The NFL announced preseason schedules yesterday. The Titans will play the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders at L.P. Field. They will travel to play the Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers in there other two games. The regular season schedule should come out sometime before the draft.
LenDale White has a May 1st court date for his citation that was issued last month. This seems like something that is going to end up just going away.
The Raiders are not expected to match the Titans offer sheet for Chris Carr. Carr would give the Titans an option in the return game that they desperately need.
The NFL made some rule changes earlier in the week that are interesting:
- There is no longer a force out rule. If the receiver does not get two feet down the pass is incomplete. This is designed to take the subjectivity out of that call. I think we would all agree that the force out rule was never called with any consistency. There is a clause that the defensive back cannot carry the receiver out of bounds, but Jeff Fisher said on the radio this morning it would only be called if a guy is carried 5 yards to the sideline.
- There is no longer a 5 yard face mask call. If the head is not jerked there will be no penalty.
- Teams now have the option to defer when they win the coin toss. The way it has been set up in the NFL, the team that wins the coin toss either takes the ball or elects to kick, and the other team has the choice of the direction they want to go. Now, as in college, a team can defer their choice to the 2nd half which makes the other team take the ball so the team that won the coin toss can pick the direction they want to play. This will be a factor in games where there are strong winds.
- Field goals and extra points are now reviewable plays.
Also, I am trying to get together a mock draft here at MCM. If you have a team you would like to pick for, please leave it in the comments here. Right now we only have a couple who have agreed to participate. We need to get more in order to make it worth anything.