Jared Goff and the Rams were the NFL’s highest-scoring team at 29.9 points per game. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
When members of the NFL’s rulemaking competition committee deliberate each offseason about the on-field state of the game, one of the statistics they scrutinize is points scored per game. Historically, a meaningful drop in scoring leaguewide can result in a tweak to the rules if committee members become convinced that offenses need such an assist to keep games as attractive as possible to fans.
That issue will confront the competition committee this coming offseason. Scoring was down during the NFL’s regular season. Teams averaged 21.7 points per game, a drop of more than a point per game from the 22.8 points per game they averaged last season, according to the NFL.
Whether the competition committee will do anything about it remains to be seen, however.
One person familiar with the committee’s deliberations said Tuesday it was “too early” to know. Another person with knowledge of the inner workings of the league and the committee said on the issue of whether the competition committee will act to address the drop in scoring: “I doubt it, but I really have not focused on this at all.”
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Perhaps the most significant example of the competition committee stepping in to aid offensive play came in 2004, when it instructed game officials to stringently enforce rules prohibiting clutching-and-grabbing tactics by defensive backs against receivers more than five yards down the field.
That immediately led to one of the most passing-friendly eras in league history. Peyton Manning, then with the Indianapolis Colts, set a single-season league record with 49 touchdown passes in that 2004 season, breaking Dan Marino’s 20-year-old mark. The New England Patriots’ Tom Brady broke Manning’s record three years later with 50 touchdown passes in 2007. Manning, by then with Denver, broke Brady’s record with 55 in 2013.
Eight of the nine 5,000-yard passing seasons in NFL history have come since 2008, five of them by the New Orleans Saints’ Drew Brees (and one each by Manning, Brady and Detroit’s Matthew Stafford). The lone 5,000-yard passing season before 2008 was by Marino in 1984.
Teams scored 20.8 points per game in the 2003 season. Following the emphasis on illegal contact by defenders in the secondary, that increased to 21.5 points per game in 2004.
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Such intervention by the competition committee is not a guaranteed remedy for NFL offenses, however. The league announced before the 2014 season that illegal contact between receivers and pass defenders would be a “major point of emphasis” for game officials. But that time, the NFL stressed that receivers as well as defenders would be closely monitored. Scoring dropped, as teams went from averaging 23.4 points per game in 2013 to 22.6 points per game in the 2014 season.
The competition committee’s deliberations will intensify around the time of the NFL’s scouting combine in late February and early March in Indianapolis. Committee members meet with representatives of the players each year at the combine.
The competition committee continues to deliberate after that, and recommends rule changes to the owners at the annual league meeting. This year, that’s scheduled for late March in Orlando. Any proposed rule change must be approved by at least 24 of the 32 teams. Points of emphasis to the officials do not require ratification by the owners.
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The decline in scoring this season could be particularly troubling to the league’s leaders, given that it comes at a time when the NFL is dealing with a decline in television viewership over the past two seasons. That dip in TV ratings has been attributed to a variety of factors. But the NFL’s leadership and its rulemakers undoubtedly will be eager to do whatever they can to make the on-field product as appealing to viewers as possible. In the past, the league has linked such appeal to fans at least in part to scoring.
It’s not clear yet what factors the members of the competition committee believe are most responsible for the decline in scoring. Early this season, there was a relatively lively public debate about whether some of the safety-related cutbacks on practice time and hitting during practices made in recent years have eroded the overall quality of play.
Some coaches and others in and around the sport have argued that players’ fundamentals have suffered because they spend less time on the practice field during the offseason and are permitted to hit less in practices during training camp and the season. Those restrictions were put in place as part of the 2011 labor deal between the league and the NFL Players Association.
But as the NFL deals with the issues related to concussions suffered by players and the long-term health consequences of head injuries, any suggestion that the practice-field restrictions should be eased undoubtedly will be weighed against player-safety considerations.
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The NFLPA has pointed to the practice-field restrictions as one of its most significant achievements in the last set of labor negotiations. The union’s executive director, DeMaurice Smith, and players also have expressed skepticism about claims the cutbacks have affected the quality of play.
“We don’t negotiate with coaches,” Smith said during a meeting last January with Washington Post editors and reporters. “I don’t [consider that complaint] because we don’t negotiate with coaches. Nobody from the league has talked to me about [it]. No owner has put a proposal on the table called ‘quality of play.’… So if a coach or a general manager is really concerned about the quality of play, I know this guy — typically it’s a guy — called an owner and they should go and complain to him.”
There was a long list of issues, both on and off the field, for the NFL to endure during this turbulent season, from the courtroom tussle over Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension to protests by players during the national anthem to a very public clash with President Trump to injuries suffered by star players to the attempt made by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to block Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension.
The sport’s leaders consistently said they wanted to put fans’ focus back on the games being played. But issues then arose from the games themselves and the on-field product, including the drop in scoring.
Now it will be up to the competition committee to determine whether the always-delicate competitive balance between NFL offenses and defenses must be adjusted.
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