One of the central part of the NFL's annual meeting, taking place right now in Boca Raton, Florida, is the voting process for the rule changes proposed by the league's 32 clubs as well as the competition committee. Today, the league announced which proposals will be adopted for the 2016 season.
Via Ian Rapoport, here are the seven proposals, the owners voted in favor of:
1. By Competition Committee; Permanently moves the line of scrimmage for Try kicks to the defensive team’s 15-yard line, and allows the defense to return any missed Try.
2. By Competition Committee; Permits the offensive and defensive play callers on the coaching staffs to use the coach-to-player communication system regardless of whether they are on the field or in the coaches’ booth.
3. By Competition Committee; Makes all chop blocks illegal.
16. By Competition Committee; Expands the horse collar rule to include when a defender grabs the jersey at the name plate or above and pulls a runner toward the ground.
17. By Competition Committee; Makes it a foul for delay of game when a team attempts to call a timeout when it is not permitted to do so.
18. By Competition Committee; Eliminates the five-yard penalty for an eligible receiver illegally touching a forward pass after being out of bounds and re-establishing himself inbounds, and makes it a loss of down.
19. By Competition Committee; Eliminates multiple spots of enforcement for a double foul after a change of possession.
Of the 19 original proposals, seven were adopted. Interestingly none of those were submitted by a member club; every new rule was proposed by the competition committee. This means that the attempts to widen the scope of challengeable plays (Washington), to eliminate overtime in preseason games (Washington), to extend illegal grounding (Carolina) or to make ineligible players were jersey vests (Baltimore) have failed.
As opposed to the last few years, the Patriots have not submitted any potential rule changes in 2016.
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UPDATE (03/23): Two more rules submitted by the competition committee were approved today; they will be tested in 2016 and voted on again next season:
4. By Competition Committee; Disqualifies a player who is penalized twice in one game for certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct fouls.
5. By Competition Committee; Changes the spot of the next snap after a touchback resulting from a free kick to the 25-yard line.
The meeting also approved on changing a bylaw of the rules monitoring injured reserve designation: the one player designated to return from injured reserve doesn't have to be pre-determined now and can simply be promoted once he is eligible after a six-weeks period.