Browns Withdrew Five-Year Draft Rule Change Proposal

There were a number of interesting rule change proposals at the annual league meetings earlier this week. We saw an interesting progression in that process when Tom Pelissero of NFL Network announced that the Browns had withdrawn their rule change proposal. The proposal would have allowed NFL teams to trade future draft picks up to five years out, as opposed to the current limit of three.

The understanding around the league is that the proposal was essentially dead on arrival, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead for good. Per Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic, multiple sources seem to believe an amended version of the rule change proposal will be reintroduced at some point in the future. While it seems a waste to propose something again that no one expected to get passed, reports seem to indicate that the Browns are not alone in their efforts of pushing this particular rule change.

Per Rodrigue, it’s not uncommon for teams to collaborate on potential rule changes. When it gets enough support to warrant discussion, the coalition of teams will designate somebody to champion the effort in order to gauge the general interest of the league. They know the rule likely won’t go through right away, but this test proposal airs out initial reactions, arguments against, and some idea of factions. While ultimately a failing endeavor, the failed proposal by Cleveland was a productive one.

Two supporters of the potential change were Rams general manager Les Snead and chief operating officer Kevin Demoff. In an appearance on the Up & Adams Show, Snead told Kay Adams that he would’ve backed the project. Demoff, too, showed his support, praising the idea of increased flexibility for several teams, those who build their teams by collecting excessive pick loads and those who build by trading away theirs.

Some coaches and front office staffers did voice a dissenting opinion. One noted that “teams structurally change too frequently over five years,” going on to add that, for some teams, entire front offices and coaching staffs will have turned over within that time. Because of this, the moves of a desperate front office staffer trying to save his job today may just handicap his successors as they attempt to dig themselves out of the holes created by their predecessors.

In reality, with the current rule, we hardly ever see picks three years out getting traded. Additionally, there are a lot of checks and balances that exist within an organization that would prevent such trades from occurring with too much frequency. It may be the Browns who continue to champion the rule change proposal in the future with some amendments, or a second team may take up the torch in order to show a shared interest worth reading into. Regardless, this may not be the last we see of this discussion.