Pittsburgh Steelers star William Gay is penalised for excessive celebration in 2015.
Maybe a little fun is coming back to the No Fun League.
The NFL, which technically stands for National Football League, despite some wisecracks to the contrary, announced on Wednesday that it was loosening its strict rules about on-field celebrations.
"We are relaxing our rules on celebrations to allow players more room to have fun after they make big plays," the league said in a statement.
Celebrations now permitted are "using the football as a prop" after a touchdown, "celebrating on the ground" and "group demonstrations."
But it is not open season for celebrations.
"Offensive demonstrations, celebrations that are prolonged and delay the game, and those directed at an opponent, will still be penalised," the statement said.
Celebration penalties were up sharply last season. The league said it had asked officials to pay extra attention to enforcing the existing rules.
Antonio Brown of the Pittsburgh Steelers was penalised and fined in Week 1 for twerking after a touchdown and again in Week 4 for thrusting his pelvis. Josh Norman of the Washington Redskins drew a penalty and a fine for miming shooting an arrow.
The crackdown was such a hot topic that Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns celebrated a touchdown by stiffly placing the ball on the turf and robotically walking away in a nod to the tough rules.
In another rule change, overtime will be shorter, and there may be more ties as a result.
The NFL owners agreed at their spring meetings in Chicago to reduce regular-season overtime periods to 10 minutes from 15.
The league said the change was designed primarily for player safety. Coaches believe that by the 10-minute mark of overtime players tend to hit high levels of fatigue, making them more vulnerable to injury.
Over the past five seasons, 83 games have gone into overtime, and 22 of them lasted more than 10 minutes, according to NFL Media. Five of those games ended in ties. Presumably, many of the games decided after 10 minutes would have ended as ties under the new rule.
The NFL introduced overtime games in 1974; before that, ties were significantly more common. There were an average of six ties a season in a smaller league in the 10 years before overtime began.
The owners also voted to change the preseason cut policy. In the past, teams reduced their rosters from 90 players to 75 and then to 53. Now, the middle step will be eliminated and teams will drop straight to 53 from 90 after the preseason. The move figures to create a chaotic few days as teams scramble to set their rosters and pick up players cast off by other teams.
The owners also agreed to ban jumping over the line to block kicks and will permit two players each season to come off injured reserve rather than one.
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