The N.F.L. low season has gotten shorter because the common season was prolonged to 17 video games, and it actually feels shorter, too, on condition that once-mundane calendar entries, comparable to the beginning of low season exercises, at the moment are handled like red-carpet occasions.
But the down time between final season and this one remains to be lengthy sufficient that impactful free-agent signings, un-retirements and guidelines adjustments made months in the past have receded to the background. Right here’s our refresher on the N.F.L. happenings to remember because the common season begins in earnest on Sunday.
Damar Hamlin is again.
Eight months after Hamlin, a Buffalo Payments security, went into cardiac arrest throughout a “Monday Evening Soccer” sport, he made the crew’s 53-man roster and can backup starters Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer. Hamlin spent almost every week within the intensive care unit of a Cincinnati hospital after he collapsed on the sector following a collision throughout a Jan. 2 sport in opposition to the Bengals. He was then transferred to a hospital in Buffalo.
He steadily handed checkpoints throughout the low season, from being cleared to renew soccer actions in April to taking part in in his first sport because the life-threatening medical occasion, an exhibition in August. “I made the selection that I wished to play,” Hamlin, 25, instructed reporters afterward, including that he received’t have any hesitation when he’s on the sector. Buffalo’s Week 1 sport is a return to “Monday Evening Soccer,” in opposition to the Jets in East Rutherford, N.J.
Eric Bieniemy left Kansas Metropolis for Washington.
After a decade working beneath Coach Andy Reid in Kansas Metropolis, first because the working backs coach after which because the offensive coordinator, Bieniemy is forging out for Washington, the place he’s the Commanders’ sole offensive play-caller in addition to an assistant head coach. Bieniemy labored with Reid to develop and run the league’s most enjoyable offense, helmed by quarterback Patrick Mahomes, because the crew received two Tremendous Bowl rings previously 4 seasons. But in addition throughout that timeframe, Bieniemy interviewed for greater than a dozen N.F.L. head-coaching jobs with out receiving any presents.
In Washington, he has the prospect to run an offense away from Reid’s shadow. The transition hasn’t been solely easy: Commanders Coach Ron Rivera stated final month that some gamers had been “involved” with Bieniemy’s intense teaching model, earlier than Rivera apologized for placing “my foot in my mouth.” Some depth is clearly wanted, as Bieniemy has been tasked with reviving an offense that has perennially ranked close to the underside of the league.
Tua Tagovailoa didn’t retire.
After Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins’ beginning quarterback, sustained two recognized concussions throughout the 2022 season, he admitted in an April information convention that he thought of retirement earlier than concluding that he was not able to stroll away from soccer at age 25.
The N.F.L. modified its concussion protocol final season after an investigation into how docs dealt with Tagovailoa’s return to the sector following a tough hit to the pinnacle in a sport final September. 4 days later, he once more hit his head in one other sport and was taken to the hospital, and Tagovailoa then suffered his second recognized concussion on Christmas Day, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. Tagovailoa stated he took up jiu-jitsu this low season to discover ways to defend his physique when he falls, an strategy unproven to stop head harm.
‘Thursday Evening Soccer’ video games may be flexed.
In one other instance of how the pursuit of media cash shapes sports activities leagues, N.F.L. homeowners authorised in Might a decision to deliver flex scheduling to “Thursday Evening Soccer” on a restricted foundation, for now. The rule will permit the league to maneuver not more than two video games from Sunday afternoon to Amazon’s Thursday evening broadcast. The league can solely make these swaps of video games scheduled between Weeks 13 and 17 and has to supply at the least 4 weeks’ discover.
The Giants co-owner John Mara spoke out in opposition to the change, suggesting that it wasn’t in the very best pursuits of gamers or followers, however the measure received sufficient votes from different crew homeowners to go for a one-season trial.
Brian Flores is looking the Vikings’ protection.
After spending final season as a senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach for Pittsburgh, Flores will name defensive performs for the Minnesota Vikings. A decide dominated in March that Flores’s racial discrimination lawsuit in opposition to the N.F.L. and its groups can proceed by way of the judicial system fairly than being moved behind closed doorways in personal arbitration. Flores, who’s Black and of Honduran descent, filed swimsuit in February 2022, accusing the league and its groups of discriminating in opposition to him and different coaches of shade in its hiring practices.
Gamers can truthful catch kickoffs.
Within the newest rule change addressing performs which were discovered to be probably the most harmful, the N.F.L. this season will permit gamers to name for truthful catches on kickoffs and on free kicks after a security. If a participant makes a good catch behind their crew’s 25-yard line, the ball will then be positioned on the 25, mirroring the rule that has been utilized in school video games since 2018.
The league expects the return price, and thus the variety of concussions sustained on returns, to lower on account of this alteration, which can be evaluated and thought of for everlasting adoption after the season.
Ten gamers are serving playing suspensions.
Widespread legalized sports activities betting in the USA has change into more and more entwined with the N.F.L., even because the league previously 12 months delivered its most intensive set of penalties for violations of its playing coverage. Ten gamers are at present serving suspensions, starting from six-game penalties for betting on different sports activities whereas at crew services to indefinite suspensions for betting on N.F.L. video games.
The N.F.L. has requested the general public to take its phrase that no video games had been compromised, whereas critics have identified the dissonance between the league’s stringent penalties and its rising partnerships with betting firms.
Sean Payton is again.
Given the myriad methods Payton has made his presence recognized, comparable to by saying that Nathaniel Hackett’s time period with the Denver Broncos, by which he didn’t make it by way of a full season, was “one of many worst teaching jobs within the historical past of the N.F.L.,” it’s unlikely Payton is off anybody’s radar.
However it’s straightforward to neglect that only a 12 months in the past, he spent Sundays sitting on the Fox Sports activities set as a commentator, having “retired” after 15 seasons main the New Orleans Saints.
His run with the Saints, which included one Tremendous Bowl ring, overlapped with that of quarterback Drew Brees. Now, Payton has maybe the hardest problem of his profession: rehabilitating Russell Wilson. His strategy has been hard-charging, beginning along with his proclamation at his introductory information convention in Denver that, not like final season, Wilson’s private efficiency coaches wouldn’t be allowed within the crew facility.
Odell Beckham Jr. is a part of the Ravens’ new-look offense.
After spending the 2022 season out of the league whereas recovering from a knee harm he sustained in Tremendous Bowl LVI, Beckham signed with the Ravens in early April. He joined Baltimore simply weeks earlier than the crew broke a stalemate with quarterback Lamar Jackson, whom it signed to a five-year, $260 million contract extension.
There’s a great deal of anticipation across the league for a way the Ravens’ offense will look. Jackson has a brand new offensive coordinator, Todd Monken, for the primary time since his first full season as an N.F.L. starter. Together with Beckham, the Ravens additionally added Zay Flowers and Nelson Agholor to a receiver group that had been spotty.
Groups can use an emergency third quarterback.
The final labor settlement between the N.F.L. and the gamers’ union expanded game-day rosters to as many as 48 gamers, up from 46. A brand new rule put in place this low season offers groups further roster flexibility, permitting them to decorate a forty ninth participant as an emergency third quarterback. For the participant to enter the sport, two different quarterbacks on the game-day roster have to be unavailable because of harm or disqualification.
The utility for this position got here into focus throughout the N.F.C. championship, when each the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterbacks had been injured throughout the sport, forcing the starter Brock Purdy to return after he had injured his throwing elbow. The 49ers misplaced, 31-7, to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Tremendous Bowl can be in Las Vegas for the primary time.
When the Raiders moved to Las Vegas from Oakland, Calif., in 2020, the crew introduced with it the opportunity of the N.F.L. world descending on The Strip for marquee occasions, even when the crew’s efficiency of late has stored it removed from the league’s largest video games. After internet hosting two Professional Bowls, Allegiant Stadium will welcome its first Tremendous Bowl this season, although not with out warning for gamers and personnel across the league: New Orleans Saints working again Alvin Kamara is serving a three-game suspension for his position in a combat in Las Vegas on the eve of the 2022 Professional Bowl. And Tremendous Bowl LVIII is bound to be plastered with betting commercials and partnerships, whereas the league continues its crackdown on potential violations of its playing coverage by gamers.
