The results of the 2025 DFL rules voting are in! There were just three rule proposals on the ballot — with three contingent votes — and all three have passed.
Let’s take a look at the results and my analysis of each one.
Note: As a reminder, all new rules go into effect in the following calendar year, so none of these rules will take effect until 2026, including the one for which we sought unanimous consent to trigger an immediate implementation.
Proposals Passed
- Should the league restructure rookie salaries according to the proposed structure? (For reference to the current structure, visit here).
Contingent Proposal 1: If the rookie contract pay scale proposal passes, should we apply it to those rookie contracts already in place?
Contingent Proposal 2: If the rookie contract pay scale proposal passes, should this new rookie pay scale take place immediately?
By a vote of 10-2, DFL owners have elected to modify the rookie pay scale to make rookie contracts more affordable in the later seasons of their existence. The new scale achieves this, lowering contracts across the board, but particularly for players selected in Rounds 2-4. Rookie contracts, as we know, differ from veteran contracts in that they escalate in value in subsequent years. The problem, as owners were noticing, is that the escalation value was too high, especially for players selected later in the draft who are certainly not guaranteed to be successful or worth the value of their contracts. The first contingent proposal passed by a vote of 7-5, thus rookie contracts that already exist will be affected by this pay scale. However, the second contingent proposal — applying these rule changes immediately — failed to receive unanimous support. Thus, all rookie contracts, those from 2023, 2024, and even the upcoming ones from the class of ’25, will not be affected by the new pay scale change until after this season, in the calendar year of 2026. - Should we implement contract extensions for players in the final years of their deals?
Players will now be eligible for a contract extension under new league rules after the league passed this proposal by a unanimous vote. The owners resoundingly believed that allowing franchises to keep more of their own players for longer periods of time without having to use a franchise tag was a good idea.
Note: As a result of this unanimous vote, a separate head count vote will be taken to see if implementing this rule immediately similarly receives unanimous support.
Here are the specifics of this new rule:- Only players in the final years of their deals are eligible for extensions.
- If a player signs an extension, his current contract is replaced by the new contract.
- Because the new contract replaces the current contract, a team must have the cap space and the cash in the current year to take on the extra salary of the new contract.
- Per usual, you can sign that player up to 4 years (although I’d strongly advise against that length of deal for highly-paid players).
- The value of the contract extension is equal to either A) the average salary of the Top 10 players at his position, or B) 120% of his current year’s salary. Whichever of those two values is higher would be the player’s extension salary.
- The extension period will run from the first day of the NFL regular season calendar (typically the Thursday after Labor Day) through the DFL’s “roster clean-up week” following the league championship. The extension prices for all players will be set on that first day, after contract lengths have been submitted and cemented following the league’s auction.
- Should we cut down on the number of playoff teams?
Contingent Proposal: If the playoff team reduction proposal passes, how many playoff teams should we thus allow?
Beginning with the 2026 season, the DFL playoffs will feature two fewer teams, as the league voted to ratify a change to the playoff structure. By a vote of 8-4, owners wanted to reduce the number of playoff teams to give at least the top seed a first-round bye. And by a vote of 7-5, owners wanted both the first and second seeds to have that bye week. So, in 2026, only six teams will make the playoffs. Which means, six teams will be jostling for a higher draft pick by season’s end. What kind of effect this rule has on teams entering tank mode earlier in the season will be an interesting side effect to keep an eye on. The past two seasons have seen the bottom four teams unload players before the trade deadline in an effort to get a higher draft pick. Now, we could see up to six start to do so.