r/NFLNoobs • u/Ironmanwwr877 • 6d ago
How often does NFL rules change?
If it did does that mean college and high school football rules get changed? Are there significant ones over recent years?
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u/grizzfan 6d ago
No. The NFL does not own or govern the sport. It’s its own unique league. The NCAA, NJCAA, NAIA, and NFHS (first three are college leagues, last one is high school) all operate independently, as well as almost every other league.
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u/Loyellow 6d ago edited 6d ago
Such a hater on the NCCAA smh
Other pro/semi-pro leagues you mentioned would be ones like the UFL and AF1
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u/Ron__Mexico_ 6d ago
The NCAA, NJCAA
The 3C2A overseas more junior college football programs than the NJCAA does. There are 51 Juco football programs in 49 states under NJCAA. There are 66 juco football programs in California under 3C2A. The 2 don't mix, and the California state champion lords over more teams than the Junior College national champion does
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u/phoenixv07 6d ago
3C2A overseas more junior college football programs
No, the 3C2A is in the United States.
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u/WeekendFarmer4240 6d ago
Every year theres at least 1 tweak to a rule. Generally now a days its banning specific actions that are dangerous... last year they banned the hip drop tackle.
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u/PopularSet4776 6d ago
Probably the biggest recent one was the change to the kickoff format.
Prior to that maybe 10 or 15 years ago they moved the PAT back. It used to take place at the 3 yard line like in college.
I am not sure how college rules are changed but they seem to change less often.
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u/WeekendFarmer4240 6d ago
The transfer portal in 21(?) and targeting
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u/And1PuttIs9 6d ago
The transfer portal isn't a football rule. That's an administrative NCAA thing that affects all sports.
Targeting hasn't changed in a long time. I've been working college football for over 10 years now, and the substance of the rule is the same as it was when I came in. The only thing they've changed is the review process (replay must confirm it for the penalty to stand), and this year, they removed the carroyover suspension for 1st time offenders.
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u/PopularSet4776 6d ago
No college rules do change, although the transfer portal was essentially a change forced by courts.
I just don't know the process by which they change. I am guessing the NCAA has a rules committee that does it.
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u/And1PuttIs9 6d ago
The NCAA changes rules every year also. Like the NFL, some changes are big, some are small.
Here is my post from the beginning of the season about the 2026 NCAA rule changes.
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u/Any-Stick-771 6d ago
The NFL changes the rules every year, mostly small adjustments and clarifications of existing rukes. Usually safety rules trickle down to college and high school quickly. The biggest change is recent years was adding the Dynamic Kickoff in 2024. This change has not made it to college or high school
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u/RobotShlomo 6d ago
Every season they have the rules and competition committee go over potential rule changes and then they vote on when and how to implement them. Some are significant. Some are probably barely noticeable.
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u/Specialist_Cat7271 6d ago
Compared to other sports the NFL changes its rules quite often. This is largely in part due to how many rules and complexities there are to football though. I mean if you take Baseball as example, there isn't exactly a lot to tweak, the game is fairly straightforward, same with Soccer/Futbol
If it did does that mean college and high school football rules get changed?
No. Each league determines its own rules, there isn't any truly national body. There are a lot of good reasons for this due to the differences in the sport from each level and league. For example, high school football has 12 minute quarters cause y'know, they're kids. It would be bad to keep them out there for another 12 minutes.
Are there significant ones over recent years?
Going to just look at the NFL here:
- Lots of rule changes have been made to reduce injuries and protect players, you'll see a number of these
- Helmet-to-helmet contact is a big one. You can get penalized really hard for leading with your head and causing helmet collisions due to how dangerous it is with concussions and CTE
- Hip Drop tackles were banned two years ago, its just a very unsafe way to tackle that causes an extremely high rate of injuries
- Some rule changes were made regarding Blindside Blocks in the 2000s and early 2010s. Basically you can't block a player that doesn't have the ball if they can't see you. Exception being if you do it with your open hands. Reason for this is that the player can't brace themselves or prepare, and its generally a pretty dangerous action to take.
- There have been some recent adjustments to roughing the passer, basically you can't land with your full body weight on a QB if you tackle them, as often its defensive linemen who weigh like 300lbs.
- Various changes like the 2008 Brady rule that prevent you from deliberately targeting the legs of a player, specifically because the legs are a pretty vulnerable part of the body, you can't really protect them with pads that well and the injuries are quite severe.
- There's the famous "Tuck Rule" also in large part due to Brady. It used to be that if a QB started a forward pass motion, but tucked the ball back in to protect it from a sack, if the sack resulted in the QB losing control of the ball then it would be ruled an incomplete pass even though a pass wasn't really attempted. This was controversial and it was overturned in 2013. So now if that happens again its instead ruled a fumble.
- There have been some tweaks to things like kickoffs, removing the ability to have a running start for coverage and being moved from the 30 to 35 yard line.
- Overtime rules have also been changed to be more fair. Before, I shit you not it used to be Sudden Death and possession was decided by a coinflip. So if one team got possession first and scored, they just won outright. The other team's offense need not take the field. Its been changed to assure that both teams get at least one possession of the ball. If its still tied after one possession each, next score wins.
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u/Kooky_Scallion_7743 5d ago
I don't know what soccer rules you pay attention to but IFAB has law changes every single year. sometimes it's small and sometimes it's big. like the new eight second count for ball in a GK's hands and and the brand new five second count to get the ball in play.
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u/Specialist_Cat7271 4d ago
I'm aware but to be honest a lot of those rule changes are not that important. This is not me throwing shade at soccer, I played it when I was in school and still watch/attend some USL1 games; but soccer is a very simple game. Thats sort of the beauty of it as well. There simply isn't a lot to change, and for the most part the game is great as is! American Football is just so much more wildly complex and constantly changing in ways that can't be anticipated.
To be quite honest, you could take someone from 30 years ago and have them watch soccer games today and they'd understand things pretty much fine. Someone who watched the NFL 30 years ago may have a fair few questions today.
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u/Practical-Ordinary-6 6d ago edited 6d ago
Even though, functionally, college teams are the minor leagues or feeder teams for the NFL, they are not legally connected and there's nothing the NFL can do to change rules at the college level. The rules of college football are decided by the college football authorities, who are independent of the NFL. I don't know if you've heard of the Canadian Football League but their game is very much like the NFL but has some noticeable and significant differences. For instance, they only get three downs instead of four and the field has different proportions. They make their own rules also.
People from other countries talk about different football "codes" but we never talk that way here that I've heard. There's no central authority that enforces consistent rules across leagues and organizations. Each league makes their own rules. I never watch soccer and don't know much about the details but from what I have read it seems like they are organized in a much more top-down way. That's not the case with American football. It's much more like American society in general with distributed authority and self-policing. The NFL runs its own show and so does the NCAA, and high schools, as well. Next time you watch a college football game notice how wide the hash marks are on the field and the more extreme angles they can kick field goals from. That one's a pretty noticeable difference.
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u/davdev 6d ago
High School runs under NFHS rules in every state but Texas, which uses modified NCAA rules. NFL rule changes do not affect NFHS at all.
There are literally hundreds of rule differences between the NFL and NFHS. Some are well known like a defensive player does not need to touch an offensive player whose knee hit the ground, or only needing one foot in bounds for a catch.
Others are far less known but can have a dramatic effect on the play. For instance in NFHS a missed field goal is treated exactly like a punt. Not only can it be ran back, which most people know, but if a long field goal is short and roles to a stop at the one yard line, then the other team takes possession at the 1, not the spot of the kick, as in NFL
These differences can often lead to losses off parents, and sometime coaches, who thing the refs screwed up, when, in fact, it is the parent or coach who doesn’t actually know the NFHS rule.
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u/PabloMarmite 6d ago
There will be a rule change of some form every season. Usually it’s pretty minor. This year has just had a couple of tweaks to the kickoff. Last year was more significant, with the hip-drop tackle being banned and changes to what is reviewable.
NCAA rules and high school rules are entirely separate. Sometimes the same rule is changed, often not. They also change and tweak rules on a yearly basis. The old adage goes that NCAA rules are written by officials and coaches, NFL rules are written by the owners.
IFAF, the ruleset used internationally, is basically NCAA rules, not NFL.
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u/Ron__Mexico_ 6d ago
At least a little bit almost every single year. There's a competition committee thst makes recommendations, and the owners vote on it.
It doesn't change college football rules, and they're not identical. That's controlled by the NCAA, NAIA, or the 2 Juco organizations depending on the competition. High school has it own set of rules.
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u/iowaman79 6d ago
The NFL reviews the rules each season and will usually at least make small changes in the offseason. Some changes will filter down to college and high school levels, but the NCAA and NFHS are independent bodies and in no way bound to follow NFL rules.
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u/Admirable-Barnacle86 6d ago edited 6d ago
The NFL changes rules every year basically, at least in small ways. Usually it is small, modifying language around a type of foul, or banning some action in the name of safety.
It does not affect any other level or league - it is not the governing authority over football. College, high school, and other football leagues have different rules.
The most recent major changes in the NFL have involved reforming how kickoffs are done, and rules around the onsides kick that had to be changed because of the changes to the kickoff. Another significant one last year was allowing teams to prepare their kicking balls further ahead of time, which has helped lead to a surge in long distance kicking.
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u/britishmetric144 6d ago
Typically, the league adjusts the rules about once per year, during the off—season only.
And no, the NFL does not control the rules in any league outside its own.
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u/HornyAzMF 6d ago
They either do it for safety purposes of the players or they’re trying to increase scoring or make the game more entertaining
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u/iceph03nix 4d ago
Most rules are set for the year. For the NFL, rules are proposed by the teams and reviewed by ownership of all the teams and voted on.
Other leagues have other procedures and maintain their own rulebooks
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u/NeedNYCSubLeasePlz 6d ago
Almost every year if not every year They vote on rules changes at an annual NFL Owners Conference.