NEW YORK — The NFL fall meeting has wrapped, and we’re going to highlight some news here …
Replay process
• Replay continues to be a major talking point at all these events. And as the league went into this meeting in Manhattan, a big piece of that discussion focused on replay assist.
Two plays, in particular, involving NFC West rivals in Week 6 that stood, and were weighed against one another. The first involved Rams DB Josh Wallace, flagged for unnecessary roughness for forcible contact to head/neck area of Cardinals WR Jalen Brooks, a flag that moved Arizona into range for a game-winning field goal with 41 seconds left. The second was a no-call on 49ers LB Fred Warner, who blasted Commanders TE Chig Okonkwo coming over the middle. A flag was thrown, then picked up.
My understanding is the NFL believes the flag should’ve stayed up, and that the officials did get the call on Wallace correct, by the letter of the law. That made me curious about what replay assist could do in that situation.
So I asked. And I got an extensive list, via the slides they show the owners and coaches, on what is allowed under the system.
It started with this list of potential reviews: Runner making the line to gain, whether a pass hit the ground on a ruled catch, whether feet are in bounds on a catch/no-catch, ineligible player down, spot of the enforcement of a penalty, game clock adjustment, whether a ball is loose prior to a runner getting in the end zone, to inform an official when a receiver stepped out of bounds and is first to touch the ball, and whether a ball broke the end zone’s plane.
In 2024, the rules added unnecessary roughness on out-of-bounds players, intentional grounding and roughing the passer. Last year, facemasks, horse collars, tripping, tipped balls on roughing/running into the kicker and, yes, contact to the head/neck area of a defenseless player were added. More came online this year (like crackbacks and clipping).
That means, yes, New York had a shot to weigh in on these calls before the 20-second cutoff.
And if you see the Warner call as a missed call, and the Wallace call, while lacking the collision of the Warner hit, as right by the letter of the law, there really isn’t inconsistency. The league is fortunate, too, that the Commanders scored on the possession where the Warner hit happened, so the outcome of the game wasn’t affected.
That said, the league is looking at this stuff, and planning is underway for more transparency. I’m told the NFL has watched closely at how the ACC and, after the Michigan–Western Michigan debacle, the Big Ten have started televising their replay review process. The idea of doing something similar to show the public replay reviews is being discussed, and work is being done to implement something similar to what we’ve seen in college football very soon, potentially in the coming weeks, and certainly (some in the league office hope) before the end of the regular season.
Coach fines
• Inside the meeting room, the league did address the heightening tension between coaches, players and officials on the game field. They cited examples, including this news: Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, Jets coach Aaron Glenn and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni were fined $250,000 for conduct toward officials.
That, of course, is a pretty stiff penalty and a clear statement. I’ve also heard that the fines are in abeyance, meaning they’d be on hold, and could be repealed with good behavior.
As EVP of football operations, Troy Vincent also mentioned in his press availability a discussion of sportsmanship in the game, following talks with the NFLPA about the celebration fines that were assessed then rescinded (Kyle Juszczyk’s being the most prominent of them) earlier in the year.
Steve Tisch
• Steve Tisch—implicated in the Epstein Files—had a visible presence at the midtown hotel where the meetings were held. Earlier this year, Tisch was forced to divest his shares in the Giants to his kids, as the league said it was looking into his involvement in the Epstein case.
Yet Tisch is still listed as the Giants chairman and executive vice president on the team’s web site, and he was present in the team’s draft room and at training camp.
Earlier this year, it seemed the NFL would’ve liked Tisch to step aside so the story would go away quietly. He very clearly has chosen not to do that, and the only material change seen is the sort of acceleration of estate planning that moving his pieces of the franchises to his next of kin was. So I asked commissioner Roger Goodell at his press conference Thursday on the status of the case, for his view of Tisch remaining so visible.
“I think we’re comfortable with him participating as the Giants suggest,” Goodell said, adding that, on the investigation, “Always, we’ll look to see if there’s new information.”
Jalen Hurts
• The NFL tried to close the book on the Jalen Hurts situation at these meetings, but very clearly the NFLPA wasn’t going to let that happen—not this quickly, anyway.
The union called for a full investigation on Tuesday.
Goodell responded at his press conference that he would welcome one.
We covered this in Tuesday notes, but it’s worth rehashing, quickly. Hurts traveled Friday night into Saturday with the Eagles to London. He was told, like all his teammates, to stay awake through Saturday to acclimate for Sunday’s 2:30 p.m. local (9:30 a.m. Philly time) kickoff. He did. But his calf pain, which he thought came from getting cleated the week before, worsened. So the team doctors took a look, brought him to the Cleveland Clinic in London, and an ultrasound discovered the superficial clot.
He didn’t sleep well because of the time spent at the hospital and the situation in general, before the game, but he did sleep. He played. He flew home.
Less clear is exactly how he was cleared to fly. And I can say, talking to other sports doctors, that how that decision was made is key—“Even if he had a repeat ultrasound before he stepped on the flight home and it was totally stable, I would still have been s---ing a brick to put him on that plane,” texted one.
Anyway, I think the union is right to say an investigation is warranted, even if the player’s camp is good with how Hurts was handled (it sounds like they are, but they aren’t doctors either). If for nothing else than to make sure they learn what they can from a unique situation.
International games
• On international games, I’d circle 2028 as a potential date for the NFL to look at going to Tokyo.
The timeline to examine here is Australia’s. They announced that game at the Super Bowl in February 2025, more than a year and a half ahead of time, to give everyone enough runway to plan. If the NFL followed that template with Japan, they’d announce plans to go there at this year’s Super Bowl, and then play there at the start of the 2028 season. Which I think, at this point, is possible—it’s not happening next year.
As for other new frontiers, some teams love the idea of going to Italy next, but that may not happen until new stadiums open in Milan (2030) and Rome (2031), ahead of the 2032 Euros. Then there’s the idea the NFL’s Peter O’Reilly raised of playing in new cities in countries the league’s already been too, like potentially Manchester in the U.K., Barcelona (which has a stadium under renovation) in Spain, or Sydney in Australia.
Preseason games
• One of the more staggering numbers I heard was the 28.9% no-show rate at preseason games—meaning more than a quarter of the people who buy tickets don’t show up for the games. That’s a wild number, given the ticket prices, and it shows that season ticket holders view preseason tickets almost like a tax they have to pay, and that those tickets have very little value on the secondary market.
Another number Vincent revealed in his presser shows one reason why: About 40% of starters league-wide didn’t play a single preseason snap this summer.
Quick-hitters
• And finally, a couple of pieces of housekeeping …
Sales of slices of the Dolphins and Falcons were approved. Atlanta owner Arthur Blank is selling 10% of his franchise to private equity firm Arctos, and the majority of that transaction, a 7.5% tranche of the total, was rubber-stamped to go through. Miami owner Stephen Ross also sold 2% of the Dolphins to new limited partner Jean Salata, also bought out the 0.1% of the team singer/actor Marc Anthony owned. Anthony, you’ll recall, was part of the team’s plan to bring celebrities into ownership early in Ross’s tenure.
And funding for the new Browns stadium and the renovation of Levi’s Stadium in the Bay Area was approved. Cleveland’s new place, a dome in the suburbs, is set to open in 2029. The 49ers are spending $37.4 million to renovate suites.
Add us as a preferred source on Google