The NFL Competition Committee and NFL owners have begun to examine potential rule changes for the upcoming 2025 NFL season. Today, the NFL posted playing rules and bylaws change proposals by the teams, five in all.

Teams propose rule changes directly to the owners when the Competition Committee chooses not to endorse or push forward such a rule change. The overarching theme of this offseason’s proposed changes from the teams and likely the Competition Committee seem to focus on modest “tweaks” versus major modifications, as we saw last year with the introduction of the dynamic kickoff.

As a reminder, 24 owners must approve a rule change for it to take effect. Owners can also approve changes for just pre-season games, or on a limited trial basis. While some proposals will be approved, we don’t anticipate any major changes to hit the books.

Tush push is likely to survive

Green Bay’s submission, which aims to eliminate the Eagles’ prominent use of the tush push, has received widespread media coverage. Each level of football has differing rules about assisting the runner, and this submission faces significant hurdles for passage. All indications are that the Competition Committee has little appetite to ban this play, so expect the tush push to survive for another year.

Defensive holding/illegal contact change is unlikely

Detroit, with three of this year’s rule/bylaw proposals, proposed the elimination of the automatic first down as part of the penalty assessed for defensive holding and illegal contact. Sometimes this penalty seems excessively punitive, especially when it occurs in a 3rd and long situation, but when the league wants to encourage passing and exciting plays, they are likely to leave this penalty in place to discourage the illegal disruption of receivers.

Regular-season overtime

A hotly debated issue, especially in Buffalo and apparently in Philadelphia, continues to be overtime rules. Currently, the NFL has different overtime rules for the regular season compared to the playoffs. During a regular season overtime, if the team that first possesses the ball scores a TD, the game is over, even if the opponent never possessed the ball. During the playoffs, even if the team in possession first scores a TD on their opening possession, the opponent will have the opportunity to possess the ball and match the score.

Philadelphia’s proposal looks to align the overtime rule sets and subject the regular season overtime to a single 15-minute period, up from 10 minutes that was established in 2017. The fact that this is a team proposal and not one put forth by the Competition Committee means it may face an uphill climb to passage, but this is may be the one team rule proposal that could gain some traction.

Playoff seeding

Another proposal from Detroit looks to amend the bylaws and allow wild card teams to be seeded higher than the division winners if the wild card team has a better record. Last season, the Lions and Vikings had a winner take all matchup during week 18 where the winner won the NFC North and took the overall #1 seed in the NFC while the loser got the #5 seed and had to travel to San Francisco.

Unfortunately for the Vikings, they lost that week 18 game and were bounced from the playoffs during wild card weekend. Under this proposal, the Vikings would have been at worst a #3 seed and hosted a playoff game.

Although this isn’t the first time playoff seeding has been a topic of discussion at the owners meetings, the NFL values division winners, so don’t expect this proposal to pass.

Roster limits

Detroit also made a proposal to add flexibility to the roster limits as it pertains to preseason injured reserve. The proposal would allow an injured reserve player to count against the 90-player roster limit before the reduction to 53 players. Players designated for return from injured reserve would still count against the 90-player limit.

What could we expect from the Competition Committee?

Dynamic kickoff

The Competition Committee is not expected to propose many changes, but we do know that the dynamic kickoff is being looked at. The introduction of the dynamic kickoff was a seismic shift in the way the game is played at the NFL level, but many forget the league only approved it for one year.

Following what the NFL considers a “successful season” of the new format, which increased the number of returns by 50% compared to 2023, the league is considering further tweaks:

1. Moving the kickoff spot back to the kicking team’s 30-yard line (currently at the 35-yard line).
2. Moving the touchback spot to the receiving team’s 30-yard line (currently at the 35-yard line).

At minimum, the NFL will either approve the kickoff format for an additional season or choose to make the kickoff change permanent.

Expanded use of replay for fouls … maybe

Last season, football pundits started to call for the expanded use of replay to address potential foul/no-call situations such as facemasks and late hit unnecessary roughness fouls. This is partially a result of the success of “replay assist“, which was used last season to correct obvious errors with spots, incomplete passes, and other black and white calls.

However, the Competition Committee won’t endorse the use of replay assist for fouls because most fouls contain subjective elements, and replay is for objective decisions. The Competition Committee will consider expanding replay assist for fouls, but only to correct obvious missed objective calls—for example, a flagged facemask foul where the shoulder pad was grabbed—and will almost certainly not endorse calling a foul if no flag was thrown on the field.

Digital first downs

The NFL is moving away from the traditional chain gang and will now measure first downs using the HawkEye system. The NFL trialed this system during the 2024 NFL preseason and in the background during select regular season games. Remember: officials activate this system after spotting the ball.

Will there be any surprises?

Now that we know the team proposals, will there be any other major surprises? Unlikely, especially since the NFL is hesitant to make significant rule changes for anything but player safety. The only other topic that the Competition Committee may address with the officials in the offseason is what protections quarterbacks running beyond the line-of-scrimmage have and how the NFL would like those plays officiated.

We won’t know if any of these rule changes pass until the winter meetings in Palm Beach, Florida, conclude on April 2.