NFL to head coaches: Stay where you belong ... on the sidelines
By Clark Judge | Senior NFL Columnist
February 20, 2013 6:56 pm ET
INDIANAPOLIS -- The NFL won't call it the Jim Harbaugh Rule, but it might as well. The San Francisco head coach is one of those the league's competition committee has in mind when it took action to keep coaches from wandering onto the field.
Harbaugh was on the field more than once during the playoffs, and the NFL wants that to stop -- making sure coaches understand that's where players, not coaches, belong. So it will make sideline discipline a point of emphasis this year, with coaches warned that they can and will be flagged if they don't comply.
"We need to be much more disciplined about where our coaches go in terms of the box," said Ray Anderson, the league's director of football operations, "and venturing out on the field beyond traditional markers is something that is just not appropriate. It can interfere and it can be viewed as intimidating, and we really are going to rein that in."
Coaches already are discouraged from charging onto the field, but while they are supposed to be limited by defined parameters -- all on the sidelines -- they are rarely penalized if they don't adhere to them, as Harbaugh did during the playoffs.
That doesn't mean he was the only one, but the NFL has had enough and decided the rule needs to be re-emphasized -- only this time with a stern warning.
