Mike Holmgren's side barely prevailed in its efforts to prevent a single defensive player from having access to helmet-to-coach radio transmitters worn by quarterbacks. The vote was 22-10 in favor of the device, competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay said, but the proposal needed 24 votes to pass. The issue failed by an 18-14 count last year.

The problem: Defensive players substitute regularly, making it difficult to determine which player is wearing the equipped helmet. It's easy to regulate on offense because there's only one quarterback on the field at any time. But if the middle linebacker's helmet were so equipped, what would happen if he came off the field on third down? Would another player get to wear such a helmet? What if that player stayed on the field with the middle linebacker in another defensive personnel package?

"I'm going to vote against that. I can understand the sentiment for it, but I think it creates another level of problems because they are saying one guy can have it and that's the middle linebacker, the safety, whoever is calling it. Then if that guy gets hurt, they can't use it anymore. There is a very good chance one of those two guys gets hurt on defense the way they fly around. Then one team has it and the other team doesn't, and then I just reminded them to keep in mind why we have it on offense. It went in on offense because they changed the play clock. Offensive terminology is longer on all teams. And to make it work, they came up with this system to just do that. It was not a strategy thing as much as a time thing. And then lastly I said, 'You call the defense, say you have this system in, you call the defense, the guy goes in motion, the shift takes place, they change the defense anyway. It's not the defensive call anyway. Defense is more reacting.' If you are going to do it, do it for the right reasons." -- Mike Holmgren