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Drew Brees Suggests 3 NFL Rule Changes

Drew Brees gives some thoughts on NFL rules that should be modified for next season.

There's a lot of chatter regarding the NFL and some of its rules, which is certainly nothing new. Overtime rules are certainly a hot button after what happened on Sunday night between the Bills and Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round. Former Saints quarterback Drew Brees gave some of his thoughts early Monday morning on what he'd like to see changed.

Brees suggested, via his Twitter account, that the NFL should modify three areas for the new season.

Three things @NFL should modify for next year: 

1. Roughing the Passer. Let’s evaluate the description of this rule…it’s become a game changer. 

2. Protect receivers from the knee down (Chris Godwin) 

3. OT - either both sides get a possession or go to college rules

It's hardly a secret, but roughing the passer calls are highly favorable to the quarterbacks, while what happened to Chris Godwin was very unfortunate. When you talk about sudden death overtime, some will make the arguments to play better defensively or even just win a chance coin toss.

We've seen how erroneous some of the taunting calls have gone in 2021, and we've also witnessed how meaningless a pass interference challenge was after what happened to the Saints in the NFC Championship game against the Rams several years ago. We've also seen a severe lack of accountability regarding officiating, where one referee is essentially shunned from overseeing a particular team's game and then another who won't work another playoff game because of what happened.

The competition committee is going to be tasked with some interesting decisions, and it's also important to remember that Sean Payton stepped away from it in early November after being on it for years.

“I’ll leave it at that so I don’t get fined,” Payton said in early November when he revealed that he left the committee.

Payton put it best when discussing the league's taunting call, which really puts things into perspective.

“It’s kind of like roughing the passer, I don’t think all 17 crews are on the same page.”

Payton couldn't be more accurate, and Brees proposing these rule changes seem fine and dandy, but the delivery and consistency of it continues to be a horrible look in the NFL. How do you get these right? How do you modify tackling someone different again? How do you fix what's been broken for years? Until the root problem gets addressed, then things will stay the same in the league.


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