New York, NY (SportsNetwork.com) - NFL teams will be allowed keep as many as 10 players on their practice squads during the 2014 and 2015 seasons, up from the old maximum of eight, the league announced Tuesday.
The NFL and NFL Players Association agreed on the new rule that will create up to 64 more jobs for players league-wide, but only for the next two seasons.
A new agreement would have to be struck to extend the rule beyond 2015.
The agreement also doubled the minimum number of games -- from three to six -- that a player must spend on the practice squad for the season to count as one of his three permissible seasons of practice squad service.
Also under the deal, teams will be allowed to sign a maximum of two practice squad players who have earned no more than two accrued seasons of free-agency credit.
Otherwise, a player who has earned one or more such seasons won't be eligible for a team's practice squad unless he has spent fewer than nine games on a team's 46-player active roster in each of his accrued seasons.