Reffing
Every year we hear this narrative week 1 or 2 about what the refs are cracking down on. Some years we are lucky and its helmet to helmet or a horse caller tackle. Other years they make us question what is a catch, and how soft you must sack a QB...but this year was a bunch of false start penalties that really slowed the game to a crawl in early weeks.
Overall many games still felt like it was a battle between Team A, Team B, and Team Zebra. It really was a coin flip if the ref on that particular play was patient enough to let a play fully play out during a fumble. The Eagles Commanders matchup was particularly questionable when the ref just let Dallas Goedert get his facemask yanked as he was also being poked in the eye.
I'll spare us from the Roughing the Passer calls this year, no they weren't better but I've long given up hope this will ever get fixed as it gets worse every year.
Rules
In the postseason only, both teams are assured of one possession in overtime, even if the first team with possession scores a touchdown. This change was made in response to several recent playoff games in which the first team to possess the ball in overtime scored a touchdown and the other team did not have a chance to respond.
Yea this one had to happen. As we enter the playoffs I don't think nfl fans would tolerate a repeat of last year. A quick but necessary fix
Made permanent a 2021 experimental rule change to limit the receiving team on kickoffs to no more than nine players in the "set-up zone" (the area between 10 and 25 yards from the kickoff spot).
Return TDs are down, we only had 6 this year and two were literally in the final week of the year. But injuries on returns are seemingly down. This is not a stat anyone can chase down but we went from hearing about the constant injury weariness of returns to well not hearing about them at all.
There were also changes to how rostering works and the Tua Concussion Crisis Protocol but I'm not getting into that. The latter is pretty yikes still with how its handled. We are getting closer to better regulation but not fast enough
Next up: Retirements