On Wednesday, the NFL revealed the rule proposals submitted by teams for the 2025 season, with the Detroit Lions leading the way in terms of submissions. This has become a recurring trend since the Lions’ new leadership took over in 2021, with the team proposing rule changes every year.
This year’s proposals suggest some major changes:
- They want to eliminate the automatic first down penalty for defensive holding and illegal contact.
- They propose that playoff seeding should be determined by overall record rather than automatically giving the top four seeds to division winners.
- They want players placed on IR before the season to not count against the 90-man roster during the season (active 53-man roster + practice squad + IR).
While the Lions’ proposal to change the playoff structure has garnered the most attention, let’s explore all three. Today’s Question of the Day is:
Which of the Detroit Lions’ rule proposals do you support? Here’s my breakdown, along with a poll for you to vote on.
Remove automatic first downs for illegal contact and defensive holding
I’m thrilled that this change has been proposed. I’ve mentioned several times on this website that I believe automatic first downs are problematic, but these two specific penalties are especially egregious. It’s absurd that a minor illegal contact penalty can turn a third-and-20 into a new set of downs, and it seems to happen all too often. These penalties are difficult to call, highly subjective, and the consequences are too severe. There’s little reason to give officials this much influence on such a subjective call. If we want to reduce the impact of officiating, this change would be a great step.
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