PHOENIX -- One proposal that clubs will vote on at the NFL's annual meeting might have taken New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman off the field late in Super Bowl XLIX had the rule been instituted last season.

When Edelman caught a 21-yard pass over the middle on third-and-14 early in the fourth quarter, and was drilled by safety Kam Chancellor in the process, he appeared dazed after the hit. But Edelman returned to the huddle and never left the game.

If the new rule/bylaw is passed, an official in the press box will be given the authority to stop the game to communicate directly with an official on the field, having a player in that type of situation removed from action for evaluation.

"The Edelman situation was a play we looked at and it was part of the issue," competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay said Monday. "There were a couple of other plays that go back a couple of years that we looked at and really it came a little bit from the health and safety committee just saying, 'We got the ATC spotters, they’ve got a really good vantage point, they’ve got technology in their booth, they’re communicating pretty well with our trainers and doctors and we’ve got a pretty good rhythm going there, why would we miss a player where a player shouldn’t come out?'

"And maybe this becomes the fail-safe. So that was the genesis of it. We do not expect this to be a rule that gets used a lot. We expect it to be a fail-safe when people just don’t see this player and the distress the player may have had, the ATC spotter does and stops the game."