NFL owners are gathering this week for another round of annual league meetings, and several major votes could reshape the sport both on and off the field.
The meetings, which begin Tuesday in Minneapolis and will run through Wednesday, are the last time all 32 owners are scheduled to be together before the 2025 season begins in September.
When Push Comes to Shove
The long-awaited vote on the Tush Push will arrive after tabling a potential vote on banning the play—or changing rules that will dramatically alter it. NFL owners will once again consider doing away with the quarterback sneak that the Super Bowl LIX champion Eagles have perfected in recent years.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has hinted at his desire to ban the Tush Push, often citing health and safety reasons and pointing out that players were previously banned from pushing the ballcarrier.
For a vote to pass, 24 of the league’s owners must be in favor of a change.
Postseason Plans
Owners are also scheduled to vote on a proposal to change seeding in the NFL playoffs.
The Lions have proposed changing seeding in the playoffs so that non-division champions with better regular-season records than division champions can be seeded higher. That would mean hosting a home game is no longer guaranteed for each conference’s four division champions. Under the proposal, division champions would win seeding tiebreakers over non-division champions.
Any change wouldn’t have much of a financial impact, as all ticket revenue from playoff games is collected by the league and then distributed equally among the 32 teams.
National Pride
A seemingly less controversial vote will be held on a resolution that would allow active NFL players to participate in the flag football competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The NFL has been all in on flag football since the International Olympic Committee approved the sport in 2023. After the 2028 Olympics, the NFL could create its own flag football league or leagues with teams that have ties to NFL franchises and sell those new media rights.
