NFL Discusses Potential Rule Changes Ahead of Competition Committee Meeting

Troy Vincent, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations, revealed Friday a few of the topics to be discussed at this week's Competition Committee meeting.

Vincent wrote that the committee came together at the scouting combine in Indianapolis to "discuss possible rules changes and ways of protecting players from unnecessary risks":

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We combed through injury reports and statistical trends to identify ways to make our game better. We gathered input from coaches and general managers and have started to discuss rule changes based on observations and experiences from the past season. We met with our colleagues from the NCAA to discuss lessons learned and how we can work together moving forward. We talked about player safety issues and concussion protocols, the use of new technology, and improvements in how our game is administered through our officials.

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In total, Vincent listed 10 different proposals. Some include changes to the league's concussion protocol, the addition of an eighth official, tweaks to the rules regarding both instant replay and hits on defenseless players and a toughening of standards regarding league equipment to make football safer.

CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora praised the committee's push to potentially have a medical timeout that would get injured players off the field in a more timely manner:

Vincent explained that a medical timeout would be called when an independent third party notices that a player could be in need of attention.

In general, he wrote that the committee's overall goal is to create a safer on-field environment for the players while at the same time bringing more uniformity to the way football is regulated on a game-by-game basis.

Of course, all of these ideas are still in the formative stage and need to clear a few more hurdles. As ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert noted, the Competition Committee will eventually comb through all of the proposals before taking a select few to the owners meeting in late March.