COMPETITION COMMITTEE PRESS CONFERENCE

COMPETITION COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN & ATLANTA FALCONS PRESIDENT & CEO RICH MC KAY
2012 ANNUAL MEETING: COMPETITION COMMITTEE PRESS CONFERENCE
PALM BEACH, FLA.

March 26, 2012

Competition Committee wise, this morning the presentation was made by (Texans general manager) Rick Smith and (Ravens general manager) Ozzie Newsome to all of the football operations people, including the head coaches. We go through pretty much the entire report. Tomorrow, we make the report to the ownership, which also includes that same [football operations] group again and have a lot of discussion about the rules and the bylaws; present the points of emphasis – we have seven this year – and various miscellaneous positions; and then vote on Wednesday.

A couple things that I gave you on the call the other day, from the committee’s standpoint, this year was a pretty good year on the field to say the least. Scoring was 44.6 (per game), which was a big number considering we were concerned about the effects kickoffs [being moved to the 35-yard line] would have on scoring and offensive production. We had a competitive year – seven of eight new division winners, which is always a stat that we are interested in. This year as far as games being close, 44.8 percent of the games were decided by seven or fewer points, which is the second most in NFL history. The stat that I still can’t figure out is the fact that we had 18 games where teams came from 14 points or more down to win. It was a very unusual year.

Playing rules wise, we have seven playing rule (proposals). There is really not a lot that is real controversial or different. We have three (submitted) by teams. We have Buffalo’s instant replay proposal; Pittsburgh trying to take away the exception on the horse collar tackle for the quarterback inside the pocket; and we have Pittsburgh in overtime asking that the postseason rule be put into the regular season.

[Playing Rule Proposal No. 4] We have an illegal kicking of a loose ball to get away from a play that a couple of teams have had happen to them over the past couple of years because we don’t have a loss of down penalty. It would put a loss of down penalty into the play.

[Playing Rule Proposal No. 5] We have too many men on the field just trying to match up with the college rule in reaction a little bit to the Giants’ play in the Super Bowl, even though the rule change wouldn’t have affected that play in any way.

[Playing Rule Proposal No. 6] We have a little expansion – something we think is important – with respect to the defenseless player. That is expanding the crack-back protection to that player and giving that player complete defenseless-player protection, meaning you can’t block him in the head, you can’t block him with your head and you can’t block him low. We just think that defensive player is sitting inside, he is getting hit from the side and we saw some hits that we just wanted to make sure people change their aim point and try to hit in the midsection to get the block accomplished.

[Playing Rule Proposal No. 7] The last one is instant replay. Last year, we changed instant replay. The main emphasis behind last year’s change was the coaches. We felt the coaches were standing on the sidelines and at a real disadvantage with respect to what they were looking at in given the opportunity to challenge [scoring plays]. We thought we could put a system in place that would allow for the review for all scoring plays by the replay assistant and take it out of the hands of the coaches. We were definitely nervous about it going in and definitely worried about what it was going to do to time of game and potentially pace of game. Time of game wise, it added one second to the game from the analysis of the prior year. A lot more reviews for certain scoring plays than under the coach’s challenge but a lot more efficiently, also. We felt pretty good about that. The other thing that we liked about it was it did not mean that coaches went and used their challenges on other plays. They didn’t; they used a lot less this year. That is one thing we thought would happen because remember, when a coach challenges, if he doesn’t win, he loses a timeout so there is a cost associated with the system. This year, we propose that the system be extended to cover all turnovers. The reason we say ‘turnovers’ is the clock stops after a turnover and therefore we think that is a good opportunity for the instant replay assistant to be able to quickly confirm or send the play down to be reviewed. We will see if we are right: We actually think it may end up being something that could save time not cost time. No question, more turnovers would potentially be reviewed by the referee, but we would not ever have the situation where we have a turnover, we go to timeout, we come back, the team comes to the line of scrimmage and then the coach challenges, which is the ultimate delay, certainly within the coach’s purview but delay, and we are trying to avoid that.

Those are the rules proposals if you guys want to talk about those now or ask questions, but I will take you into the bylaws if you want. The only bylaws that I think you are going to be concerned with are Bylaw Proposal No. 2, move the trade deadline two weeks from Week 6 to Week 8; Bylaw Proposal No. 3, change our offseason roster size to 90 players – last year we put in a temporary rule that it was at 90 because of the year we had but it has been at 80 in years past – and this year’s 90 is a firm, hard 90 counting those who are drafted but unsigned, which used to not count so that is one that will certainly get some discussion; and the final cut down being moved to Friday this year for one year only to accommodate the Wednesday night game that will be the Kickoff Game this year [Bylaw Proposal No 5].

Bylaw Proposal No. 6 is one that I am sure will get some discussion and some proposals and maybe even amendments. We will see how that works. This is one where you would be allowed to designate a player on IR, and if that player was on injured reserve he would have to: No. 1 be put on injured reserve after the first game; and No. 2 he has got to stay on it for six weeks before he can practice and eight weeks before he can come back and play. We view this as a true marquee-type, starter-type player who we think we should give more flexibility for.

The last one is Bylaw Proposal No. 7, which would give you the ability to add to your inactive roster and to take your roster from 53 to 54 by adding an inactive place for a player who has been diagnosed with a concussion. You would have to make that designation by Friday, and if you want to bring that player back the next week, you have to take him off the list by Friday.

Those are the Bylaw Proposals; those are the Playing Rule Proposals. This is probably the most information we’ve had in the back of the book. We looked at a lot of different things this year, some of which you will see over the next couple of days. We have points of emphasis, which we will give to you after we show them to the owners.

One thing we did do is we spent a lot of time on the kickoff rule and what the effect was on the game. As I said on the call the other day, we were surprised that the kickoffs dropped as far as they did as far as returns getting down to 53 percent. You certainly saw field position affected in the sense that I think it went from about the 27-yard line down to the 23-yard line as far as average start. The great thing is that it didn’t affect scoring; it didn’t affect offensive production; and overall field position where everybody was throughout the entire game, as far as field position goes, was affected by about a yard-and-one-half. It was done for one reason and one reason only: player safety. That is the way we reviewed it, and we felt very good about the effects. We watched a lot of tape of it. We had a 40 percent reduction in concussions. It was the main object of that rule change, and I think it worked pretty well.

On Playing Rule Proposal No. 6 expanding crack-back protection for defensive players:
As that player is defined in the protected zone, all we are doing is taking what was crack-back protection and adding defenseless player protection to him.

On protection for defensive linemen:
We have that certain protection of going low if you are one player removed and all of that. You get that protection. But we did not put anything in there for that. We had some good, interesting feedback come from Coach Madden’s injury-safety panel. One of the things they talked about was defensive linemen and the concern about the use of hands by offensive linemen and blows to the head. That will be in our report, and will be a point of emphasis to protect defensive lineman, because what we have done a really good job is in the hands-to-the-face, we have a pretty good standard about the fact that once you get your head back, you have to let go. But we are getting too many blows to the head, too many initial strikes to the head. We will make that a point of emphasis and try to protect them.

On potential changes to replay system:
I don’t know. I don’t want to speak for Buffalo. I can assume it is speed. There is no question that if you just went to the replay assistant upstairs and he was given the task to make the decision, you would get a pretty quick decision. Those of us that have been around long enough remember when replay got voted out and when it got voted back in. One of our concerns – one of my concerns – is when it got voted out, part of the reason it got voted out was pace of game, the game was just getting bogged down with replay. The other reason was accuracy. We weren’t quite as accurate as we would like to be on reviews. We think we should be in the very high 90 percent range. I think we were close to 80 percent in accuracy of reviews. We were very comfortable the referee was the right person to make the call from an accuracy standpoint, and that is why we have had the system we have had.

On potential changes to replay and assistants in the booth:
I would assume you are using a lot of the guys you have up there today. Remember, they have to know a lot about the rules. They are going to have to be in constant contact with the referee and have a real exchange. It would be a more substantial change as far as who those people are and how they would communicate than just saying ‘OK, that person is now in power to make a decision.’ We talked about this a lot when we went to the new technology and we had to buy the new equipment, which was probably about four years ago, and decided at that point it was not the time to do it.

On time limit for replays:
That 60-second limit though has been there for us – I think we went from 90 to 60 probably four years ago. We have always felt that is enough time, because before the referee actually looks under, they are getting ready to show them what shots he will see. So we felt good about it.

On moving the postseason OT format to the regular season:
Part of life for us on the committee involves 24 votes, and that is always necessary to pass a rule. In getting the OT change passed, we felt like we had a better chance if we started in the postseason. We also felt we could make a distinction between the two. The distinction was that in the postseason, you lose and you go home. In the regular season, as valuable as our games are, you still get to play another game. So in our mind, there was an argument that at least a distinction could be made at the time. That is the way we sold it and pushed it. We also wanted to have a chance to put it in and see how coaches liked it and see how the teams liked it. What was interesting was, if you remember a couple of years back when we put it in, the NFLPA had some pushback on it and was a little concerned by it. The coaches were concerned about it. I think everyone is a lot more comfortable now. When we brought it up to the NFLPA this year at our meeting in Indianapolis, they absolutely supported going to that same system in the regular season. So sometimes it just takes a little while to get comfortable with what the system is going to be.

On overtime changes:
I think the argument we made and sometimes shows up in our rules as our effect is that it is just inherently more fair. I think sometimes we say that, and that is really why the change was. We just felt like the statistics had gotten themselves a little out-of-whack; the coin flip was having too much of an impact on the winners in our mind. So this was a way to say this is a fairer procedure. That is why we got ourselves into position to make the change.

On if competition committee would have supported the overtime rule taking effect in both the regular season and postseason last year:
Six of us would have. One of us that is now an ESPN analyst would have probably said postseason only. We would have negotiated with that analyst, but I am not sure we would have gotten his vote.

On protection for quarterbacks:
We talked a lot about quarterback injuries. Every year we watch a tape that has every play where the quarterback gets hurt, whether it is in the pocket or out of the pocket. This year, we looked at a penalty tape that involved every single roughing the passer penalty this year, which was 100-plus. We were very comfortable that the quarterback is being protected adequately. We ask the clubs that every year. We ask them that in a survey. We ask them if we are over-protecting them, under-protecting them, or adequately protecting them. This year, it was good to see that is was adequate – although you w]ill have some who always say over. We didn’t get under. I see what Coach Madden is talking about, and we have brought it up before, where the referee is sitting there and has a lot going on. The one thing I think Mike (Pereira) could attest to is they know their primary responsibility as that play progresses is the quarterback. When you watch the tape, you can see they are very much on top of protecting the quarterback. So we did not see that as an issue that merited change.

On potential change on roster spots for injured players:
I think it has been a lot of years coming. I think Art Rooney and a couple of other owners have raised it for a number of years. Last year in the CBA negotiations – a lot of the ones I sat in – it was raised by the players. There is that exception where a guy gets a serious injury late in preseason or early in the season, and because he is going to be out so many weeks, the team just can’t afford to carry a roster spot. So why don’t we just give them that narrow flexibility. So we brought it up this year. We put it in the survey to teams – the teams very much wanted it and voted in favor of it. So we tried to craft something to give them that.

(Question inaudible)
I don’t know if I’d ever say that. If I said it, I’ve got to go back and correct myself. Let me talk about the end zone envelope first. The end zone envelope was talked about and the concern we have – I think the place we’ve become comfortable at is – the good thing about replay, if it is going to a stopped clock, is we feel good about the fact that it’s not affecting the game in a negative way. Our concern about the end zone envelope is if you get that situation where the team’s got the ball and they’ve got first and goal at the one. Do we really want to have the potential of three straight stoppages? Because that is what you have. You’ve just run the ‘dive’ play and it’s a big mush and you can’t see anything. The guy upstairs stops it. The referee goes and looks. Ok, here we go, now the clock is supposed to be running but it’s stopped. Now, we start it again and we get the same play again and we get the same stop. One thing I think we found in scoring plays was it’s a natural stopped clock. The clock stops – and we actually go to a TV time-out after the score but that’s after confirmation also – we felt like when turnovers were in that same window. We didn’t feel that way with the end zone envelope. Another thing we thought is now that we’ve taken scoring plays and potentially taken turnovers, the coaches have a lot more challenges in their pocket. They have a lot more because I think between 60 and 70 percent of the coaches’ challenges, prior to changing the scoring play last year, were on scoring plays or turnovers so we’ve put a lot of challenges back in their pockets that they were traditionally using on plays that they no longer have to use. Now you would think, ‘Oh that could add a lot of time to the game.’ It didn’t last year because they didn’t use them. We only had one time where a guy got to his third challenge and used it. We just think this system works better as far as interference with the game which we don’t want replay to do.

(Question inaudible)
I’ll leave that to the league to discuss. I’m focused on that one play and injuries that are with it.

On the record setting quarterback numbers this past season and any concern with the balance between the offenses and defenses:
Yes, I think there was some concern. I think people always get concerned about balance between offense and defense. We have a historian that kind of works for the committee and is always on us at all times. That’s Joel Bussert. Joel did some research and we wrote a little piece in our introduction to try to say, ‘Let’s pay attention to history and let’s pay attention to how much passing went on at one point in time and how much scoring went on at one point in time.’ In fact in the ‘50s, we scored a lot more than we scored today. We had some real passers in those days. We’ve kind of gone back and looked at it and said, ‘We feel OK about where we are. We don’t think we are out of whack at all on offense and defense.’ In fact, we feel like the balance is pretty historically correct.

On the pass-run ratio:
I think that has come too. As the college game has evolved, our game has evolved and I don’t think that ratio is going to reverse itself. But I don’t think it concerns us. It might have affected a little bit of game time. Obviously, throws affect game time a little more than runs but otherwise, it’s not affected, in our mind, the quality of the game nor has it affected any of the traditional matrix of the game.

On there being questions and/or issues with the value of the running back position:
Absolutely but that happens all the time. That happens when the 3-4 defense becomes more popular than the 4-3 defense. You start hearing about, ‘Well, what’s the value of that defensive end? There aren’t as many teams that need him.’ You know what I mean? That just kind of – something tells me that will come back to be talked about in a different way.

Re trade deadline:
No, not necessarily. I think it’s more geared towards making sure that we take into account that our game has changed a little bit and that the way our salary cap is being administered is changed a little bit. Acceleration rules have changed. We just felt like there’s a little more opportunity for trade and we should give teams the opportunity to do it. It doesn’t mean that our league is going to become a trade league because it really hasn’t been historically. We are a team sport. It’s real hard to trade for somebody in Week 7 and bring them in. We just felt like those teams that wanted the opportunity should be given the opportunity. It wasn’t to spur more trades.

Question inaudible:
I don’t think so. I think it has as much to do with player development as anything. It’s not necessarily just because of the way we practice, but it’s because this gives us an opportunity to keep more players in the system. Let them come to camp. Let them compete. Let them go play in preseason games. Make them more available during the season when teams want to bring new players in or have injuries. In our mind, the more players—we used to have NFL Europe. That used to be where we got those players from. We don’t have that anymore and haven’t had it. We felt like we need a little better base of players out there that are in shape, have played, have practiced and have played in preseason games. That was kind of the thought.

On kickoff changes:
I don’t know. What we did is we did meet with them in Indianapolis. We went right through the rule and had a really good discussion about it and didn’t receive any push-back from them concerning it. There were a couple players there that had some interesting thoughts on how you further change the rule down the road but none that have said, ‘Boy, you’ve got to move it back to the 30.’ That was never brought up. Obviously, college this year is going to make that change.

On officiating:
The commissioner would be the one to answer the question on the full-time officials because I think he continues to work on that issue and talk about it. On the eighth official, we did the experiment. The last two years, specifically, with a lot more games last year and made no recommendation this year after the experiment and the feedback to go to eight. We’re pretty comfortable with seven. The added value that we thought you could get – I’m not sure we demonstrated enough to say it was worth our while and then we got the feedback from a lot of on-field officials who weren’t comfortable necessarily that we’d get added value so we did not make the recommendation to the membership to do that. I don’t think we have anything scheduled to experiment with eight this preseason.

On the Competition Committee’s reaction to discipline resulting from on-field infractions:
As I said on the call, one thing that we do well as a league is we vet all of our rules; we vet what the rules should be; we vet how to write them; we take our time in writing them; we debate in passing them; and then we have always done a good job, too, of deferring the discipline aspects and investigation aspects to the commissioner. Then we support the decisions that he makes and we move on. That is how I look at that.

On the Competition Committee’s role in changing the culture of football:
We do play a role in trying to change the culture in trying to make sure we continually are proposing rules to the membership that emphasize player safety, and when we do, we enforce those rules on the field and we enforce those rules in New York. Then it is inherent upon us that we work at the clubs to make sure that in the club and in the discussion in your own building is about those rules, how those rules should be enforced and how the guys should play the game.

I am one who is very encouraged about the tape we watched this year and how you saw players change the way they played the game in certain areas that we will call ‘defenseless player areas.’ I still hear people say every once in awhile, ‘Oh, you are making the game not tough.’ It is a physical game. Anybody who says it is not tough literally just needs to go out there once and realize it is a tough football game. I do think players have gotten the message and done a really good job of changing the way they tackle, the way they hit and conforming to the rules. To us, that is a cultural change. Any time we can contribute to it, we should.

Question inaudible:
No, we always, if somebody is going to bring up a new rule or a new issue that is going to affect an issue that surrounds that, then maybe, but no, they haven’t and it really shouldn’t affect us.

On Bylaw Proposal No. 2 only applying to a major football injury:
That is correct – a major football injury, which means it has to be a six-week injury. That is the way we define ‘major football injury.’ Remember, you have PUP (Physically Unable to Perform list), another way to deal with those players who have non-football injuries.

On teams circumventing injured reserve rules:
It has always been verified the same way. Literally, your team doctor has to sign a form that says, ‘This player has suffered a major injury. Here is what he has suffered.’ If the league office doubts it, than the league office sends that player to an independent doctor. Remember, there is no real advantage gained in that instance because you are putting that player away for eight weeks. This isn’t like the old rule was prior to ’93 when we used to have players you could bring back from temporary IR. That is not what we are trying to create here. You only had to put him down for three weeks or four weeks, a big difference. In this one, we do not see that issue.

On if the 1995 Pittsburgh Steelers could have named CB Rod Woodson their designated IR player under Bylaw Proposal No. 2:
Absolutely, the right example. They could absolutely put him [on injured reserve] and designate him at that point. He then does not count and they can add a 53rd player to replace him. After six weeks, he can practice. He can practice not Week 6 and not Week 8. He has got to start practice by Week 9, which means he would have three more weeks to practice, taking him to 12 weeks from the time you put him on and then you either have to activate him or not. It is very similar to our PUP rules. It gets a little complicated when you start talking about that first day of practice and when they can return. It is why in the rule we put an example so people would understand it, but yes, that is exactly why you talk about it – those type of injuries.

On roughing the passer:
We always are going to get some that say that because in that particular year, they probably got a few higher roughing the quarterback calls than other teams. It is OK. We always ask the question juts to make sure that we are not out of whack somewhere that we are not out of whack with what the teams think should be called on the field.

Question inaudible:
I am concerned when they are in my division, but otherwise, I think we should do something about that. No, we think the game is in pretty good stead. I think the fans think it is; the players think it is; and the coaches think it is. We are satisfied with where the game is.

On emphasizing officials to call questionable plays as scores so they would be automatically reviewed by the instant replay official:
No, it might have been on television. It wouldn’t have been for us. They are supposed to call it as they see it. That is like saying they should rule that it is a fumble and not down by contact in the old way because then it would be reviewable. No, we would not say that we would emphasize that.

On complaints regarding assistant coaches under multiyear contracts not being granted the ability to interview with another club:
It really wasn’t this year. We expected to see some in the surveys and didn’t really see it. We have talked about the anti-tampering rules for an awfully long time. The rule we have gotten to now, which is a contract is a contract, is a rule that we got to because there was so much manipulation going on in the older systems of the designations of titles of supervisory capacity and all of those things. We came to the final conclusion of if a coach decides to sign a multiyear agreement, he understands when he signs that multiyear agreement that he may not be able to move unless a team grants him permission. We did not suggest anything this year and there was no suggestion from a team.

On discussions regarding former St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels joining the New England Patriots during the playoffs:
There was. There is something in the report that we didn’t think there was a rule change necessary with respect to that situation.