The National Football League membership adopted a raft of rules change proposals, bylaws and resolutions at the Annual League Meeting in Orlando, Florida, headlined by an attempt to outlaw the ‘hip-drop’ tackle and the adoption of a new kickoff rule.

Proposed by the league’s own Competition Committee, changes have been made to Rule 12 Section 2 in a bid to eliminate what team owners see as a potentially dangerous tackling technique. The official rule now declares a foul if a runner is brought to the ground by a defender “unweighting himself by swivelling and dropping his hips and/or lower body to land on and trap the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.”

The penalty for a hip-drop tackle has been set at the loss of 15 yards and an automatic first down, but the move has proven unpopular amongst players and those who feel the game is continuing to be neutered defensively. The NFLPA has spoken out against the ban, but the league’s EVP of football operations, Troy Vincent, insisted that the hip-drop tackle was something the league wanted “to get out of the game”.

“The greatest asset for any athlete is durability and availability,” Vincent said at the time. “When you have a play that has a 20-25 times the injury rate [of other tackles], it doesn’t allow you to fulfill your dreams.”

The decision makes life more difficult for defenders, many of whom decried the ban as a further obstacle to their work.

“This isn’t the elimination of the hip-drop [technique], this is an elimination of a swivel technique that doesn’t get used very often,” Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay insisted at the rule’s announcement. “This is only that tackle where the player is lifting themselves in the air and then falling on the [runner’s] legs. When it is used, it is incredibly injurious to the runner, [who] is purely defenseless.

“I’ve heard defenders say ‘Hey, you’re putting me in a really tough spot, you’re saying I can’t hit here’, but my response has always been ‘Well, the guy you’re hitting is defenseless, and has no way to protect himself, so we’ve got to protect him.”

McKay also admitted that the new rule will ‘be a hard one to call on the field’, emphasising concerns of players and fans alike.

Another Competition Committee proposal, this time to revise the kickoff procedure, is currently in place for one year only, with the right to continue tinkering with it ahead of the 2025 season. The decision amends Rule 6 in such a way that the ‘free kick play’ now resembles a typical scrimmage play by aligning players on both teams closer together and restricting their movement to reduce space and speed on safety grounds. One anticipated by-product the Committee hopes to see is an increase in returned kicks.

The move will dramatically alter the look of the kickoff, which had routinely produced touchbacks as kickers booted the ball clean through the opposing endzone. The revised rule now features new alignments for both the kicking and receiving units, while establishing a ‘landing zone’ between the receiving team’s goal line and its 20-yard line which the Committee hopes will provide incentive for potential return attempts.

Kickoffs will continue to be taken from the kicking team’s 35-yard line, but the remaining 10 players on the kicking unit will now line up at the receiving team’s 40-yard line. The receiving team will have to line up with at least seven players in the so-called ‘set-up zone’, a five-yard area between their own 35- and 30-yard lines, while a maximum of two returners can line up in the landing zone.

After the ball is kicked, the kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line and the 10 kicking team players cannot move until the ball hits the ground or a player in the landing zone or goes into the end zone. The receiving team’s players in the set-up zone also cannot move under the same restrictions, but the returner(s) may move at any time before or during the kickoff.

If a penalty carries over to the kickoff, the set-up and landing zones will not change, nor will the alignment of the 10 kickoff team players and all the receiving team players, meaning that only the kicker’s position will change.

Under the new rules, the following scenarios apply:

• Kickoffs that hit the landing zone must be returned.
• Kickoffs that hit the landing zone and then go into the end zone must be returned or downed by the receiving team. If downed, the receiving team would get the ball at its own 20-yard line.
• Kickoffs that go into the end zone, stay inbounds and are downed will give the receiving team the ball at their own 30-yard line. Kickoffs that go out of the back of the end zone (either in the air or by bouncing out) would also result in a touchback at the receiving team’s 30-yard line.
• Kickoffs short of the landing zone would be treated like a kickoff out of bounds, meaning that the receiving team would get the ball at its own 40-yard line.
• The legislation also will lead to a tweak in onside kicks, which can only occur in the fourth quarter and onward when a team trails. The kicking team must declare its intent to onside kick.

“I think that we’re still going to have to tinker with it,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday, “but I think it will be a big improvement and bring the play back into relevancy as an important play — and an exciting play — where the injury rate, hopefully, will drop.”

Also approved was a proposal made by the Pittsburgh Steelers which amends Article XVI, Section 16.6 of the Constitution & Bylaws by moving the trading deadline back a week to the Tuesday after all Week 9 games. Previously, the trade deadline was the Tuesday after Week 8. The proposal was made because, when the league moved to a 17-game schedule in 2021, the trade deadline wasn’t adjusted to accommodate the elongated season. The rule change restores the deadline to its more centralised place on the timetable.

Several clubs apparently proposed pushing the deadline even further but failed in their attempts as the league opted for the more conservative option, fearing anything else would incentivise tanking.

The following playing rules, bylaw alterations and resolution approvals were also made at the Annual League Meeting:

• Rule 15, Section 1, Article 1,which now protects a club’s ability to challenge a third ruling following one successful challenge.
• Rule 14, Section 5, Article 2 now allows for the enforcement of a major foul by the offense prior to a change of possession in a situation where there are fouls by both teams.
• Rule 15, Section 3, Article 3 now includes a ruling of a passer down by contact or out of bounds before throwing a pass as a reviewable play.
• Rule 15, Section 3, Article 9 now allows a replay review when there is clear and obvious visual evidence that the game clock expired before any snap.
• Article XVII, Section 17.16 (C) of the Constitution & Bylaws was amended to provide clubs with an unlimited number of ‘designated for return’ transactions in the postseason.
• Article XVII, Section 17.16© is amended to permit each club to place a maximum of two players who are placed on an applicable Reserve List on the business day of the final roster reduction to be designated for return. Such players will immediately count as two of the club’s total designations.
• Article XVII, Section 17.3 has expanded the Standard Elevation rules to permit clubs to elevate a bona fide quarterback an unlimited number of times from its practice squad to its Active List to be its ’emergency third quarterback’.
• Resolution G-1 makes the injury reporting rules for players who do not travel with their clubs to away games competitively fairer.
• Resolutiom G-2A expands the 2023 preseason trial of a specific Hawk-Eye feed in the coaches booths to the 2024 preseason, with full implementation for the 2025 season.