One of the most contentious rules in the NFL is offensive fumbles through the end zone resulting in a turnover. It’s become a hot topic in recent seasons, and recently it looked like there might be support for a rule change. For the record, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, who is on NFL competition committee, has said that he supports the rule remaining as is.
So does Steelers DL Cam Heyward.
Heyward discussed his thoughts on the rule on Wednesday’s episode of his Not Just Football podcast. He hinted at some frustration with the general trend of the NFL’s rules favoring offenses and then asked about where changes would stop.
“That’s just bailing out the offense once again if you change the rule,” Heyward said. “It just feels like there’s a bunch of crybabies that are just ‘Oh my gosh, the ball went through the end zone.’ You deal with what you got, you hold on to the ball, and then you don’t have to worry about it. My thing is, if a quarterback was running out of the back of the end zone, what happens then? It’s a safety. Next, we’re going to take away that and we’re just gonna say ‘Oh, we’re not gonna penalize the quarterback, we’re just going to say he went out of bounds?’ When does it stop? We’ve changed a lot of rules already.”
It should be a surprise to exactly no one that a defensive lineman wants nothing to do with this rule change. After all, it’s a rule change that specifically benefits the offense and harms the defense. Heyward’s veiled comments at the beginning and end about previous rule changes are also correct. Almost every single rule change that affects play on the field in recent memory skews toward the offense. Even former Steelers and Hall of Fame CB Mel Blount has a rule named after him that is responsible for defensive holding in pass coverage as we know it.
So Heyward is right. If this change does go through at some point, it’s simply the latest in a long line of rules designed to help offenses. From a league perspective, that trend continues to make sense. It opened up the game for offenses to put a lot of points on the board, which attracts viewership. But it does make life even harder for defensive players, and last I checked, there are 11 defenders on the field just like 11 offensive players.
Are there quality arguments for changing the rule? Of course. Fumbles out of the end zone are officiated differently than fumbles that go out of bounds anywhere else on the field.
However, as Heyward points out, if offenses just hold on to the ball near the goal line, they have nothing to worry about. So just practice ball security and there’s no need to worry about the rule.
You can watch the entirety of Wednesday’s episode of Not Just Football below.
