At the annual league meeting held on the weekend of the 1942 NFL Championship Game, the league's owners discussed canceling the upcoming 1943 season due to concerns of player availability due to the war. Instead they chose to delay the decision, along with the college draft, until the following April. At the April meeting roster sizes were reduced from 33 to 25 players. Additionally, the Cleveland Rams announced that they would suspend operations for the season since the team's two top executives were serving in the military.