“It’s Kind of Getting Ridiculous”: Rob Gronkowski, Brock Purdy Reveal Which NFL Rules Need Changes in 2026

By the time the NFL’s competition committee convenes for its annual winter meeting, the list of grievances from players will already be stacked higher than a goal-post pad. From the tush-push scrums that have become the Philadelphia Eagles’ short-yardage trademark to the league’s latest kickoff experiment, every tweak to the rulebook lands under an oversized microscope.

USA Today Sports recently handed that microscope to the athletes themselves, asking a cross-section of current and former stars which regulations deserve a red pen in 2026. The answers, not surprisingly, spanned everything from alignment minutiae to the gray frontiers of pass-interference enforcement.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy fired first, zeroing in on offensive offsides—a call he believes has become hypersensitive. “There’s some times where guys are not lined up on the ball, and there’s a flag that gets thrown for it where we’re all like, ‘Really?’” Purdy said, noting that the ticky-tack enforcement stalls drives without improving player safety or competitive fairness.

Former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, never shy about mixing humor with critique, took aim at the league’s pass-interference standard. “It’s kind of getting ridiculous,” Gronkowski said, half-rolling his eyes while suggesting that both offensive and defensive pass-interference have become too subjective. Fans from New Orleans to Denver, he argued, have seen games tilt on calls that feel arbitrary in real time and no clearer on replay.

Ex-Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick echoed a familiar refrain about roughing-the-passer rulings. “That stuff is so inconsistent, man,” Vick said, pointing to the wide variance in how officials interpret the same quarterback hit.

Despite the player pushback, none of the three grievances appear on the docket for immediate revision. According to ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio, the league will instead continue its cautious expansion of reviewable plays and revisit a proposal that would replace the onside kick with a fourth-and-13 conversion attempt. One head coach already told Florio bluntly, “I hate both of them,” a sentiment many traditionalists are likely to share.

Whether any of these ideas reach the ownership-vote stage remains uncertain, but the message from players is clear: before the NFL adds another layer to its labyrinthine rulebook, it might be time to clean up the clutter already inside.