Each year, the NFL’s competition committee gets together to discuss possible rule changes for the upcoming season. For 2024, a new hybrid kickoff rule is going to be one of the biggest changes for your NFL betting, which should make the kick return an exciting, meaningful play again.
Some rule changes are great, but not every rule change works out the way the league had hoped it would. We thought this was a good time to look back at the significant rule changes from the last decade and which ones were hits and which were misses.
Hit – No More Tuck Rule (2013)
In 2013, the NFL finally removed the “Tuck Rule,” the infamous rule that only came into effect in 1999. But just 2 years later, it became part of NFL lore in a 2001 AFC divisional round playoff game in the snow between the Raiders and Patriots.
With the game on the line and the Patriots trailing, it looked like young quarterback Tom Brady fumbled on a strip-sack by corner Charles Woodson, which was recovered by the Raiders. Oakland would have run the clock out and won the game, but since the play occurred just after the 2-minute warning, it was automatically reviewed. CBS announcers were confused as to why it even needed a review as it looked like a clear fumble.
Today in 2002, the “Tuck Rule Game”. @Patriots @Raiders pic.twitter.com/RxvEA8LocY
— TodayInSports (@TodayInSportsCo) January 19, 2023
But then referee Walt Coleman announced that it was an incomplete pass and the Patriots retained the ball. Adam Vinatieri made the greatest field goal ever to force overtime where the Patriots won 16-13. A dynasty was born instead of a one-and-done season.
It was determined that Brady was bringing the ball back to his body and lost it in the process of tucking it away. That’s how many of us learned about the Tuck Rule. For the next decade, it became an inconsistently applied rule to other quarterback fumbles that looked similar in nature, and it always felt like a poor judgment call to excuse a quarterback for fumbling.
Finally, in 2013 the NFL decided to just get rid of it and make it so that if a quarterback is trying to bring the ball back into their body and loses the ball, it is a fumble.
Brady played another decade without the Tuck Rule in existence, but it’s another example of how no one can ever replicate his career as that fateful play of his would have been a game-ending fumble if it happened under today’s rules.
The Raiders are still wishing it never was a rule in the first place.
Hit – Longer Extra Points (2015)
In 2015, the NFL decided to move the line of scrimmage on extra points to the 15 from the 2-yard line. The extra point had become a boring, routine play with success rates in the 98% to 99% range. By moving it back to the 15, that makes it equivalent to a 33-yard field goal, which is more like 94% to 95% successful.
It’s still an easy kick, but at least some added skill and risk comes with the play now. In fact, 2023 (95.9%) was the first time since the rule change in 2015 that the league-wide rate on extra-point kicks exceeded 95%.
This rule change was permanently accepted starting in the 2016 season after a successful debut of it in 2015.
Funny enough, former Patriots coach Bill Belichick was one of the strongest supporters of making the extra point a longer kick. His kicker, Stephen Gostkowski, missed an early extra point in the 2015 AFC Championship Game in Denver, and that played a part in his team losing that game 20-18.
Miss – Removing ‘Probable’ from the Injury Reports (2016)
This may only bug someone who has worked on NFL injury data, but it also can be annoying to bettors and fantasy owners who aren’t sure if a key player is going to be healthy enough to play that week.
In 2016, the NFL removed the ‘probable’ designation from injury reports, leaving either “questionable’ or ‘doubtful’ as the other statuses if a player isn’t already ruled out that week.
Some NFL teams, including those pesky Patriots, loved to game the injury report system by listing a ton of players as probable, which was supposed to indicate a 75% chance of playing that week. Questionable was 50% and doubtful was 25% at best.
Without probable, teams started using questionable as the new probable, leading to a lot of players who were supposed to be 50/50 to play that week play with ease.
In later years, there has been more focus on practice participation as the better indicator of whether a player would play that week. If a player doesn’t practice on Thursday or Friday for a Sunday game, there is a strong chance he isn’t playing that game.
But for the data nerds, not having probable has been a bummer of a change in how injuries are reported.
Miss – Shortening Overtime to 10 Minutes in Regular Season (2017)
We can (and later will) debate how overtime should work in NFL playoff games. But the regular season is a little different as there are windows on Sundays when the games air, and you want to get the game to finish as quickly as possible for TV purposes. You also don’t want teams exerting themselves a full quarter or more for a regular-season game.
But in 2017, the change to make overtime a 10-minute quarter instead of keeping it at 15 minutes was not a good change. With the way teams move the ball these days, it’s basically promoting more ties as you could see a team move the ball, miss a field goal, then the other team has a long drive that maybe stalls out late. You’re lucky if you get 3 possessions total in a 10-minute period, and that last drive may be severely rushed with the team content with settling on a tie.
- Since 2017, there have been 7 overtime ties in 7 seasons with the 10-minute rule.
- There were 7 overtime ties total in 1998-2016 (19 seasons) with the 15-minute clock.
When you remove sudden death in 2012, and then you shrink the clock by 5 minutes, you are asking for more ties, and no serious fan likes ties. I think most players would agree 15 minutes is fine, especially if we are more likely to get a winner instead of a bloody tie.
Hit and Miss – What’s a Catch? (2018)
The year is 2024, and do you truly know what a catch is in the NFL these days? They tried to clean it up in 2018 following the controversy over the Jesse James touchdown getting overturned in a key December game between the Steelers and Patriots. What was initially ruled a touchdown was overturned to an incomplete pass after it was ruled that James did not complete the process of the catch going to the ground.
Today, we remember this play. 1,096 days – exactly 3 years ago, Jesse James caught a clear touchdown with 28 seconds left in the 4th quarter against the Patriots. The refs robbed him just minutes later, calling the touchdown back, and securing the win for the Patriots. pic.twitter.com/F4WHYNxui5
— Jesse James Caught That Ball (@JamesCaughtIt) December 17, 2020
Known as the Calvin Johnson Rule, this “complete the process” and “survived the ground” language had been controversial since 2010 when that Johnson play happened in a game against Chicago. It came up several more times over the years, including an infamous Dez Bryant play in Green Bay in the 2014 NFC divisional round where the pass was ruled an incompletion after he stretched out in an attempt to score.
But the James play was the latest bad look for the NFL, so they entered 2018 with a cleaner approach to the catch rule. Now, the standards for a catch included:
- Two feet down or any equivalent (a butt or a knee)
- Control of the ball
- A football move (3rd step, reaching for the line to gain, tucking the ball, warding off a defender, etc.)
The “survived the ground” language was gone. Now, presumably, plays like Calvin Johnson, Dez and James would be catches. At least, that’s the theory. In the years since, we have still seen some questionable rulings on what’s a catch and what’s not a catch.
But in a 2022 game between the Patriots and Vikings, Hunter Henry had this catch overruled as an incomplete pass. He didn’t survive the ground, even though that hasn’t been part of the rules since the 2017 season.
Somehow #Patriots TE Hunter Henry’s ‘catch’ last night was ruled an incomplete but this ‘catch’ by #Chiefs TE Travis Kelce was ruled a TD? pic.twitter.com/dVdbwWIY5s
— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) November 25, 2022
Maybe things are better than they were in 2017 when it comes to catches in the NFL, but there are still plays every year that leave us wondering what the refs and replay will decide.
Miss – Reviewing Pass Interference (2019)
In the 2018 NFC Championship Game in New Orleans, the Rams got away with one of the most egregious cases of defensive pass interference in NFL history. It would have been an automatic first down, and the Saints would have run down the clock to kick a short go-ahead field goal with almost no time left, almost certainly winning the game. Instead, no flag was called, and the Rams forced overtime where they went on to win.
This sport confuses me. Robey Coleman no call. #Rams #Saints #NFL pic.twitter.com/8YuU0P98Kh
— SmallClone (@Smallclone_) January 20, 2019
It was such a bad, foul ending that the league did something drastic in the 2019 offseason and made pass interference a reviewable play, including Hail Mary plays even. Coaches were allowed to challenge this now.
This could have been a hit, but unfortunately, officials did not like being second guessed, so very few of the challenges on this penalty were ever overturned in the 2019 season.
Not surprisingly, this rule was abandoned after one season. If only they ever gave it a real chance to succeed.
Miss – Jersey Number Anarchy (2021)
Call me old fashioned, but it was nice when you saw a running back with a jersey number in the 20s or 30s, a wide receiver in the 80s, and a defensive back in the 20s, 30s, or 40s.
But starting in 2021, it was jersey number anarchy as various positions could start wearing a much wider range of numbers:
- Running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends are eligible to wear 1–49 and 80–89
- Defensive backs are eligible to wear 1–49
- Linebackers are eligible to wear 1–59 and 90–99
- These numbers did not change: Quarterbacks (1-19), punters/kickers (1-19), offensive linemen (50-79), and defensive linemen (50-79, 90-99)
Some people probably love this, but it’s just jarring if you have been watching football for a long time. Seeing someone at Micah Parsons’ size coming off the edge with a jersey number like No. 11 is still hard to get used to.
Not helping matters, in 2023, players were allowed to start wearing the number 0 again.
Hit – New Overtime Rules for Postseason (2022)
In the 2021 AFC divisional round, we saw one of the greatest endings in NFL history between the Bills and Chiefs in Kansas City. There were 31 points scored after the 2-minute warning.
It was basically a given that the team receiving first in overtime was going to win with the way those offenses were exchanging scores. Sure enough, the Chiefs won the coin toss and Patrick Mahomes led the offense right down the field for a walk-off touchdown. Josh Allen never touched the ball again in that game for Buffalo.
This was the final straw in a series of playoff games where an offense won on a touchdown and the other team never saw the ball:
- It happened to the Packers and Aaron Rodgers in back-to-back years in 2014 (at Seattle) and 2015 (at Arizona).
- It happened to Matt Ryan and the top-ranked Atlanta offense in Super Bowl LI against the 2016 Patriots.
- It happened to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the 2018 AFC Championship Game against the Patriots.
Finally, something was done. Starting with the 2022 season, overtime games in the postseason would ensure that both teams touch the ball, even if the opening drive is a touchdown.
This should have changed the strategy for teams, but we would not see this in effect until Super Bowl LVIII in the 2023 season between the Chiefs and 49ers. On the biggest stage of them all, the 49ers seemed to shrink in the moment and took the ball first. They only got a field goal, so they let Mahomes and the Chiefs know exactly what they needed to win while having all the time in the world with no clock pressure to pull it off.
Sure enough, Mahomes again led his offense right down the field for the walk-off touchdown as the first overtime was close to ending. You can bet the next time this comes up, the team that wins the coin toss is going to go on defense first.
It may not be the perfect overtime system, but it is an improvement over what has been used for most of NFL history.
