#Football touchdown rule history pro#
#Football touchdown rule history professional#

In a 2013 interview with 'NFL Total Access' Rich McKay, Competition Committee Chairman

What is good about the committee is the opportunity to sit in a room and vet ideas over and over again.” The committee is really a conduit for the game. 'You look and you say, ‘Well, the Committee is all powerful.’ Not true. The evolution of the league’s kickoff rules shows the process at work. And although the vast majority of proposed rule changes are never adopted, all are carefully considered. Others take years to make it from a proposal to the field.

Widely agreed-on ideas may be quickly approved and implemented. Now spearheaded by the Competition Committee, the NFL rules-changing process is systematic and consensus-oriented. Time and again, the league has shown that it is open to ideas generated by any source or circumstance - or even by new technology - if it believes that the changes will improve the game. Throughout the history of the NFL, the custodians of the game not only have protected its integrity, but also have revised its playing rules to make the contests fairer, safer and more entertaining.

#Football touchdown rule history professional#

Of course, that’s not how professional football is played today. Teams now could use separate players on offense and defense, develop role players within those units and use a player solely as a kicker or other special teams player. The free substitution concept proved too popular, though, and it was brought back in 1949.

In 1946, after the war ended, the league reimposed some restrictions.

#Football touchdown rule history pro#

Out of necessity, the league decided in 1943 to let teams substitute players at will, Pro Football Hall of Fame historian Joe Horrigan said. But with most young and fit men drafted into the war, lineups were depleted and constantly in flux. Until the war, the league severely restricted substitutions players were on the field for both offense and defense and received no coaching from the bench. Football, like the rest of society, was forever changed by World War II.