At a league meeting next week, NFL owners will vote on proposal to allow for a second player to come off of the injured reserve during the season. That proposal is likely to be approved, Judy Battista of NFL.com tweets.
The league first introduced the “short-term” IR in 2012. That rule allowed for a team to designate one player for return after eight weeks had passed. Teams appreciated the flexibility, but once the IR-DTR designation was applied to one player, teams were not able to make a chance and instead use it on a different player. Later, the league modified the IR-DTR rules so that teams did not have to declare their returning player ahead of time, but they were still only allowed to activate one player.
Now, teams will be able to bring two players off of IR midseason, though they’ll presumably have to give the same advanced notice. The current IR-DTR rules stipulate that a player must stay out of practice for six weeks and cannot play for eight weeks before being brought back to the 53-man roster.