Suddenly, here we are, heading into the six-month football
abyss known as the NFL offseason.
The next competitive snap won't come until Sept. 5.
But in the meantime, the league's busy calendar will hold
our attention and in some ways keep us busier than we are during the season
itself. There's plenty on tap, even if Sundays won't be the same.
Rule changes, personnel moves and ownership drama are only
part of what we have
to look forward to. With Super Bowl LIII behind
us, let's take a closer look at the key dates and what the big league
priorities are heading into the offseason.
Feb. 14: The Oakland
Athletics report to spring training. Yes, we know that's
baseball, but this date should provide a hint of Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray's
intentions for 2019 and beyond. The Heisman Trophy winner has a minor league
contract with the A's and also has declared for
the NFL draft. Reporting to spring training, rather than focusing on the NFL
combine and draft, would be our first big
clue into his plans.
Feb. 19: The franchise/transition period begins.
Every NFL team can use either tag on one pending free agent to ensure, at the
very least, the right of first refusal should he sign an offer sheet elsewhere.
The biggest candidates for the franchise tag include a foursome of
pass-rushers: the Dallas
Cowboys' Demarcus
Lawrence, the Houston
Texans' Jadeveon
Clowney, the Kansas City
Chiefs' Dee Ford and
the Seattle
Seahawks' Frank Clark.
Read more on the Lawrence, Clowney and Ford cases
from NFL Nation.
Feb. 26-March 4: The scouting combine comes to
Indianapolis. The annual draft meat market will give us a better idea of the
2019 quarterback class, information that if nothing else will provide a
leverage point for projecting the top of the draft. At the moment, the
highest-rated passer on both ESPN's Mel Kiper's and Todd McShay's big
boards is Ohio State's Dwayne
Haskins (No. 6 and No. 10, respectively). Is Haskins, Murray or
perhaps even Duke's Daniel Jones worth
consideration at No. 1 overall?
March 5: The deadline for franchise/transition
tags hits at 4 p.m. ET. Most of the tag action occurs late in the process,
after teams and players have tested each other for parameters of a long-term
deal. Any team that wants to use its tag must file paperwork before the
mid-afternoon deadline.
March 11-13: The free-agent
negotiation period opens. Referred to by some as a time for
"legal tampering" -- which makes no linguistic sense -- this intense
period allows teams and agents of pending free agents to negotiate deals. Most
of the offseason's major contract agreements will take place during this time.
The 2019 class could be headed by Pittsburgh
Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell,
who sat out 2018 rather
than play a second season under a franchise tag. Available quarterbacks will
include Teddy
Bridgewater, Tyrod Taylor and possibly Nick Foles.
Here are the top 50 free
agents available on the market.
March 13: Now it's official. Flip the calendars
because the new league year begins. At 4 p.m. ET, all teams must be under the
league's salary-cap ceiling, projected to be between $187
million and $191.1 million. Technically, each team's cap number is
the sum of the cap numbers for its top 51 players. After that point, free-agent
deals can be made official, as can trades. Significant names on the trade block
include Steelers receiver Antonio Brown, Baltimore
Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and
perhaps Foles, if the Eagles use the franchise tag on him with the purpose
of auctioning him off rather than allowing him to leave as a free agent.
March 24-27: Ah, the annual league meeting. With
the gathering in Phoenix, owners will hold their primary meeting of the year.
This is where two significant rule changes are debated and long-term plans are
mapped out. Items on the competition committee agenda will include adjustments
to replay and punting.
The 2021 expiration of the league's collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with
players also will come into sharper focus.
April 1: The first offseason workouts take
place. The NFL's eight teams with new head
coaches can begin their offseason programs.
April 15: The NFL's remaining 24 teams can begin
workouts.
April 25-27: It's draft time!
Nashville, Tennessee, is the site for the 2019 event, which for the first time
will be telecast on ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network. The Arizona
Cardinals own the No. 1 overall pick. At the moment, Kiper's
five highest-ranked players all play defense: Ohio State pass-rusher Nick Bosa,
Alabama defensive tackle Quinnen
Williams, Kentucky linebacker Josh Allen,
LSU linebacker Devin White and
LSU cornerback Greedy
Williams. Will new Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury select Bosa to
line up opposite Chandler
Jones? What will Jon Gruden do with three
first-round picks? Will the New York
Giants or Jacksonville
Jaguars be the first to take a quarterback? Check out Scouts
Inc.'s full draft
rankings for scouting reports on the top prospects.
May 3-6, 10-13: Teams can host a three-day
rookie minicamp on one of these two weekends. Draft picks, undrafted rookies,
tryout players and select first-year players can all participate.
May 20-22: The spring owners meeting, to be held
in Key Biscayne, Florida, often cleans up leftovers remaining from the March
meeting. For a full look at the league's offseason priorities, continue to the
bottom of this story.
June 2: This is the key salary-cap date. Teams
can lessen the salary-cap blow of players they release by designating them as
post-June 1 cuts. The unamortized portion of their contracts then counts
against the 2020 cap.
July 15: Teams and franchise-tag players have
until 4 p.m. ET to reach agreements on multiyear contracts. If they don't, the
only option for playing in 2019 is under the one-year terms of the tag.
Mid-July: The first training camps open. The CBA
allows teams to open full-squad training camp up to 15 days before their first
preseason game.
Aug. 1: Football returns
with the Hall of Fame Game. The first game of the preseason is played between
teams selected by the NFL and officially opens the preseason slate.
BIG OFFSEASON
PRIORITIES
1. CONTINUE
REFEREE OVERHAUL AMID RENEWED OFFICIATING FOCUS
There will be at least two more new NFL referees in 2019
following the retirements of Walt Coleman and Pete Morelli. The new additions
mean the league will have replaced more than half (10 of 17) its crew leaders
since the start of the 2014 season. That will be the backdrop for a deep
analysis of every aspect of the department, starting with why it needed two
in-season clarifications from the competition committee in 2018 to dial down
rule interpretations. Senior vice president Al Riveron's effectiveness will be
evaluated, as will a precedent-setting decision to fire down Judge Hugo Cruz
during the season for performance reasons.
2. EXAMINE REPLAY
If nothing else, the competition committee will stage a
robust discussion about
replay following the missed
pass-interference call in the NFC Championship Game.
Historically, owners have stamped out any discussion about adding penalties,
non-calls and subjective decisions to replay. They remain unlikely to support a
massive overhaul, but a limited compromise could emerge. One possibility,
according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, is to expand the
list of challengeable plays with a strong penalty disincentive.
Another is to allow a replay official to step in to correct clear and obvious
mistakes.
3. Make the punt safer and less penalized
After making substantive changes last
season to the kickoff, with what they consider
strong success, league decision-makers are ready to move on to
the punt.
In announcing a crowdsourcing effort for ideas, the league said that the punt
ranks second behind kickoffs in the highest rate of concussions. It is also the
most penalized play in the game on a percentage basis, according to competition
committee chairman Rich McKay. (There was a flag on 12.9 percent of punts in
2019, compared to, say, 3.2 percent on pass plays, according to ESPN Stats
& Information research.)
Some special-teams coaches find the newest initiative
confusing because the league's goal in tweaking the kickoff was to make it more
like a punt. For that reason, it's possible that the most substantive changes
-- if they are approved this offseason -- will be focused around reducing
flags. Something as simple as new interpretations of existing rules, like
emphasizing the need for forcible contact on illegal blocks in the back, could
make an impact.
4. MANAGE
OWNERSHIP UNCERTAINTY
Ownership change is nothing new in the NFL, but the league
will keep its eye on two franchises this offseason.
The Seahawks haven't said much about their long-term plans
following the death of Paul
Allen in October. His sister, Jody Allen, is now the chairman
of franchise, but the presence of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at Super Bowl LIII
was an interesting development. Bezos, whose primary company headquarters is in
Seattle, has long been coveted as a future partner by other NFL owners.
Meanwhile, the family of Denver
Broncos owner Pat Bowlen is engaged in a legal fight to
determine which of his heirs will one day gain control of the team. Bowlen
suffers from Alzheimer's disease and ceded operation of the team to a family
trust in 2014.
5. ALIGN THE
HELMET RULE WITH REALITY
The NFL took the unprecedented step in 2018 of only
occasionally enforcing a major new rule, opting instead for a
phase-in process that left coaches, players and outside observers confused. The
prohibition on lowering the helmet to initiate contact with an opponent was
approved more quickly than most NFL rules, producing substantial preseason
confusion and leading to the necessary step of pulling back enforcement. There
were only 19 flags and a total of 28 fines for the foul, but the league issued
139 warning letters. That approach made the best of a problematic situation,
but it can't continue.
To maintain credible game administration over time, rules
must either be enforced or struck down. The helmet rule isn't going to be
eliminated; NFL research showed that lowering the head increases the likelihood
of a concussion. So the league will have to find a way to begin plausible
enforcement and hope that players and coaches are better equipped after a year
of practice to make the adjustment.
6. MONITOR THE
SPRING LEAGUES
One major spring league will debut just days after the New England
Patriots claimed Super Bowl LIII. Another is scheduled to kick
off in 2020, in conjunction with a third that has been in operation since 2017.
Neither the Alliance of American Football (AAF) nor the XFL nor The Spring
League are meant to challenge NFL supremacy. If anything, their long-term
success could hinge on a formal developmental agreement with the NFL.
In the meantime, they could produce ideas worth stealing.
The AAF, for example, has banned kickoffs and will provide alternatives to the
onside kick when it opens play Saturday. The XFL has promised to
"reimagine" the game of football. Ahead of its launch, the XFL is
partnering with The Spring League, which stages games from March 28-April 11 in
Texas, to test ideas for quickening game pace and minimizing idle time.
7. EXPAND
INJURY-REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Concussions dropped 23.8
percent in 2018 after league executives implemented a multipronged
plan to minimize brain injuries. Encouraged by those results,
the league will look to focus its data on hamstring, knee, foot and ankle
injuries.
Among the studies either underway or set to begin soon:
associating the best (and worst) cleat styles with the various surface types in
NFL stadiums. The league also will put sensors in the mouth guards of players
from four teams to learn more about collision speeds and consequences.
8. ENSURE A SMOOTH
GAME IN MEXICO CITY
Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the Super Bowl that
Hispanics represent the NFL's fastest-growing audience. A major part of that
growth is the promise of a regular-season game in Mexico City, one that
was canceled in
2018 because of poor field conditions. There is blame to spread on
both sides for that fiasco, but the league must do its part to make its 2019
return successful. Although domestic television ratings grew by 5
percent in 2018, the NFL knows that its best option for
audience expansion is through international outreach.
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