NFL owners approved five rule changes at their annual league meetings in Phoenix on Tuesday. They approved rules that will change aspects of the kickoff, allow support for NFL officials, as well as one in case of a referee work stoppage.

Owners agreed to a rule change that would allow the NFL Officiating Department to correct clear and obvious missed calls on the field for one year in case there is a work stoppage by the NFL Referees Association this season. The department will correct both fouls that were and weren’t called on the field.

The move comes as the NFL and the league’s referees continue to negotiate over a new contract. Both sides reportedly had tough negotiations last week, and the NFL will hire replacement referees in anticipation of a work stoppage.

NFL Competition Committee Co-Chairman Rich McKay said the rule is meant to help replacement officials who aren’t used to making certain calls in the NFL in case of a work stoppage. But he admitted he was surprised by the openness among owners to the idea of a command center for fixing calls in the NFL’s headquarters and what that could mean for a permanent rule.

“There’s a little better appetite for this than I might have thought going into that room,” McKay said in Phoenix. “I still also know that 24 votes [to get approval] are real, and that hurdle is not small. I don’t think we’re in a hurry to do it if we can’t do it really well.”

The NFL also approved an amended rule allowing it to consult with on-field officials when considering disqualifications for flagrant acts, both football and non-football, that weren’t called on the field. The original proposal only addressed disqualifications, but the amendment expanded it to include flagging the player.

Allowing the NFL to throw a flag from headquarters felt like a major milestone for the league. It had taken major steps in recent years to help officials clean up calls on the field with replay assistance. But the new rule will be the first time the NFL can actually add a flag from its headquarters.

McKay said coaches wanted the ability to add the flag so the disqualified player’s team would be penalized. He noted there was enough concern about whether the rule would get support, given the precedent of a flag coming from somewhere other than the field.

But owners approved it anyway.

“I would say the room and the discussion of the room was more along the lines of, can we do more, not less,” McKay said. “And I think we as a committee ... stayed true to the idea that we want replay assist, we want New York to be able to help, and we just don’t want to move too fast.”

Three of the rule changes involve the kickoff. The first allowed kicking teams to declare an onside kick at any point in the game. The second took away the kicking team’s incentive to kick the ball out of bounds when kicking from the 50-yard line. The last rule modified the kickoff alignment requirements for the receiving team players in the setup zone.

The onside kick saw a change for a third straight year. In 2024, owners changed the onside kick as part of the league’s “dynamic kickoff,” where trailing teams could only declare an onside kick in the fourth quarter. Owners changed the rule last year to allow trailing teams to declare an onside kick throughout the game. Now any team, whether they’re leading or trailing, can declare an onside kick.

Teams that kicked off from the 50 would receive the ball at the 35 if the ball went out of bounds for a touchback. The ball will now go to the 20 in that instance. The third kickoff rule changes how many players can be lined up in the setup zone.