New Kickoff Rule Aims to Put Returns Back Into the Game

[Dan T.]

The kick-off has become the second most boring play in the NFL next to the extra point.  And so the league is trying to change that by adopting a new kickoff rule modeled after the XFL. 

 

NFL Kickoff Rule Proposal | NFL Football Operations

 

• Kickers will kick off from their own 35-yard line. The 10 other players from the kicking team will line up on the opposing team’s 40-yard line.

• The receiving team will have at least nine players line up in the "setup zone" between the 35- and 30-yard lines. Two returners will be stationed in a landing zone, from the 20-yard line to the goal line.
• No players (except the kicker and returners) can move until the ball is received by a returner.
• Returners can return the football wherever it lands.
• A touchback at the 20-yard line would occur if the ball touches the ground or player in the landing zone, rolls beyond the goal line and downed in the end zone.
• A touchback could occur at the 30-yard line if the ball goes out of bounds behind the receiving team’s goal line, if it strikes the goalpost, or lands at or beyond the goal line and downed in the end zone.  

 

 

 

For it?

 

Against it? 

 

Will it kill the onsides kick?

 

 

[TheGoodBits]

I suspect for an onside kick they'll just need to opt in for it much like teams now have to opt to go for 2. Kills the surprise/fake offside kick but that's it. 
 

I predict we will see more kickoffs returned for TDs this year. And then by mid season kickers will resume kicking it through the endzone, resulting in starting field position being effectively the 30 full time now. 

[redskinss]

I like it, kickoffs have become boring especially if you have a guy like sly, it's just into the endzone and out to the 25.

 

I could see a lot more blocking strategy now that both teams are 5 yards across from each other and all move at the same time vs running backwards full speed before turning back around and trying to reorient to the play and then of course trying to stop guys who have a full head of steam.

 

This at least will either guarantee a kick return or have a stiff penalty.

 

The only thing I don't like on the surface is it seems like it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to pin teams deep.

It feels like the average starting position on offense is going to improve drastically and possibly a little too much but we'll see.

 

[AZDave]

This explains the special teams signings. that i was scratching my head about

[Commander202]

I don’t like it , the nfl is changing things to much imo . They should have just went back years ago with the regular kick off . Literally Hester going to the hall of fame cause of it and now we got xfl style kick off ? 

[Jags]

Why the 30 yard line?  I always took the move to the 25 as giving an extra 5 yards to discourage running it out.  And I hated it because 80-yard drives were the norm forever.  Now it's the 30?

Makes no sense to me.  A touchback should still be the 20 no matter what.  A 10-yard reward for being able to kick far is dumb.  Get off my lawn!  😉

[Dan T.]

Bang Tweeted a comment that I thought was on-the-money.  I'll paraphrase:

 

The league is trying to reinvigorate what has become a boring play in the game, all while keeping player safety at the forefront. This is a change that does both.

 

 

 

19 hours ago, Jags said:

Why the 30 yard line?  I always took the move to the 25 as giving an extra 5 yards to discourage running it out.  And I hated it because 80-yard drives were the norm forever.  Now it's the 30?

Makes no sense to me.  A touchback should still be the 20 no matter what.  A 10-yard reward for being able to kick far is dumb.  Get off my lawn!  😉

 

They are trying to incentivize runbacks under the new, presumably safer format. 

 

 

Edited March 27 by Dan T.

[Conn]

1 hour ago, Jags said:

Why the 30 yard line?  I always took the move to the 25 as giving an extra 5 yards to discourage running it out.  And I hated it because 80-yard drives were the norm forever.  Now it's the 30?

Makes no sense to me.  A touchback should still be the 20 no matter what.  A 10-yard reward for being able to kick far is dumb.  Get off my lawn!  😉

Idk if you’re confused or just envisioning it incorrectly, but it’s the opposite of what you’re inferring. The kicking team is being punished more for kicking it through the endzone by making it the 30. It encourages and incentivizes allowing returns. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

3 hours ago, TheGoodBits said:

I suspect for an onside kick they'll just need to opt in for it much like teams now have to opt to go for 2. Kills the surprise/fake offside kick but that's it. 
 

I predict we will see more kickoffs returned for TDs this year. And then by mid season kickers will resume kicking it through the endzone, resulting in starting field position being effectively the 30 full time now. 

 

I read the onside kick has another change. Instead of it being 5 players on each side of the kicker, it's now 6 and 4. So teams can kick to the strong side or fake it and kick to the weak side. I don't know if that really matters, but it could be a fun tweak?

[clskinsfan]

I like it. It is going to bring the importance of returners and special teams in general back to the game. Special teams were simply being erased from the game. 

[Conn]

I’m actually impressed that the owners were willing to take such a drastic step to change Special Teams. I think they needed saving and this could do it. It’s surprisingly proactive for this league. 
 

Going to put some stuff here that I posted elsewhere about the new rule:

 

 

 

[Dan T.]

3 hours ago, TheGoodBits said:

I suspect for an onside kick they'll just need to opt in for it much like teams now have to opt to go for 2. Kills the surprise/fake offside kick but that's it. 

 

You are correct... From an ESPN article:

 

In the event a team wants to attempt an onside kick, it will have to inform officials of its intent and would then be allowed to use the NFL's traditional formation. No surprise onside kicks will be allowed.

 

NFL owners approve massive revamp to kickoff play - ESPN

[RVAskins]

This will take some time to get used to, but it looks interesting. I wonder how Brian Mitchell feels about it.

[Dan T.]

^^^ Re; Eric Galko's tweet above... the new kick returner should have more of a punt returner's skills - lateral elusiveness, quick darting direction change, start/stop/change...

[Wyvern]

These new "hybrid kickoff" rules killed the "surprise" onside kick, as well as being able to opt for onside kicks in the early parts of the game, because onside kicks would only be available in 4th quarter.

 

Due to the new kickoff format,  NFL teams would have to declare that they want to pursue an onside kick..  They can only declare to do so in the 4th quarter, and only twice.  (My understanding is the declared onside kick might use the old formation rules, but that was not made clear.)

 

I'm glad it's on a one-year trial basis, because I feel it's changing the occasionally exciting kickoff into essentially a running play which starts some 10-15 yards behind the line of kickoff scrimmage but where the defender has 9-10 defenders in the box. (I'm curious to see how this affects the makeup of the special teams. --- maybe we see more burly linemen rather than speedy LB'er types.). I also wonder how many kickoff return TDs the XFL saw after they put in these kinds of kickoff rules.

 

 

Edited March 26 by Wyvern

[MrJL]

6 hours ago, Jags said:

Why the 30 yard line?  I always took the move to the 25 as giving an extra 5 yards to discourage running it out.  And I hated it because 80-yard drives were the norm forever.  Now it's the 30?

Makes no sense to me.  A touchback should still be the 20 no matter what.  A 10-yard reward for being able to kick far is dumb.  Get off my lawn!  😉

 

it's a ten yard punishment for kicking a ball that can't be returned

 

they're trying to figure out a way to give increased returns while limiting injuries

[WilberMarshall]

I like it.

It eliminates the fair catch.

My question is what happens to the squib kick? 

[MrJL]

2 minutes ago, WilberMarshall said:

I like it.

It eliminates the fair catch.

My question is what happens to the squib kick? 

it eliminates it because if you don't get into the landing zone it goes to the 40 I think

[AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy]

Feels like Skee-Ball instead of Football. And I love Skee-Ball. I’m in. 

Edited March 27 by AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy

[RVAskins]

I think the owners were willing to give this a chance because they have film on how it worked in the XFL.  It's more of a proven concept than an unknown idea. 

[Dan T.]

14 hours ago, Wyvern said:

I'm glad it's on a one-year trial basis, because I feel it's changing the occasionally exciting kickoff . . . 

 

 

 

Joey Slye's kickoffs resulted in a touchback 88.9% of the time in 2023. And of the 11.1% (8 kicks) that weren't touchbacks, I'm pretty sure all but one were onside kick attempts or squibs. Overall, the entire league had a grand total of 3 kickoff returns for TDs in 2023.

 

Kickoffs became a perfect time to go get another beer out of the fridge.

 

 

Edited March 27 by Dan T.

[Momma There Goes That Man]

I like this change and I think it makes for a much better and more entertaining kickoff while making it more safe as well. 
 

My preference would still be to remove kickers/kicks from the game altogether because they’re worthless and dumb but we aren’t there yet. 

[Wyvern]

@Dan T.  I thought the 2023 rules shaping the system of kickoffs before this latest "hybrid kickoff system" had made kickoffs almost automatic touchbacks, and that was boring. But I just didn't think that much of the latest fix, so I'm glad it's on a trial basis.

 

Perhaps all the touchbacks that could have been fixed by simply moving the kicker back further, or making touch backs result an even better field for the receiving team.  I think there should have been some scrutiny on eliminating the fair catch option for kickoff returns, because that stopped a lot of runbacks was well.

 

Or,  you could really liven things up by creating certain times where "squib kicks" that first landed before the 15 yard line but rolled into the end zone would be still considered a live ball, unless the receiver could bat it out of bounds for a starting point less favorable than the starting point for a touchback caused by the ball sailing directly into or through the endzone.

 

I know this is just an amateur fan's point of view, and I suspect the NFL Rules folks looked at this more deeply than I did -- but as fan, I just didn't want to see the surprise onside kick go away, which the latest rules have now done.

[RVAskins]

55 minutes ago, Wyvern said:

I know this is just an amateur fan's point of view, and I suspect the NFL Rules folks looked at this more deeply than I did -- but as fan, I just didn't want to see the surprise onside kick go away, which the latest rules have now done.

I don't think it will be that much of a deal.

 

Just 5.2% of onside kicks were recovered in 2023, and there were just two surprise onside kicks.

[Wyvern]

I believe the low numbers of onside kicks (and successful ones) in the 2023 season, might have been caused by the rule changes in 2023. 

 

The onside kick numbers fluctuate due to the what rules are in place at the time.  A few years earlier, I recall reading in the Washington Post how the onside kick was coming back (I think it was referring to the 2021 results) partly due to some rule changes designed to help foster more attempts.  Go to earlier times in NFL history and onside kicks were attempted a lot more often, and with better success than seen in 2023.

 

As for, only only two surprise onside kicks being attempted in 2023, from all the games I watched I thought I saw more instances than that number attempted. However, to really make my case, I'd probably have to really research all the games' play-by-plays that were logged in the ESPN game summaries ... and frankly, that's too much work.  So I'm going to do that, and won't press the point.  (Maybe someday, just to see if I rendered correctly, I'll check just the Lions game, because seem to recall Coach Campbell trying that more than once.)

 

Anyhow, thanks for suggesting how the new rules, outlawing the surprise onside kick, was wasn't a big deal to fret about ... at this point, it's a done deal (at least for a year anyhow.),so I should relax and live with the change.  I can do that.