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, provided that once-mundane calendar entries, corresponding 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 group’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 towards the Bengals. He was then transferred to a hospital in Buffalo.
He steadily handed checkpoints through 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 gained’t have any hesitation when he’s on the sector. Buffalo’s Week 1 sport is a return to “Monday Evening Soccer,” towards 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 operating 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 group gained two Tremendous Bowl rings up to now 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 affords.
In Washington, he has the prospect to run an offense away from Reid’s shadow. The transition hasn’t been fully clean: Commanders Coach Ron Rivera mentioned final month that some gamers had been “involved” with Bieniemy’s intense teaching fashion, 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 identified concussions through 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 identified concussion on Christmas Day, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. Tagovailoa mentioned he took up jiu-jitsu this low season to discover ways to defend his physique when he falls, an method unproven to forestall head damage.
‘Thursday Evening Soccer’ video games could be flexed.
In one other instance of how the pursuit of media cash shapes sports activities leagues, N.F.L. house owners authorized in Might a decision to deliver flex scheduling to “Thursday Evening Soccer” on a restricted foundation, for now. The rule will enable the league to maneuver not more than two video games from Sunday afternoon to Amazon’s Thursday night time broadcast. The league can solely make these swaps of video games scheduled between Weeks 13 and 17 and has to supply a minimum of 4 weeks’ discover.
The Giants co-owner John Mara spoke out towards the change, suggesting that it wasn’t in one of the best pursuits of gamers or followers, however the measure bought sufficient votes from different group house owners to go for a one-season trial.
Brian Flores is asking 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 towards the N.F.L. and its groups can proceed by way of the judicial system slightly than being moved behind closed doorways in personal arbitration. Flores, who’s Black and of Honduran descent, filed go well with in February 2022, accusing the league and its groups of discriminating towards him and different coaches of coloration in its hiring practices.
Gamers can truthful catch kickoffs.
Within the newest rule change addressing performs which have been discovered to be probably the most harmful, the N.F.L. this season will enable gamers to name for truthful catches on kickoffs and on free kicks after a security. If a participant makes a good catch behind their group’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 charge, and thus the variety of concussions sustained on returns, to lower on account of this modification, which will probably be evaluated and thought of for everlasting adoption after the season.
Ten gamers are serving playing suspensions.
Widespread legalized sports activities betting in the US has develop into more and more entwined with the N.F.L., even because the league up to now 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 group 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 corporations.
Sean Payton is again.
Given the myriad methods Payton has made his presence recognized, corresponding 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 method has been hard-charging, beginning along with his proclamation at his introductory information convention in Denver that, in contrast to final season, Wilson’s private efficiency coaches wouldn’t be allowed within the group 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 damage he sustained in Tremendous Bowl LVI, Beckham signed with the Ravens in early April. He joined Baltimore simply weeks earlier than the group 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 provides 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 attributable to damage or disqualification.
The utility for this position got here into focus through the N.F.C. championship, when each the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterbacks had been injured through 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 will probably be in Las Vegas for the primary time.
When the Raiders moved to Las Vegas from Oakland, Calif., in 2020, the group introduced with it the potential of the N.F.L. world descending on The Strip for marquee occasions, even when the group’s efficiency of late has stored it removed from the league’s greatest 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 operating again Alvin Kamara is serving a three-game suspension for his position in a battle in Las Vegas on the eve of the 2022 Professional Bowl. And Tremendous Bowl LVIII is bound to be plastered with betting ads and partnerships, whereas the league continues its crackdown on potential violations of its playing coverage by gamers.
