Newly re-signed Ryan Clark may not have a new rule named after him the way Steelers teammate Hines Ward did last year, but the NFL hopes to cut further into the types of tackles safeties such as Clark have used to their advantage.

Player-safety issues will take front and center next week as the NFL continues to try to find ways to protect mostly offensive players and in particular, receivers.

Rich McKay, president of the Atlanta Falcons and co-chairman of the league's competition committee, often used the word "defenseless" during a conference call Wednesday to describe receivers vulnerable to injury.

"One thing we've done is propose that we would give additional protection to the receiver even after the receiver has caught the ball," McKay said. "That's always been a pretty tight line for us. In this instance, we're going to try to expand that line and give him protection until he has an opportunity to defend himself from hits to the head by defenders launching upwards towards his head."

How soon a defender can level a high hit has not been defined, which will lead officials on the field to make more subjective decisions.

Much also has been made about a new overtime rule proposal that, if adopted, would take effect only in the postseason. The proposal would give the kicking team a chance on offense if the receiving team is held to a field goal. If the receiving team scores a touchdown, the game would end. If both teams score field goals on each of their possessions, the next team to score would win.

McKay said he has no idea if the overtime rule will pass. Different versions have failed to pass over the past four or five years, and McKay acknowledged the players consistently have preferred the current system.

McKay cited figures in which overtime winners were dead-even between the receiving and kicking teams from 1974-93, each winning 46.8 percent of the time "so it was a system that worked very well."

Since the kickoff was moved from the 35 to the 30 in '94, however, there has been a growing disparity.

"Now the team that wins the toss wins 59.8 percent and the team that loses the toss wins 38.5 percent," McKay noted. "The pros of the switch is it tries to rebalance the advantage that's been gained since '94."

The safety issues, though, may ultimately have a more widespread effect on the game than tweaking the overtime rule. Commissioner Roger Goodell suggested earlier that the league might eliminate the three-point stance by offensive linemen, making them virtually stand up at the line of scrimmage for the snap. That is not among the safety proposals the owners will consider when they meet Sunday through Wednesday in Orlando, Fla., but others will be.

"We want to protect the snappers more on the field-goal tries," McKay said. "We're going to propose that no one can line up within the frame of the body of the snapper to try to give him an opportunity to get his head up and get himself protected.

"We'll propose a rule that creates the ball being dead if a runner loses or has his helmet come off during a play, which is a college rule they've had and used."

Not among the proposed rules changes, though, are safer helmets or the blocks below the knee near the line of scrimmage that so upset defensive lineman.

NOTE -- Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was one of five NFL head coaches in Gainesville, Fla., Wednesday to watch former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow go through his first public workout with his new throwing motion. Tebow threw dozens of passes in a light rain to former teammates Riley Cooper, Aaron Hernandez and David Nelson during a 30-minute workout.

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