Head coaches will no longer have to juggle a red flag with their game-day wardrobe. The NFL is updating its rulebook for the 2026 season to allow head coaches to delegate replay challenge duties to a designated sideline staff member, ESPN reported Monday. The updated Rule 15, Section 1, Article 1(a) now reads, “The head coach or head coach’s pregame challenge designee can initiate a challenge by throwing a red flag onto the field of play before the next legal snap or kick.” The league finalized the procedural modification during its routine summer rulebook adjustments, a process that does not require an ownership vote. The adjustment comes after a 2025 season that reportedly featured 151 coach challenges, the highest single-season total since 2019. Allowing a staff designee to throw the flag would help advise against emotional decision-making. Head coaches are expected to remain heavily involved in challenge decisions, whether it’s communicating with the staff through a headset or telling them directly. Under standard NFL rules, each team receives two challenges per game, with the opportunity to earn a third. To be awarded that additional challenge, a team must have at least one of its initial two challenges successfully overturned upon review. If a coach\u2019s challenge is unsuccessful, the team loses a timeout, meaning teams cannot challenge plays if they have no timeouts remaining. If the first two challenges are unsuccessful, the team will be ineligible to receive a third challenge for the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Head coaches will no longer have to juggle a red flag with their game-day wardrobe. The NFL is updating its rulebook for the 2026 season to allow head coaches to delegate replay challenge duties to a designated sideline staff member, ESPN reported Monday. The updated Rule 15, Section 1, Article 1(a) now reads, “The head<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}