The NFL is basically an ever-changing league, from a rules standpoint, on a year-to-year basis. Usually, we get hints at what changes are coming down the pike around the Super Bowl, since movers and shakers in the sport are in the same spot for the first time since the spring owners’ meetings. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, one potential change to the upcoming season would be allowing teams to tap into their future draft picks even further.

As it stands right now, NFL teams can only trade away draft choices up to three seasons away. So, for example, the latest draft pick a club would be able to trade in the 2026 offseason would be a 2028 draft choice. “There’s going to be a push by at least one team,” per Schefter, to extend that window deeper into the future.

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“There are going to be people in the NFL this offseason that push to have that limit grown to five years,” he said on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday. To me, this seems absurd.

First of all, rarely are any players worth five seasons’ worth of draft selections. I’m just not sure this is needed. On top of that, this change will only give hot-seat general managers and coaches more access to burn draft choices that will make for a harder life for the next person in their position.

Let’s use the 2025 Atlanta Falcons as an example. Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot had been on the job for four seasons at this point and had never posted a winning record. Despite that, owner Arthur Blank kept him around for a fifth draft.

On draft day, Fontenot traded away the team’s 2026 first-round pick (which wound up being the 13th overall selection), a 2025 seventh-round pick and dropped 55 spots on Day 2 of the draft just to nab Tennessee edge rusher James Pearce Jr., who was known to be a talented player but had red flags in his past. Pearce posted 10.5 sacks as a rookie, but he was arrested this weekend for five felony charges, including aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated stalking. There’s a real chance that the 26th overall pick might never play in the NFL again.

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These are the types of moves that desperate decision-makers on the hot seat are willing to gamble on. Fontenot, who was fired after another losing season in 2025, never had to alter his roster construction because of the Pearce trade. Instead, it falls on the shoulders of the next guy, in this case Falcons president of football Matt Ryan.

If the league were smart, it would tie in the window in which teams can trade picks to the timeline of general managers’ contracts. If my general manager’s contract only lasts one year into the future, because he hasn’t earned an extension, why do I want him borrowing from five years down the line anyway? It seems like a terrible process for a league that has been built on parity. Giving panicking decision-makers an option to burn even more future assets to get one last extension will almost certainly reduce parity.