NFL

Recent murmurs about changing the Rooney Rule have stemmed from the Florida Attorney General sending a letter asking for its elimination. In response, Goodell said, “we are aware of the laws and... we think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those.” The rule is intended to expand opportunities for minorities, requiring NFL teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for general manager, head coaching, and coordinator vacancies. Goodell made it clear in his press conference at the NFL’s annual league meetings that the Rooney Rule is here to stay.

Schroeder said those extra games will go elsewhere on the schedule. The league was airing multiple games on Monday as part of a deal with Disney to increase total number of games aired by Disney throughout the season. Now, the league has a deal to sell Disney control of NFL Network and the MNF doubleheaders will no longer be a thing. Schroeder said the result was a miscalculation of fan interest and other windows will be looked at for airing those games.

This is, of course, in the event that there’s a work stoppage involving the NFL Referees Association. Probably says a lot about what is expected to happen that this rule was passed, don’t you think? It’ll be the first time that New York is able to overrule things on the field on their own with video evidence. The owners also approved allowing teams to kick onside kicks at any time during the game, eliminating the incentive to intentionally kick the ball out of bounds when kicking off from the 50-yard line, and modifying the kickoff alignment requirements for the receiving team players in the setup zone.

Allegiant Stadium was the host site for Super Bowl LVIII for the 2023 season and will again host the league’s championship game in 2029. At Monday’s league meetings, owners approved the decision to name Vegas as the site for Super Bowl LXIII. Only 10 cities have ever had the chance to host more than one Super Bowl per Statista.com, with next year’s game set to take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

According to Pelissero, a source familiar with the situation told him “our direction (from owners) is not to be unprepared.” While the decision to begin hiring replacement refs doesn’t mean the replacements will be locked in for Week 1, but the league is being proactive to ensure officials are in place for games with or without a CBA deal.

This memo comes just before teams across the league are scheduled to convene in Phoenix for their annual meeting. The league and the refs, who are working on a new CBA before the start of the season, reportedly broke off labor talks early last week after the league rejected the NFLRA’s latest proposal. There’s still plenty of time for the two sides to come to an agreement before the start of the season, but concerns continue to be heightened about the possibility of replacement referees, which we last saw in 2012.

The NFLRA opened the session with a counterproposal and the NFL rejected it and unilaterally left the bargaining table despite talks that were supposed to last for two days. Combine this with the NFL Competition Committee sneaking a proposal on that lets New York unilaterally correct officials in the event of a labor stoppage — including throwing flags on to the field from New York — and you can see that the groundwork for a lockout is clearly being established. The league is reportedly hoping to move annual bonus money toward “high-performing officials” and increase the probationary period for new officials from three years to four. The current labor agreement expires in May. There is, of course, still time for both sides to come back to the table. But the current tenor of negotiations is not looking promising.

As the league continues to push for an 18th regular-season game, Florio reports “there’s an idea floating around” that would limit every player to a maximum of 17 games to sell the expansion of the regular season. Florio does note that QBs, along with kickers and punters, could end up being exempt from these rules, but this would obviously create an interesting wrinkle for teams and fantasy mangers should this come to fruition. While no deal is imminent for an 18th regular-season contest, the belief is that it will be here sooner rather than later.

Seifert notes that if the league cannot agree on a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees Association, replacement officials will be considered for the 2026 season. The league is looking for a list of “about 150 mostly small college officials” in its approach to prepare for not reaching an agreement. This approach is similar to what occurred during the 2012 lockout of officials, which ended after Week 3 of the regular season. The current CBA expires at the end of May, putting a timeline on the NFL’s decision to consider replacement officials.

The league continues to add regular season games on and around every major American holiday. The Thanksgiving week schedule has changed dramatically over the past decade, with a primetime game added to the Thursday slate and a Black Friday game tacked on for good measure in 2023. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said last year that he would like to add a second Black Friday game to the schedule.