NFL kickoffs in 2024 could look far differently than ever before. After the league began drifting towards making kickoffs a non-play, the majority of them touchbacks, the league is finding ways to increase returns while decreasing the car crashes that led to a high rate of concussions.
As tweeted by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the NFL is proposing two key kickoff changes.
1. Onside kicks only allowed in the fourth quarter and must be declared
2. Modification of kickoff alignment, adopting similar rules to XFL that put coverage and return team within 5-yards of each other. Neither side is permitted to move until the ball has been fielded.
Pelissero notes these rules are still being finalized and will need to be approved at the owner’s meetings. For now, they’ve not been codified into the rulebook.
Pelissero also notes the proposal could allow for unbalanced formations by onside kick units to increase the odds of recovery. Instead of being forced to have five players to each side of the kicker, they would align 6×4, increasing the odds of a successful attempt.
It’s not clear why the league has interest in banning the surprise onside kick considering how infrequently it occurs. For years, the league has bounced around ideas how to make onside kicks more exciting. There was consideration of replacing the kick with a 4th and 15 play that would have a higher chance of success and make for a more exciting play. But it seems the NFL is intent on keeping the actual play but modifying it while restricting its use.
But the big problem the league has faced has been on kickoffs. Their first problem revolved around concussions. In 2009, the league outlawed the “wedge” and by extension, the “wedge busters” in the kicking game, the convoy of blockers in front of the kick returner with coverage guys designed to crash into the wedge at full speed to break it up. Now, players can’t be linked together on kick returns, spacing the game out. Still, league research showed a high rate of head and neck injuries on kickoffs compared to other plays.
Albert Breer spells out how the formations would look.
Over the years, the league has found ways to limit kickoffs by moving the line of scrimmage from the 30 to the 35. More recently, they modified touchback rules, pushing them from the 20 to the 25. Balls that land into the end zone become automatic touchbacks and for the 2023 season, teams could call fair catch from anywhere on the field and it would become a touchback to the 25, even if it was caught in the field of play.
While that helped mitigate head injuries, it also made kickoffs a non-play. In 2022, the year before the fair catch rule, 12 players had at least 25 kick returns. In 2023, only one player in the league did. Over different periods of time, here’s the number of players with at least 25 returns.
2002 – 33
2012 – 15
2022 – 12
2023 – 1
Other factors are worth considering, kickers have stronger legs than ever to drive the ball out of the end zone, but the league’s rules have hindered the excitement of the play. This proposal mimics how the XFL operated, reducing the runway the coverage team has to contact the return team. Here’s an example of what it looks like.
Though a drastic visual change, it’s the most logical step to make kick returns meaningful while reducing injury. Last year, the Steelers’ leading kick returner was RB Godwin Igwebuike, returning 11 kicks and an average of 25.6 yards per try. The team’s last kick return touchdown came in 2017 when WR JuJu Smith-Schuster housed one in the regular season finale against the Cleveland Browns.
Pittsburgh hasn’t allowed a kick return touchdown since 2014 when Baltimore’s Jacoby Jones ran one back 108 yards for a score, a year after the infamous incident with Mike Tomlin. It’s the only kick return touchdown allowed under Danny Smith.
