tweaks — are designed to address them.
However, the adjustments might not be significantly detectable to the viewer and most certainly are not expected to dramatically affect the game.
At the top of the list is the decline in holding calls in the 2020 season, a drop that resulted in fewer disruptions to the game and, presumably, a better flow to the action.
Holding calls dropped by more than 40% last season to the lowest per-game total in nearly 50 years. There was an average of 14.91 offensive holding penalties per team in 2020, nearly eight fewer than the average of 22.88 in 2019. Whether that was because officials were intentionally not calling as many holding penalties or merely looking the other way, the end result was offensive linemen began realizing they could get away with more holds as the season wore on.
The league's competition committee, of which Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is a member, studied the reason for the decline during the offseason and has concluded that the standard for offensive holding won't change much, if at all, in 2021. The league will develop a video that teaches officials, coaches and players what holding penalties will and won't be called this season, but it doesn't appear that there will be an appreciable increase in the number of holding infractions called.
Another area that has been ignored in recent seasons that the league wants to more stringently enforce is taunting, where penalties have sharply declined since 2016. Could this be called the JuJu Rule?
There were 11 taunting penalties enforced in 2020, two more than in 2019. But that is a significant drop from 2016, when 34 taunting penalties were called. Of course, a lot of those flags were for end-zone celebrations, something the league no longer enforces.
Now, officials will be told to be on the lookout for more actions that instigate other players, such as finger-pointing and excessive trash-talking, or cause ill will between teams.
However, it is unclear if such actions include pregame dance routines on the other team's logo, a practice JuJu Smith-Schuster employed during warmups in opposing stadiums that nearly led to acrimonious actions during several games.
The only bad news: End-zone celebrations will still be allowed ad nauseam.
Finally, the league is hoping to bring a little more excitement into the onside kick after increased safety measures made recovering a kick about as difficult as deciphering the Rosetta Stone.
Only three of 67 onside-kick attempts were recovered in 2020, the lowest number of attempts and recovery rate (4.5%) since at least 2001. Since the league instituted safety measures in 2018 that reduced the amount of running contact by the kicking team, the total average recovery rate is 8.3%. That is much lower than the average during the previous two decades (19.7%) and significantly lower than the 21% recovery rate in 2017, the year before the new rules were instituted.
The league will try to make the odds a little more favorable by reducing from 11 to nine the number of players on the receiving team allowed to line up within 25 yards of the ball on onside kicks.
Maybe a better idea, certainly a more exciting one, would be to adopt a plan proposed by the Philadelphia Eagles the past two years — give the scoring (kicking) team the option of running one play from its own 25-yard line. If they gain at least 15 yards on the one play, they maintain possession. The owners have rejected the idea.
Working overtime
One proposal passed by the league owners — finally — was the elimination of an overtime period in preseason games, never mind there hasn't been a preseason overtime since 2014.
After all, if the league is going to reduce the number of preseason games from four to three, it should eliminate any possibility a preseason game will last longer than 60 minutes. Thankfully, it did.
Speaking of overtime, the Eagles and Baltimore Ravens came up with the most unique proposal for the owners that would have eliminated the overtime kickoff. The proposal was rejected, but it was certainly thought-provoking.
Under the proposal, referred to as the "spot and choose" proposal, the winner of the overtime coin toss would have chosen where to start the ball to start overtime. The loser of the coin toss could then decide if they want the ball or play defense. Overtime would last 10 minutes and the first team to score wins.
It would create an interesting dilemma for the team that won the coin toss. If they elected to put the ball at the opponents' 1-yard line, the loser of the coin toss could elect to take the ball and have four plays to score the winning touchdown from the 1.
If the winner of the coin toss elected to put the ball at their own 1, the loser could elect to play defense and try to gain field position by holding them on three plays and forcing a punt.
In theory, the proposal would actually penalize the team that won the coin toss and give the advantage to the team that didn't.
"That was an out-of-the-box idea," Atlanta Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay, head of the league's competition committee, said in a conference call with reporters. "I thought Baltimore did a really nice job in explaining it. I think ideas like that take a long time to marinate and understand."
What's in a number?
The NFL is not allowing players to choose from a larger variety of jersey numbers merely to appease those who wanted the same number they wore in college or high school.
The idea came about because some teams were running out of position-specific jersey numbers last season when practice squads were increased to 16 members and some players were allowed to be activated for games because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So the owners approved a proposal by the Kansas City Chiefs that allows quarterbacks, punters and kickers to wear numbers 1-19; defensive backs 1-49; running backs, tight ends and wide receivers 1-49 and 80-89; offensive linemen 50-79; defensive linemen 50-79 and 90-99; and linebackers 1-59 and 90-99.
Smith-Schuster posted an altered photo on Twitter of him wearing a No. 9 Steelers jersey, the number he wore at USC. Defensive end Stephon Tuitt, who wore No. 7 at Notre Dame, wouldn't have the luxury of switching numbers.
However, the rule that has been in effect for switching a jersey number still remains: A player has to buy out all inventory of his existing jersey in order to change numbers.
That could present a different type of numbers problem.
