NFL owners vote down rule change proposed by Panthers coach Ron Rivera

NFL owners passed several rule changes Tuesday at the annual meetings, but voted down a proposal by Panthers coach Ron Rivera to have the intentional grounding rule expanded, a league official told the Observer.

Rivera believes the grounding rule, which allows quarterbacks to throw in the vicinity of a receiver to avoid a sack, is too ambiguous. But any proposal that would potentially take protection away from a quarterback was unlikely to be approved.

The rule changes include:

▪ Keeping the spot of extra points at the 15 permanently.

▪ Outlawing all forms of chop blocks.

▪ Extending the horse collar tackle rule to include the nameplate area on jerseys.

▪ Calling a delay of game penalty on teams that attempt to call a timeout when not permitted to do so.

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM with the headline "NFL owners vote down rule change proposed by Panthers coach Ron Rivera."