NFL players called for unsportsmanlike conduct penalties twice in one game will be ejected automatically if a proposed rule change is approved by the owners next week.
Under the rule, a player would be ejected if he’s twice penalized for throwing a punch, forearm or kick at an opponent (even if he doesn’t make contact), using abusive language or baiting or taunting.
The NFL says there were 75 unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called during the 2015 season, although only twice did a player get two such penalties in one game. (On a conference call today, PFT asked representatives of the league which two players would have been penalized, but the Competition Committee members said they did not know.)
The Competition Committee decided not to recommend an ejection for two personal fouls of any kind. Under a rule like that, two fouls like facemasking and roughing the passer could result in an ejection, but Competition Committee Chairman Rich McKay said the league thinks its system of discipline already in place for those types of penalties is sufficient.
“We definitely talked about those. We feel like we have disciplinary ways to deal with the personal foul side. We have a system of fining, we have ways to suspend,” McKay said. “We talked about two facemasks, if a guy just grazed a facemask twice would we want that to be an ejection, and the answer was no.”
But the league does appear to want to eject players if they get two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and this rule appears set to pass next week.