FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - When the NFL adopted its system for placing players on season-ending injured reserve, the main issue was stashing.
Teams had long been allowed to place players on injured reserve and bring them back later in the season. But some felt that clubs were circumventing the rule by placing players who weren't truly injured on IR, opening a roster spot for someone else.
Thus, a competitive advantage was scored.
Colts president Bill Polian remembers high-profile coaches and personnel executives, such as Don Shula and Jim Finks, pushing for a change to combat stashing, and it finally came in 1993, when the league made two significant adjustments.
At that time, players placed on injured reserve would be lost for the season. It was also determined that there would be an active/inactive system on game days, with 45 active players and eight inactive players. Teams could determine their active/inactive list on a game-to-game basis, which remains the system.
"The inactive list created a barrier to serve as the injured players' home, and then IR was reserved for those players who you deemed out for the year," explained Falcons president Rich McKay, a cochair of the NFL's competition committee. "I think it's a system that has served us very well."
Yet change could be coming.
As owners continue to weigh the possibility of increasing the regular season to 17 or 18 games, the tweaking of IR rules also has been discussed, most recently yesterday as the NFL spring meeting concluded. One option is allowing teams to place one or two players on an injured reserve list that would sideline them for a set period, likely six games, before having them return to the active roster.
Such a change would be under consideration only if owners vote to increase the regular season, so any talk of altering IR rules is in the extreme early stages. Polian, a longstanding member of the competition committee, also doesn't see any possible change coming until the league's labor situation is resolved.
Those in favor of altering the rules feel that with a longer regular season, the impact of a team's decision to place a player on IR could be felt more deeply.
Other possible changes that could complement a longer regular season are increasing the roster size from 53, and increasing the practice squad from eight.
"Would you do all those things? What is most cost-effective? What is going to be fairest competitively? Those are all questions that you have to answer," Polian said.
Like McKay, Polian thinks the league's current IR rules, coupled with the active/inactive list on game days, has been effective.
"With all the years I've been in the league, I think this system is the best one," Polian said. "It's the fairest, it's the best economically, it's the best from a football standpoint. I can't see any reason to change.
"My thought is that if you're going to liberalize it, you should certainly adhere to the original convictions of Messrs. Shula, Finks, [and others] that you should do it in the least harmful way, and not get to the point where stashing becomes an issue again."
In recent years, a few teams have brought the issue to the competition committee for discussion, although no formal proposals have been submitted. Those in favor of changing the IR rules point out that the salary cap prevents stashing.
"Some teams have said to us, 'There should be free moves back from injured reserve,' and our response has been, 'Hold it, that was the old system. That's why we changed to the system we have now,' " McKay said.
Mike Reiss can be reached at mreiss@globe.com. 
