Patriots can chuck this hope
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- There appears to be little chance for passage of a rules proposal made by the Patriots at the NFL meetings here that attempts to limit the power of the league's Competition Committee.
The Patriots hope to prevent further use of the "point of emphasis" maneuver that a year ago led to heightened enforcement of the rule prohibiting contact with a receiver beyond 5 yards from the line of scrimmage. The rule had been liberally interpreted in recent years, and the Competition Committee felt it was being too seldom called.
As a result, it adopted a "point-of-emphasis declaration," which did not require a vote of the owners because it did not change an existing rule; it simply instructed officials to call it by the letter of the law.
The Patriots felt the change was an attack on the way they played, and believed it was a result of pressure from Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy and president Bill Polian, whose receivers had been hounded and pounded by the Patriots in the 2004 AFC Championship game. Dungy, at the time, was on the coaches' advisory subcommittee to the Competition Committee.
The same type of muggings happened to Philadelphia Eagles receivers in their NFC title game loss to the Carolina Panthers that year, and they, too, were livid over what they felt was constant manhandling. The league became convinced that such heightened contact had contributed to lower scoring.
The point-of-emphasis declaration resulted in an increase in the number of penalties assessed last season for illegal contact -- although, curiously, the number of pass interference calls went down. Regardless of the emphasis, it didn't appear to hurt the Patriots, who won the Super Bowl for the third time in four years.
There also appears little likelihood for passage of a proposal to reduce illegal contact to a 5-yard penalty without the automatic first down or to change pass interference to a 15-yard penalty (as in college football) rather than putting the ball at the point of the foul.
"If you take away the automatic first down and it's third and 17, you mug the guy and take the 5-yard penalty," said an NFL official. "Those changes would defeat the purpose of the point of emphasis of a year ago."
Yesterday morning, commissioner Paul Tagliabue addressed owners and coaches and mentioned the success of the rule enforcement last season.
Tagliabue also emphasized the need to change the way designated gross revenues will be funneled to the players to avoid a potential uncapped year in 2007 and the first labor problems since the present collective bargaining agreement was negotiated in 1992.
This will involve increased revenue sharing, said Tagliabue, who asked the owners to adopt, in a sense, the Patriots' approach in emphasizing team over individual while the union will be expected to acknowledge the growing debt service for new stadium construction and the problems it has created for ownership.
Tagliabue said he told the owners that negotiations with the union are "at a dead end."
A special league meeting has been added for April 19 "if we make progress with the NFLPA," said the commissioner. "If we don't, we won't [meet]." . . .
The Patriots received three of 32 compensatory draft picks allocated by the league yesterday to teams that lost free agents. The picks are in the third round (100th overall), fifth round (170th), and seventh round (255th).
