Of all of the proposed NFL rules changes that came to light on Thursday the one that caught my attention was the possible change of the rules regarding injured reserve.
Per Pro Football Talk the NFL Competition Committee has proposed:
"Adding an injured reserve exemption so that if a player was on the roster through the first regular season weekend, that player can be placed on injured reserve and designated for return, and then can return to practice six weeks later and play in a game eight weeks later, rather than having all players on injured reserve out for the season."
I love it. If you have been around these parts for a while you know that I have been calling for a change like this for several years now.
See what I wrote on August 27 of 2010. And on March 26 of 2009. And on January 1 of 2009. Yes, I have been beating this drum for a while.
The Injured Reserve Rule as it stands now makes no sense to me whatsoever. Currently, the league forces teams to either hold a valuable roster spot for a player it can't use for many weeks of the season or put a player on IR when that player is not injured severely enough to miss an entire season and could be useful during the second half of the season.
Think about it and you can come up with a ton of examples just on the Giants roster in the past few years. Why was Victor Cruz on IR with a hamstring injury in 2010? Marvin Austin probably did not need to miss all of last season with his torn pectoral muscle.
It just seems to be silly to force teams to IR players they want to keep and could use at the end of seasons when rosters are depleted, then have them picking up players off the street -- like the Giants did with Will Blackmon last year -- who clearly don't belong in the league.
I generally hate all the yearly tinkering the league does with its rules. This, however, would be a long overdue change.