Palm Beach, Fla. (WGR 550) - While all of the focus has been on the new playoff overtime rule, the NFL’s Competition Committee did approval another operational change at the Annual League Meetings this week, and it was one the Buffalo Bills and three other teams proposed.
The Bills - along with the Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers - proposed a resolution amending the league’s anti-tampering policy to allow teams the option to deny interview requests from another club for one of their personnel employees to interview for their assistant general manager position until after the draft.
Once the NFL Draft is over, and through June 30, they must grant that permission.
Currently, teams must allow those employees the opportunity to interview and accept another club's assistant general manager position prior to March 1.
Here’s the exact language of the new resolution:
“If a club wishes to discuss its Secondary Football Executive position with a non-High-Level Club Employee or a non-Secondary Football Executive whose club’s playing season (excluding Pro Bowl) has concluded, and who is under contract to such club, the employer club is under no obligation to grant such permission through the day after the conclusion of the Annual Selection Meeting, but it may be voluntarily granted at the employer club’s discretion.
Beginning the day after the conclusion of the Annual Selection Meeting through June 30, the employer club is required to permit the employee to discuss and accept such employment.”
NFL Head of Football Operations Troy Vincent said this allows a team to keep someone in their personnel department who has worked all year on their draft preparation to not take all of that information to another club until after the draft.
Bills assistant general manager Joe Schoen was named as the general manager of the New York Giants back in January. Brandon Brown, who had served as the Eagles' director of player personnel the previous season, was hired as the assistant general manager of the Giants on Feb. 7.
Follow me on Twitter: @SalSports
