I somehow missed this in the NFL rule changes, but the NFL no longer has the injured reserve designated to return rule. The rule allowed a team to apply the designation on someone they are putting on injured reserve and the player could practice six weeks after that and then two weeks later could hit the playing field.

That has been replaced with allowing teams to choose one player to return to practice among their players already on injured reserve, provided that player has spent at least six weeks on injured reserve.

Basically, they removed the requirement to designate someone and they can just pluck one of the injured reserve players (providing they were on IR for 6 weeks).

That is a pretty good change and really surprised I completely over looked it -- or forgot about it.

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I think from a players standpoint it helps as well.. the picked person will not come back to soon if not ready... and the other injured players that heal faster than expected would still have a shot.

A smart rule change from the NFL... they don't get many right these days, but this one seems improved.

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