NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL and the players’ union are meeting Monday to discuss the league’s drug policies.

Both sides are considering potential changes to the policies and to discipline for players who violate them. Human growth hormone and marijuana are topics they are talking about, along with driving under the influence.

The league and the union are in agreement that discipline for DUIs needs to be tougher. But an NFL proposal that penalties be handed out before the legal process has been exhausted met with strong opposition from the players.

Such a change also would apply to team employees and executives, coaches and league employees.

Talks picked up in recent weeks, although the union has labeled reports that changes are imminent as “premature.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The players’ union says the NFL has asked for the right to immediately suspend players who are arrested for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

NFL Players Association executives told The Associated Press on Friday that the league’s proposal to increase penalties for DUI offenses includes a provision to suspend or discipline a player before the completion of his legal due process.

“They want to immediately discipline for an arrest,” said George Atallah, the NFLPA’s assistant executive director of external affairs.

“We prefer to discuss these issues directly with the union,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

Atallah also noted that progress has been made on possible testing for HGH.

Both sides have held intensified talks on a variety of drug policy issues, what New York Giants long snapper and union executive committee member Zak DeOssie’s calls “doing our due diligence.”

NEW YORK (AP) — While 31 teams try to derail the Seahawks’ attempt to repeat, there are plenty of other challenges facing players, coaches and owners heading into opening week of the NFL. Many are along the sidelines and in the stands.

The NFL and its partners have been ahead of the curve in technology on television, but coaches were stuck using antiquated photo prints and cardboard play sheets. This season, coaches have the option of using NFL-approved tablets during games.

Even the curmudgeonly Bill Belichick has enthusiastically endorsed the technology.

“The sideline of the future is where we’re going,” says Troy Vincent, the league’s overseer of football operations.

At the Hall of Fame game to open the preseason, Vincent noted that Buffalo’s coaching staff was fully engaged with the tablets.

“We were not real sure if the Giants’ Tom Coughlin was buying it, but it was encouraging,” he said.

“Still photos will remain in place; you’ve got to have a backup plan. But you can see the players and the coaches quickly moving from one (image) on the tablet to the next to the next. We think with one season and an offseason, the coaches will get more familiar with it. The younger generation already is all over it, as you’d expect.”

Game officials will be wired up, too, much as soccer referees have been for years. That should improve communication on calls, perhaps leading to fewer huddles that slow the action.

NFL officiating director Dean Blandino admits the change is challenging.

“It’s an adjustment,” Blandino says. “You have people communicating with you on the wireless that you haven’t experienced before. We’ll work through the process. It’s an enhancement and we don’t want it to be a deterrent in any way to our primary objectives.”

Another of the league’s primary objectives is keeping people in the stadiums. It’s not quite so challenging early in the season, when the weather is good and everyone is in contention — well, maybe not in Buffalo and Oakland. Deeper into the season, it gets tougher.

“TV viewing experience of our games is so good with the NFL channels and the Red Zone and HD televisions and other options. We have to give people reasons to want to come to our games,” Giants owner John Mara says. “So making the in-stadium experience special and different is a priority.”

Fans in stadiums will have access to video replays that viewers at home don’t get. They will get Wi-Fi allowing them to track other games, their fantasy teams and to send selfies.

And, of course, they get to witness firsthand a long Adrian Peterson burst to the end zone, a Robert Quinn sack or a J.J. Watt swat of an attempted pass.

“I still believe nothing beats the experience of being at the stadium and seeing these great players live,” Mara says.

Some of those players won’t be seen when the season begins. A few — Rams quarterback Sam Bradford, Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee, for example — are injured and gone for the year. Others, such as Ravens running back Ray Rice, are suspended.

Mara expresses concerns about player conduct away from the field, even as he emphasizes a vast majority of NFL players never run into trouble.

“Player conduct has been an area of concentration because some of the things we see do damage the league’s image,” Mara says. “Any time a player is in any sort of trouble, it automatically becomes front page news. These are young men and, at that age a minority of them are getting into trouble from time to time.”

Thursday, Commissioner Roger Goodell announced tougher punishment for domestic violence.

“We look at all the offenses that involve players and the scenarios and we have gotten tough with the (punishments) and we will remain tough with them,” Mara said.

Vincent stresses the need for players to behave well on the field, too. An outstanding defensive back for 15 NFL seasons, he understands as well as anyone the intensity of game action, the “heat of the moment.”

He also knows that taunting fouls increased almost 400 percent from 2012 to 2013.

“Respect at the workplace is paramount,” Vincent says. “Yes, football is a highly emotional sport. But we believe with shared training and discussions with the players, we have seen a conscious effort in the preseason to reduce it. We have not even talked about taunting in preseason games.”

As for the challenge facing every franchise not calling Seattle home, that might be the most daunting of all. The Seahawks certainly want the opposition thinking that way.

“I love this opportunity that we have,” coach Pete Carroll says. “We are so fortunate to have this chance to come back after a season like that to see if we can find that kind of discipline and find that kind of ability to focus. It’s challenging, it’s difficult, it hasn’t happened a lot and we are going to see what happens.”

A subtle change to the NFL rulebook resulted in an 822 percent increase in illegal contact penalties through three weeks of the preseason.

Now the key question is not whether those calls will continue to rise in the regular season, because NFL Vice President of Officiating Dean Blandino is sure they will. He also says that’s a good thing.

What fans, coaches and defenders want to know is: Just how often will flags fly when games count next week? Just how much will cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers need to keep their hands to themselves?

Heading into Thursday’s final exhibition games, the jumps from the 2013 preseason for three particular penalties were striking: 83 for illegal contact, up from nine; 137 for defensive holding, up from 28; 99 for illegal use of hands, up from 22.