The National Football League is always tinkering with its rules to make the product better, both on the field and for its viewing experience, and another change could be on the way. The league is considering allowing review of facemask calls via replay assistance as soon as next season.
Troy Vincent, executive vice president of football operations, spoke about the possible rule change at the NFL Special League Meeting in Irving, Texas, on Wednesday.
The increasing speed of the game has made the jobs of referees harder, and so there will always be missed calls. However, while the average fan may not be able to spot a missed illegal procedure penalty, holding, or pass interference, that’s not the case with the twisting of a facemask. It’s clearly evident to the fan watching at home, and often evident to the referees, but many of them are simply missed.
“The membership really has to decide what they want that standard to be,” Vincent continued. “That is, do you want some of those things that are subjective, objective, do you want to include those? That’s why you always hear us say ‘crawl, walk, jog.’ ... This year the facemask seemed like the obvious [one] that keeps showing up. A few years past, it was maybe the roughing the passer, the low contact.”
Vincent was likely referring to a couple of recent high-profile missed calls for grabbing of the facemask. Just this past week on Monday Night Football, Joe Burrow had his facemask twisted by a Dallas Cowboys defender on a play, which forced Burrow to fumble. Cincinnati recovered the fumble, but the no-call caused the Bengals to punt on the next play, instead of being awarded a first down had the call been made.
Perhaps an even more egregious missed call came, coincidentally, in another primetime game earlier this year. On Thursday Night Football in October, Sam Darnold had his facemask twisted in such a way that his helmet was at a 90-degree angle compared to his torso in a game versus the Los Angeles Rams. No call was made on the offending player in Byron Young, and compounding the play was that it occurred in Minnesota’s own endzone, so the play resulted in a safety and two points for the Rams. The Vikings had the ball with a chance to tie the game, but the safety making it a two-possession game with just over 90 seconds remaining—plus with Los Angeles getting the ball back after a safety—essentially ended any chance of the Vikings making a comeback.
The NFL acknowledged the play—after the game—by fining Young the standard $7,049.19 for an unnecessary roughness violation. The league even explicitly stated “facemask” in the fine report, even though no unnecessary roughness penalty—or any flag for that matter—was issued on the play.
The league has historically avoided making any subjective calls reviewable, with one notable exception. After a blatant missed defensive pass interference penalty in a Rams versus Saints playoff game in January 2019, the league then allowed pass interference to be challenged—and reviewed—for the 2019 NFL season. However, that lasted for just one season as the NFL reverted back following the year.
The last major rule change was implemented this season, and that’s the new dynamic kickoff rule, which is in place to inspire more kick returns. Vincent also said that this change would also be reviewed after the season, with possible modifications, while also revealing a potentially related rule change involving the onside kick.
“We need to look at that. That’s a dead play,” Vincent said of the current onside kick’s low success rate, in which just 5.2 percent of attempts were recovered in the 2023 season.
“That is a ceremonial play. Very low recovery rate. When we look at the kickoff and maybe where the touchback area should be during the offseason, we need to revisit the onside kick.”
Another item that will be reviewed by the league in the offseason is the low block, and the NFL’s desire to eliminate, or at the very least, reduce the number of those.
“Every block should be above the knee, but below the neck,” stated Vincent. “All the work that we’ve done for the head and neck area, all the things that we’ve taken out of the game, this is the right time for us to remove the low block out of the game.”
