2011 NFL season

The 2011 NFL season, the 92nd regular season of the National Football League, is scheduled to begin on Thursday, September 8, 2011 with the New Orleans Saints traveling to Lambeau Field, the home of the Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers; and end with Super Bowl XLVI, the league's championship game, on February 5, 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Due to a labor dispute between league owners and players, a lockout began on March 11 and ended on July 25, lasting 18 weeks and 4 days. Although it initially threatened to postpone or cancel the season, the only game that was canceled was the August 7 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game.

Labor dispute
The NFL owners unanimously voted in 2008 not to continue with the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) following the 2010 season, after previously voting to extend it in 2006. That last labor agreement gave players 57 percent of the league’s $9 billion in revenue, after the owners took $1 billion for growth and development of the league. A major reason for opting out is that the owners want a better deal to help pay for investments they have made on new stadiums and other expenditures. Part of the previous CBA involved a transfer of revenues from the higher earning teams to the lowest, even though some of the higher earners also have higher costs. Players are very skeptical that the owners are losing money as a result of their payments to players, and believe the current pay dispute was deliberately generated by some owners in order to renegotiate their own revenue sharing agreements which are attached to the CBA. The players are resisting any pay cuts across the board.

As bargaining chips, the owners proposed to extend the regular season from 16 to 18 games, establish a rookie wage scale and/or rookie salary cap that would limit first-round draft pick compensation to 40% of the current level, begin routine testing for human growth hormone (HGH), and implement other health and safety issues. But the players are concerned that these health and safety proposals would be offset by the potential injuries that might occur during those two extra games.

Anticipating a lockout initiated by the owners if no deal is made, a number of players voted in Fall 2010 to agree to decertify the union, which would expose the owners to potential antitrust lawsuits. However, the players would then lose the ability to collectively bargain with the owners. The league is also exempted from most facets of antitrust laws as a result of Public Law 89-800, passed in the wake of the AFL-NFL Merger in 1970, complicating any potential lawsuit against the league. The players union has also hired firms to lobby members of the U.S. Congress on their behalf, claiming that a work stoppage could potentially cost each NFL city $160 million in lost business, a figure that the league owners say is inflated. Congressmen have indicated a willingness to intervene if necessary.

Lockout
Just before the CBA expired on March 3, both the players and the league owners agreed to extend the negotiations by one week. However, talks eventually broke down, and on March 11, the union formally decertified, after which a group of ten players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league. (The players involved are Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts, Tom Brady and Logan Mankins of the New England Patriots, Vincent Jackson of the San Diego Chargers, Ben Leber and Brian Robison of the Minnesota Vikings, Von Miller who was drafted by the Denver Broncos with the second pick overall, Osi Umenyiora of the New York Giants, Mike Vrabel of the Kansas City Chiefs, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints as well as several former NFL players including Priest Holmes of the Kansas City Chiefs. ) In response to the decertification, the league officially locked out the players. On July 5, 2011, a group of retired NFL players led by Carl Eller, Franco Harris, Marcus Allen and Paul Krause filed its own class-action lawsuit against both the NFL and NFLPA, stating that the decertification disqualified the NFLPA from bargaining on the former NFL players' behalf.

On July 6, 2011, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened an investigation into the league for possible violations of New York State's antitrust law, the Donnelly Act.

This is only the second time in which a labor dispute has affected the preseason. The other was during the 1974 NFL season, in which the College All-Star Game was canceled due to the threat of a work stoppage; an agreement was struck shortly thereafter, and the rest of the preseason, beginning with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, was unaffected. The 1982 and 1987 strikes began after the regular season was already underway. The lockout is the longest in the NFL's history; however, because the majority of the lockout has been imposed during the offseason, it has had much less of an effect than shorter strikes in 1982 and 1987, both of which led to more canceled games.

Court rulings
On April 25, 2011, U.S. District Court judge Susan Richard Nelson invalidated the lockout and ordered the league to resume operations. The league asked Nelson to stay the order while it appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; Nelson refused. The NFLPA has advised players to arrive at their teams' stadiums for work uninvited; most teams allowed players to enter the front office but refused further access. The order to resume operations without any CBA in place left the league in "chaos" because, without a CBA, there are no rules in place regarding a salary cap or floor, free agency, and similar labor-related issues. On April 29, 2011, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the league a temporary stay of Nelson's ruling; the league reinstated the lockout following Day 2 of the draft. The stay was extended through at least June 3, when a full appeal was heard; the Eighth Circuit vacated Nelson's ruling on July 8, affirming the legitimacy of the lockout.

Contingency plans
A provision in the CBA ensured that the 2011 NFL Draft was allowed to take place despite the lockout. In addition, there was also some cushion in the schedule just in case the labor dispute lasted into September and the planned start of the regular season. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that Super Bowl XLVI could be moved a week later if needed, so that the entire season could be played in full. In addition, every contest in Week 3 has teams that share the same bye week later in the season, which would have allowed these games to be made up on what was originally the teams' byes. Weeks 2 and 4 are set up so that there are neither any divisional rivalry games nor teams on bye in those weeks, which would have kept the season as fair as possible if those games had to be canceled. The league could also eliminate the normal off week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. All in all, up to six weeks of the season could have been lost (moving week 3 games into the bye weeks, canceling weeks 2, 4, and 17, and moving weeks 1 and 5 to the end of the season while postponing the playoffs one week) while still keeping a generally fair schedule with five division games and eight non-division games. The league also had a plan for a longer stoppage, which includes an abbreviated eight-game season beginning in late November.

Goodell had stated that the league did not consider using replacement players.

End of lockout
The NFL owners announced on July 21 that it had approved a new collective bargaining agreement by a 31–0–1 margin (the Oakland Raiders abstained); the players association's executive board approved the new CBA on July 25. Assuming that the ten players drop their lawsuit against the NFL, the league plans to lift the lockout and allow league business to resume.

Cancellations
The two teams involved in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game had set a deadline of July 22, 2011 for both sides to ratify a deal in time for training camp to be opened and the game to be played (under normal circumstances, each team opens training camp 15 days before their first preseason game). When that day passed without both sides agreeing to a deal, the league canceled the game, thus the HOF cancellation was the only casualty of the lockout.

Schedule
The preseason schedule was released April 12, 2011. The Hall of Fame Game, had it been played, would have featured the Chicago Bears against the St. Louis Rams in only the second time since 1971 that the game would have featured two teams from the same conference. Instead, the preseason will begin with the San Diego Chargers hosting the Seattle Seahawks on August 11; the remainder of the preseason and all other games will be played as originally scheduled.

The 2011 season will begin on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at Lambeau Field, with the Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers hosting the New Orleans Saints in the kickoff game; the last regular season games would be held on Sunday, January 1, 2012; the playoffs would then start on Saturday January 7, 2012; and Super Bowl XLVI, the league's championship game, on February 5, 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Under the NFL's scheduling formula, intraconference and interconference matchups will be:

Intraconference Interconference
 * AFC East vs. AFC West
 * AFC North vs. AFC South
 * NFC East vs. NFC West
 * NFC North vs. NFC South
 * AFC East vs. NFC East
 * AFC West vs. NFC North
 * AFC North vs. NFC West
 * AFC South vs. NFC South

This season's International Series game will feature the Chicago Bears facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (in their second International Series appearance) at Wembley Stadium in London on October 23, one week earlier than usual, with the Buccaneers serving as the home team.

Under the terms of the Bills Toronto Series agreement, the Buffalo Bills will host the Washington Redskins at the Rogers Centre in Toronto Sunday, October 30, the traditional weekend of the International Series. Although this is within the bounds of the 2011 CFL season, neither of the two Southern Ontario CFL teams are playing on the same day, and both play away games that weekend. The 2011-12 season marks the 20th anniversary of the teams' meeting in Super Bowl XXVI, won by the Redskins.

The Detroit Lions will host their first Monday Night Football game since 2001 when they face the Chicago Bears on Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving (the Detroit-Windsor market straddles the U.S.-Canadian border).

The Miami Dolphins will travel to Dallas to face the Cowboys and the Detroit Lions will host the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers for the traditional 2011 Thanksgiving Classic games. The Thanksgiving nightcap on the NFL Network will be the San Francisco 49ers traveling to play the Baltimore Ravens; this is the first Thanksgiving game for the 49ers since 1972, the first ever for the Ravens, and a game that puts 1st-year 49ers' head coach Jim Harbaugh against his brother, Ravens' head coach John Harbaugh.

Christmas Day, December 25, 2011, falls on Sunday. The league's general policy when this happens is to hold the majority of its games during the day on Christmas Eve and hold over one or two feature games for Sunday night; in the case of 2011, it will be one game. The Chicago Bears will face the Green Bay Packers on Christmas evening on NBC.

New Year's Day, January 1, 2012, also falls on a Sunday, and the NFL will play its entire Week 17 schedule that day. The major college Bowl games usually played on New Year's Day, as well as the NHL Winter Classic, will instead be played on Monday, January 2. For the second straight year, Week 17 will only feature divisional match-ups.

The New York Giants will visit the Washington Redskins on September 11, 2011—the first Sunday of the regular season—to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks (both Washington, D.C. and New York City were targeted in the attacks), as well as the first such anniversary since the killing of Osama bin Laden. Due to the close proximity of Baltimore with Washington, D.C. as well as the close proximity of Pittsburgh with the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on 9/11, the Pittsburgh Steelers will play the archrival Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. It marks the first time the two teams played in a season-opening game since 2000, as their heated rivalry usually prompts their games to be scheduled later in the season. There had been some speculation that the Giants and their same-city rival, the New York Jets, could have played each other that day, since the two were scheduled to play each other in 2011; the Jets will be the designated home team at the new Meadowlands Stadium in the match-up which has been predetermined due to the NFL's scheduling formula. However, the Jets will instead host the Dallas Cowboys.

Rule changes
The following are rule changes that were passed at the league's annual owners meeting in March. All changes went into effect once the labor dispute was resolved.


 * Changes were made regarding kickoffs to limit injuries. First, kickoffs will be moved from the 30 back up to the 35-yard line, repealing a 1994 rule change. In addition, players on the kickoff coverage team can not line up more than 5 yards behind the kickoff line, minimizing running starts and thus reducing the speed of collisions.  Other changes were also proposed, but a number of players and coaches expressed concern they would actually significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the number of kickoff returns.  Proposals that would have brought touchbacks out to the 25 instead of the 20, and eliminated all wedge blocks were not adopted.


 * All replay reviews of scoring plays during the entire game can now be initiated by the replay booth official. Coaches will no longer have to use one of their challenges if a scoring play occurs outside of the two-minute warning.


 * Nicknamed the "Boise State Rule", all playing fields must remain green, and not be in another color like the blue "Smurf Turf" at Boise State's Bronco Stadium, unless approval is granted by the league. This was passed in response to a few sponsors who requested to change the colors in a few stadiums.

The following rule changes were adopted at the NFL Owners' Meeting on May 24, 2011:


 * Hits to the head of a passer by an opponent’s hands, arms or other parts of the body will not be fouls unless they are forcible blows, modifying the existing rule that any contact to a passer's head, regardless of the reason, is penalized as a personal foul (15 yards).


 * Players will be prohibited from "launching" (leaving both feet prior to contact to spring forward and upward into an opponent or using any part of the helmet to initiate forcible contact against any part of the opponent’s body) to level a defenseless player, as well as "forcibly hitting the neck or head area with the helmet, facemask, forearm or shoulder regardless of whether the defensive player also uses his arms to tackle the defenseless player by encircling or grasping him.", and lowering the head and make forcible contact with the top/crown or forehead/"hairline" parts of the helmet against any part of the defenseless player’s body. Offenders will be penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness and ejected from the game if the contact is deemed flagrant.

A "defenseless player" is defined as a:
 * Player in the act of or just after throwing a pass.
 * Receiver attempting to catch a pass or one who has not completed a catch and hasn’t had time to protect himself or hasn’t clearly become a runner. If the receiver/runner is capable of avoiding or warding off the impending contact of an opponent, he is no longer a defenseless player.
 * Runner whose forward progress has been stopped and is already in the grasp of a tackler.
 * Kickoff or punt returner attempting to field a kick in the air.
 * Player on the ground at the end of a play.
 * Kicker/punter during the kick or return.
 * Quarterback any time after a change of possession (i.e. turnover).
 * Player who receives a “blindside” block when the blocker is moving toward his own end-line and approaches the opponent from behind or the side.

Media
This will be the sixth season under the current television contracts with the league's television partners: CBS (all AFC afternoon away games), Fox (all NFC afternoon away games), NBC (17 Sunday night games and the kickoff game), ESPN (17 Monday night games over sixteen weeks), NFL Network (eight late-season games on Thursday and Saturday nights), and DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package. These contracts run through at least 2013.

The 2011 NFL season version of "musical chairs" is bringing some changes. At CBS, Dick Enberg officially retired (he now does San Diego Padres games for 4SD), and Marv Albert replaces him, coming over from Westwood One radio. Gus Johnson has also departed CBS and will begin calling play-by-play for Fox. ESPN lost Michele Tafoya to NBC as Andrea Kremer's replacement. No word on who, if anyone, will replace Tafoya and join Suzy Kolber on the sidelines; ESPN had reduced the roles of its sideline reporters in recent years in response to NFL rule changes.

On December 22, 2010, the league announced that its national radio contract with Westwood One has been extended through 2014. The league also extended its contract with Sirius XM Radio through 2015. In addition to these contracts, and in a first for an NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys have signed a deal to allow for nationwide broadcasts of all of its home and away games broadcast on Compass Media Networks, in addition to its existing local radio network.

The league did not announce plans to compensate their media partners had the season been shortened or canceled as a result of the work stoppage. NBC had ordered several low-cost reality television shows for the 2011–12 TV season in the event that Sunday Night Football could not be played, but other networks had not made public any contingency plans in the event NFL games could not be televised (in the case of CBS and Fox, the Sunday afternoon time slots could have been left unfilled and turned over to the affiliates, likely to be used for time buys by minor and extreme sports organizations, or locally-programmed infomercials or movies as they are during the offseason). A work stoppage could have potentially cost these networks billions of dollars in ad revenue and other entertainment platforms that depend on the games being played. (Under the NFL's television contracts, the networks must still pay the league a rights fee regardless of whether or not the league plays any games; a March 2 ruling states that this money must be put into escrow and not be spent.) Meanwhile, the United Football League had set aside a portion of their television contract for their 2011 UFL season, as a potential package of replacement programs for the networks; while CBS and Fox briefly negotiated with the UFL regarding the package, neither network committed to carrying the games, forcing the UFL to postpone its season by a month.

Uniforms
The New York Giants plan to adopt a new throwback uniform as their new alternate uniform. The throwback would replace their red alternate jerseys that the team wore from 2004–2007.

2011 is expected to mark the last season that the Denver Broncos will be wearing their navy blue jerseys as their primary colored jersey, as the team is planning to designate their orange alternate jersey the team's new primary jersey color for the 2012 NFL season. The move is being made due to overwhelming fan support to return to using orange as the team's primary home jersey color, which harkens back to the days of the Orange Crush Defense, as well as John Elway's return to the organization as the team's executive vice president of football operations. The team had considered making the switch for the 2011 season, but were too late to notify the NFL of the changes. The move would also likely mean the retirement of the Broncos' blue pants, which Elway was not a fan of as a player and would not aesthetically match up with the orange or white jerseys. The aforementioned navy blue jerseys, which has been the team's primary home jersey color since they were first introduced in 1997, are expected to be the team's new alternate colored jersey.

The Buffalo Bills introduced redesigned uniforms for the upcoming NFL season on June 24, 2011. The charging buffalo remains as the team's primary logo. Earlier reports, leaked by a Madden NFL 12 trailer and said to be confirmed by the league, indicated the team would be adopting the uniforms the team wore between 1975 and 1983. The new uniforms were officially unveiled at a fan appreciation event at Ralph Wilson Stadium. This was the first full redesign of the Bills' uniforms since the 2002 NFL season.

The St. Louis Rams announced that their throwback uniform will be worn in week 7 against the New Orleans Saints. The decision was done by fan voting.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will wear their orange throwback uniforms during week 13 against Carolina.

The Cleveland Browns will wear their white uniform at home for 2011.

This will be the last season that Reebok will supply uniforms and performance and fan apparel exclusively for all 32 teams in the league, as Nike and New Era will have the rights to manufacture on-field uniforms and fan apparel, with Nike handling uniforms and performance apparel, and New Era with on-field caps, beginning in 2012. For Reebok, this will end a 10-year exclusivity association that began in 2001.

Coaching changes
The uncertain labor issues and the possiblity of a lockout were speculated to have a minimizing effect on coaching changes prior to the 2011 season, with owners predicted to be more hesitant than usual to hire a high-price, high-profile head coach. Nevertheless, eight coaches were fired either during or immediately after the 2010 NFL season, compared to three in the year prior; only one of the new hires (John Fox) had ever been a head coach in the NFL prior to their hirings or promotions.