The NFL’s kickoff was once such a signature play that the word “kickoff” was added into the dictionary to mean “the start of something.” Last season, however, only 22% of kickoffs resulted in any meaningful action.
Twenty years ago, more than 90% of kickoffs were returned. That number plummeted in 2011, when the league moved kickoffs up from the 30-yard-line to the 35-yard line, making it easier to kick the ball deep into the end zone. Ten years ago, just under 50% of kickoffs were returned. Then, in 2015, the touchback was moved up from the 20-yard line to the 25-yard line, resulting in even fewer runbacks.
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In 2023, yet another rule disincentivized kicking the ball into play: Returning teams could call for a fair catch outside of the endzone and still start their drive at the 25-yard line. All these changes hoped to reduce injuries on returns, which have historically been the highest-risk plays in the game.
The kickoff is dead, but the NFL is trying to resuscitate it this season by importing a new model from the XFL. Under the rules, which were approved 29-3 by the owners during the offseason, kickers will kick off from their own 35-yard line, as before. Now, though, the remaining 10 members of the kicking team will line up at the opponent’s 40-yard line—25 yards downfield from the kicker—and the receiving team will line up between their own 30 and 35-yard lines.
Kicks that go into a “landing zone” between the 20-yard line and the end zone must be returned. Balls that enter the end zone on the fly can be returned or taken for a touchback out to the 30-yard-line (five yards short of the original XFL rule). If a kickoff hits the ground in the landing zone and travels into the end zone, it can either be returned or downed by the receiving team for possession at the 20-yard-line (five yards farther than the XFL).
The biggest change: Nobody can move until the ball hits the ground or the hands of a returner, so players can’t build momentum before colliding. The goal of the adjustments is increase the frequency of returns while decreasing the number of injuries.
We got a taste of these rules during the 2024 NFL preseason, and the results were promising. The return rate was 70.5%, the highest in more than a decade.
But there’s a catch. In 2023, the return rate during the preseason was 55%, and yet when the regular season came around, kickers simply booted the ball out the back of the end zone. This happens every year, actually. During the exhibition games, special teams coaches like to experiment in order to practice different coverages. Additionally, practice squad returners trying to earn a roster spot may be more willing to take a chance and run one back than they would in games with real stakes.
The new touchback location does change the calculus for kicking teams but perhaps not enough. The average drive after a kickoff return during the preseason started at the 28-yard line, indicating that kicking teams would be surrendering only a couple of yards by sending the ball deep and allowing it to be placed at the 30. Teams holding onto a lead, for instance, may opt to not take their chances with a speedy returner.
In the 2023 XFL season, the average return got to around the 28-yard line as well, but the touchback out to the 35-yard line was a stronger incentive for kickers to aim the ball into the landing zone instead of the end zone. Thus, the return rate was more than 90%.
NFL preseason data provides yet another reason for kickers to give it a boot. The farther away from the end zone that the ball was caught by the returner, the better the average field position. If the ball was fielded between six and 10 yards from the end zone, the average return went to the 29.7-yard line. Balls caught within five yards of the end zone were taken out to only the 27.4.
Interestingly, though, kicking off to the middle of the field or the sideline made little difference in the opponents’ average starting field position in the XFL.
Regardless of how strategic trends shift for the regular season, we should see more variability in outcomes. During the 2023 NFL season, 88% of drives after kickoffs started between the 20- and 30-yard lines. In the XFL, however, that was only 53%, since more strategic kicks pinned the offense near their own end zone and more returners broke it loose.
Lastly, everyone’s favorite players—kickers—should be more involved in the kickoff action. In the preseason, kickers made tackles on 3.6% of returns, nearly identical to the 3.7% rate from last XFL season. That’s nearly double the 2023 NFL campaign, when kickers recorded just 11 tackles on 587 returns (1.9%).
Those numbers are just for returned kicks, so given that there will likely be more returns, kickers should play a much larger role in coverage. And that’s in addition to the increased importance of their kicking ability itself, as kickers will try squib kicks, putting soccer-style spin on the ball and other new approaches.
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