INDIANAPOLIS -- In what is a yearly tradition at the Scouting Combine, members of the league's Competition Committee met with the media for about half an hour Thursday to discuss some of the topics facing them during the offseason.
The committee meets informally at the Combine and will make solid decisions about rule changes and points of emphasis for league officials at the owners meetings later in the offseason.
Falcons President Rich McKay, co-chairman of the five-member committee, spoke first and outlined the team's plans for the offseason. He also addressed the Patriots use of video equipment to gain competitive advantages last season.
"This morning we spent a long time on the issue of the New England tape situation -- just getting a briefing and understanding the procedures that went into it and the final outcome that came out of it," McKay said in his opening statement. "Our rule with respect to that is only advisory. The commissioner's office took us through the investigation process... They asked for our opinions on what we thought of the penalty, the process and if there were any suggestions we have and if there was anything we needed from a rules perspective to address it. We're mainly legislative in nature."
McKay said the committee will review several aspects of the game and the "points of emphasis" installed last season before making recommendations on the future. From his initial review, McKay said 2007 was "an excellent year."
Rules the committee may discuss next month at the owners meeting include issues of player safety and last-second timeouts -- where a coach waits until just before the ball is snapped on a field goal to ice an opposing kicker.
Titans head coach Jeff Fisher, the committee's other co-chairman, said it will be tough to legislate timeouts and that a few arrant coaching decisions will quell the practice. A few times last season coaches deleted a missed field goal from the books only to give kickers another, successful, attempt.
"Early in the season we saw several incidents," Fisher said. "After that you just didn't see it happen any more. It just kind of died off."
McKay said the committee has also looked into putting coach-to-player communication in defensive players' helmets. The system would be similar to the program used in quarterbacks' helmets, but it presents some unique challenges. For instance, what does a team do if a designated player leaves the field on a substitution or an injury?
That will go on the agenda for next month, as will a new set of points of emphasis for officials.
"We always start in the same place, which is a review of the game and how the game was in 2007," McKay said. "We felt it was an excellent year from a statistical standpoint."
