The onside kick is broken and needs to be fixed, and other thoughts ahead of the NFL meetings

“So the game statistically is in a pretty good place,” said Falcons executive Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL’s competition committee. “That’s why you see a year where I’m not sure there’s a ton of proposals on the table.”

But the NFL isn’t considering the two rule changes the game needs the most — adding a “sky judge” to the officiating crew, and fixing the onside kick, which has been rendered close to impossible.

In recent years the NFL has implemented a system of “replay assist” to fix objective officiating errors such as the game clock, the line of scrimmage, and intentional grounding. The owners will vote on expanding replay assist to include penalties such as roughing the passer, tripping, and horse-collar tackles. But the rules will only allow the instant replay official to “pick up” a flag that was incorrectly thrown. Replay assist won’t be used to “throw a flag” — to call a penalty that was missed by the officials.

Remember when former Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold got his head twisted halfway around on a sack in October? Millions of fans at home saw an obvious facemask, yet no penalty was called. Replay assist won’t fix that kind of error in 2025.

McKay said that having instant replay officials calling penalties is a threshold the NFL doesn’t want to cross.

“I truly say it was 100 percent against ever putting a flag on the field,” McKay said. “The idea was that the game being officiated from there changes pretty much everything, and takes away the judgment that we give to officials on the field, and would require substantial rework of the rules and the way you wrote them.”

The NFL also doesn’t want to get into the business of using instant replay to assess intent, like college football does in using replay to call targeting penalties and ejections.

“That’s a subjective element where you’re going to re-officiate the play. That is what we’re fearful of, and that is what we don’t necessarily want to get into,” McKay said. “So I think everyone is kind of universal in saying we want the game officiated on the field.”

In short, get ready for another season of officiating controversies, where the fans at home with their 4K TVs and slow-motion instant replay will have a perfect view of all of the calls that the officials miss.

“We know there’s going to be mistakes, there are going to be human errors,” NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said. “But to put a flag on the field was a nonstarter.”

That stance is debatable but understandable. What’s not understandable is why no one — none of the teams or the competition committee — proposed any significant fixes to the onside kick.

It is one of the most exciting plays in the NFL, keeping fans engaged through the end of the game. The Saints’ surprise onside kick to open the second half of Super Bowl XLIV is one of the league’s iconic moments of the last 20 years.

Yet a litany of new kickoff rules over several years have rendered the onside kick nearly impossible. In 2024, only 3 of 50 were recovered (6 percent). The last three years, it’s 8 for 147 (5.4 percent). The success rate is but a fraction of what it was from 2000-04 (24 percent), 2005-09 (21.9 percent), 2010-14 (16.3 percent), and 2015-19 (13.7 percent).

Vincent even said at the last owners’ meetings in December that the NFL needs to look at the onside kick because it has become “a dead play . . . a ceremonial play.”

Yet changes to the onside kick are barely being considered this year. The NFL is only proposing one tiny tweak for 2025: Allowing the kicking team to line up on the 30-yard line instead of the 29. The NFL hopes that 1 yard can increase the recovery rate to 10 percent.

“We did all the simulations to show where that puts the players in relation to where they are now, and we do think that does give us an opportunity to move the number up,” McKay said.

But it was curious that no team proposed any alternatives to an onside kick. The Broncos in 2019 proposed replacing the onside kick with a fourth-and-15 play, and the Eagles a similar fourth-and-15 or fourth-and-20 play in 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024.

None of those proposals passed, and this year, no one even tried. It smacks of a lack of creativity and effort.

“There was a sense of you earn everything, every snap is important, and some considered [it], you heard this from time to time, gimmicky,” Vincent said. “So it never came up this year.”

The NFL also did nothing to bring back the surprise onside kick, which was eliminated in 2024 because of the new kickoff alignment rules. Teams were only allowed to attempt onside kicks if trailing in the fourth quarter, and had to declare to the officials. One change for 2025 is teams will be allowed to attempt an onside kick at any time in the game, but the other rules remain the same.

McKay said the sentiment from league officials is they don’t want to see the recovery rate increase too much.

“There are plenty of people that argue about, ‘Do we really want to give any advantage to the team that is losing to win the game?’ ” McKay said. “Do we want to move that number from 6 percent or 7 or even 12 percent to 25 percent to recovery? There was no appetite for that.”

But for most of the 21st century, the recovery rate was in the teens and low 20s. The 5 percent success rate the last three years is the anomaly.

The onside kick is broken and needs to be fixed. It makes no sense that the NFL is choosing to punt instead.

The 49ers look willing and ready to trade receiver Brandon Aiyuk, less than a year after signing him to a five-year, $138 million contract. The 49ers are shedding pricey veterans this offseason, seemingly in preparation for giving Brock Purdy a huge extension.

But an Aiyuk trade has to happen now, with Monday serving as an unofficial deadline because of a large cash bonus coming due.

The 49ers have to pay Aiyuk a $22.855 million bonus Tuesday, with no deferred payments. It seems highly unlikely the 49ers would trade Aiyuk after paying him nearly $23 million.

Aiyuk, 27, has been productive over five NFL seasons, and might be the best receiver available. But Aiyuk’s knee injury — he tore the ACL and MCL in his right knee in October — throws a major wrench into the 49ers’ ability to trade him, and is probably why the Patriots chose Stefon Diggs instead.

John Lynch, the 49ers general manager, said last month that Aiyuk is “doing well” and “putting in the work,” but Aiyuk’s injury is likely more severe than a typical, noncontact ACL tear such as the one suffered by Diggs.

While Aiyuk should return to the field in 2025, he might not contribute much over the first half of the season, or be back to 100 percent until 2026. Free agents Keenan Allen, Amari Cooper, and Tyler Lockett are healthier, cheaper, and won’t cost a draft pick.

The 49ers’ best and perhaps only chance of unloading Aiyuk’s contract may be to share the cost of the $22.855 million bonus due Tuesday. And they may not get more than a Day 3 draft pick, similar to the fifth-rounder they got for Deebo Samuel. More likely, Aiyuk will be a 49er in 2025, with a return to the trade market in 2026.

A large contingent of Titans brass took Miami quarterback Cam Ward to dinner last Sunday night before his pro day. And by all accounts, the Titans seem to be impressed with Ward and appear poised to take him with the No. 1 draft pick.

Yet new general manager Mike Borgonzi left the door open to trading the No. 1 pick when speaking Monday in Miami.

“I would say everything is still on the table,” Borgonzi said, a sentiment he reiterated twice. ESPN’s Adam Schefter followed it up with a report that “it would now take an even stronger package to acquire the draft’s top selection,” which implies that the Titans are fishing for a big offer.

If Ward is the real deal, then the Titans wouldn’t even consider entertaining trades, as the Bengals didn’t in 2020 with Joe Burrow. Perhaps Borgonzi is intentionally sending mixed signals just to keep the intrigue for next month’s draft, or to see if any team is willing to make an over-the-top trade offer.

Mike Vrabel served on the NFL’s 10-person competition committee in 2022-23, but lost his seat in 2024 after being fired by the Titans. Now that he’s coaching the Patriots, Vrabel isn’t back on the influential committee, but he has been a respected contributor this offseason.

NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said Vrabel was one of a handful of coaches who arrived early to the Combine and was invited to participate in meetings, and that Vrabel’s contributions were meaningful.

“He was very instrumental as we were working through some of the special teams,” Vincent said. “Mike truly understands the game, the rule books, has the competition committee history. So his thoughts were invaluable to us, so he actually sat in to a few sessions where he was available. He’s not a competition committee member, but his insight is invaluable.”

The Patriots matched the Raiders’ offer sheet for restricted free agent linebacker Christian Elliss this past week, signing him to a two-year, $13.5 million deal with $7.75 million fully guaranteed. It’s a strong deal that indicates the Patriots view Elliss as a key rotational piece on defense after he finished last year third on the team with 80 tackles.

It also appears that the Patriots misjudged Elliss’s market and cost themselves a few million. On March 6 they placed a “right of first refusal” tender on Elliss that set his compensation at $3.263 million for 2025. This allowed the Patriots the right to match any contract offer Elliss got from another team, but with no draft pick compensation if he signed elsewhere.

The contract Elliss signed with the Patriots is the offer he got from the Raiders. Elliss gets $5.5 million fully guaranteed in 2025 (with a max compensation of $6.129 million), and $2.25 million fully guaranteed in 2026 (maximum $7.379 million).

Had the Patriots instead placed a “second-round” tender on Elliss, it would have cost $5.346 million on a one-year contract for 2025. And the Patriots could have almost certainly counted on keeping Elliss at that price, as a second-round RFA player has never signed with another team since it was created in 2011.

It’s not a big deal that the Patriots overpaid Elliss by nearly a million in 2025 and gave him a $2.25 million guarantee in 2026. But it does seem that they misjudged his market.

This week in Palm Beach, Fla., the owners will vote on the Eagles’ proposal to make regular-season overtime mirror the postseason rules, which means 15-minute quarters and both teams guaranteed a possession.

It’s a sound idea, but part of the Eagles’ rationale behind it doesn’t quite add up. Rich McKay of the competition committee noted that 75 percent of overtime games in 2024 (12 of 16) were won by the team that won the overtime coin toss.

But that number is a bit misleading. Only six of the 12 wins came with a touchdown on the opening possession of OT. In the other six, both teams got the ball. The Ravens beat the Bengals on the third possession. The Buccaneers beat the Panthers on the third possession. The Bengals beat the Broncos on the fifth possession. And so on.

While it would be fairer to guarantee both teams the ball in overtime, the fact that both teams got the ball in 10 of 16 games (62.5 percent) doesn’t scream out that the rules need changing.

The Giants have become Last Chance U at quarterback, signing both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston to keep the seat warm until the franchise figures out its long-term plans. The investment in both quarterbacks is minimal, and the fact that neither the Steelers nor Browns were interested in bringing Wilson and Winston back is telling. But with Tommy DeVito the only quarterback on the roster before last week, Wilson and Winston at least give the Giants a couple of veterans who can lead the team through offseason workouts and potentially the first half of the season. And now the Giants don’t have to draft Shedeur Sanders at No. 3 if they don’t fall in love with him . . . Cam Newton won an MVP and led the Panthers to the Super Bowl over nine seasons, but he and the organization appear to be in a bad place. Newton said last fall he was hurt that he wasn’t invited with other franchise greats to appear at fan events before the Panthers’ game in Munich, and separately expressed dismay that his likeness doesn’t appear anywhere at the Panthers’ stadium. Conversely, Newton hurt some feelings last month by saying he joined a team in 2011 with a “locker room full of losers.” “I’d love to see him get back into the Panther family,” former coach Ron Rivera told The Athletic. “But he’s also got to be willing to do the things and understand that it takes more than just showing up.” . . . Rice safety Gabriel Taylor, a Miami native, will be participating at the Dolphins’ local prospect pro day next month. Taylor, listed at 5 feet 10 inches and 190 pounds, is the younger brother of slain former Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor. He had 10 interceptions in four seasons at Rice . . . Winning the Super Bowl didn’t save the Eagles’ pep band, which is being disbanded after 28 years, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. The band began in 1996 and popularized the team’s “Fly, Eagles, Fly” anthem, but the Eagles are opting for a DJ and more modern entertainment. “We’re not bitter,” band co-founder Bobby Mansure told the Inquirer. “It’s been glorious. Super Bowls and being on the field and meeting families and players and friends. We walk away with a smile on our face.”

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.