The new waiting period for teams to conduct interviews with active assistant coaches comes with a wrinkle. Assistants on teams that do not have a wild-card game on tap can interview for HC jobs three days after the regular season ends, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes. This applies to coaches on teams that did not make the playoffs or staffers on a team that received a bye. These apparently would be remote interviews, with Florio adding no team staffer can interview in-person for a head-coaching job until after the wild-card round. While the slight head-start may benefit the batch of staffers not on one of the 12 wild-card weekend teams, the advantage may be negligible. As for the coaches on teams playing in the opening round, they cannot interview until the following Tuesday (for teams that played on Saturday and Sunday) or Wednesday (for the Monday teams). This week’s interview changes apply to the next two offseasons.
Here is the latest from around the league:
- Among the resolutions passed this week, the NFL and NFLPA agreed to a training camp ramp-up period. From Days 2-5 in camp, no live contact is permitted, via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). Teams can gather twice a day during this span, but the one of the sessions must be a walkthrough. A 3 1/2-hour time limit is allotted for both practices; that expands to four hours after the ramp-up period. The same two-a-day structure (one mandatory walkthrough) applies for the remainder of camp, however. True two-a-day camp workouts did not make it past 2010. Sixteen padded practices are permitted during the entirety of training camp; only one of those is permitted during the bye week that separates the preseason from the regular season.
- As expected, the NFL is keeping the 16-man practice squad. But the league made some minor changes. Practice squad elevations, as opposed to true promotions, can occur three times in 2022, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport notes (Twitter link). Teams were previously permitted two such elevations, which did not require the players to pass through waivers in order to be returned to the practice squad. Players who are active for three games this season will also earn an accrued season toward free agency, Kyed tweets. Teams can keep six vested veterans on P-squads this season.
- The league also ended reinstated some limitations regarding injured reserve. Teams can only make eight IR activations in 2022. While that is more such transactions than teams were permitted in the 2010s, teams did not face IR limitations from 2020-21.