No longer will the kickoff serve as football’s equivalent of the Bingo Free Space. The gimme, the play that isn’t a play and gives you a few more seconds to get back from the fridge. No longer will you see “commercial, kickoff, touchback, commercial” with absolutely zero football happening (you’ll still get that sequence but hopefully with a tackle sandwiched between).
With the NFL radically altering how kickoffs look in 2024, safety and special teams captain Miles Killebrew thinks football is entering a brave new world.
“The biggest change is it’s actually going to be a play now,” he told reporters via the team’s YouTube channel Thursday afternoon. “Teams are incentivized to return the ball…they’re taking a lot of the running off the play itself. We’re very interested here in Pittsburgh with making sure we have a full grasp of the rules. Because the rules are so fresh.”
To recap: no longer will the coverage and return team start half a football field apart. Instead, they will line up within 5-10 yards of each other. New rules permit all 10 of the coverage players – excluding the kicker – to align on the opposing 40 yard-line. At least seven on the return team must have a foot on the 35 while the others have to be at or in front of the 30. Two returners will align deep in the “landing zone.” Kickoffs that land in the end zone for touchbacks will come out to the 30, a change from the previous spot of the 25.
The idea is to reduce the “car crashes” of players sprinting downfield and colliding into each other while motivating teams to opt for a return and against a touchback. Killebrew thinks not only will it create the number of returns but the number of big plays.
“It almost turns into a glorified stretch play. I think that you’re going to see a lot of explosive plays this year. I think there’s gonna be a lot of touchdowns,” he said. “Once you get past that first layer, there’s no one else there. You don’t have the time for safeties to fold behind and multiple layers with guys running down the field at different speeds. It’s going to be a very impactful play.”
In 2023, there were only four kick return touchdowns, a number that’s decreased over the last decade.
NFL Kick Return Touchdowns
2023: 4
2022: 6
2021: 9
2020: 7
2019: 7
2010: 23
The Steelers haven’t had a kick return touchdown since JuJu Smith-Schuster’s scoring run back in the 2017 finale against the Cleveland Browns. It’s why they signed Cordarrelle Patterson hours after the rule change. Patterson holds the NFL record with nine kick-return scores.
Killebrew’s assumptions are likely to be true. But no one knows exactly what the impact will be. Will coverage units find ways to create the overlap they previously had? Could their outside coverage players, L1 and R1, simply not move with the rest of the team when the returner fields the ball? That could create a similar feel to their previous contain responsibilities, breaking down ahead of the rest of the unit.
Teams have even floated using non-kickers to kick the ball off. The Kansas City Chiefs are experimenting with FS Justin Reid and former rugby player Louis Rees-Zammit in that role, citing XFL kickers recording upwards of 40 percent of the tackles. In the UFL, kicker and YouTuber Deestroying fractured his neck making a tackle.
There’s a larger discussion to be had over that reality – those spring leg kickers don’t have as strong of legs while teams with domes won’t be impacted by weather that could influence touchback rates – but these rule changes will bring plenty of trial and error. Teams will do funky things, especially early, while they get a feel for what works and what doesn’t work. Killebrew knows he and the Steelers have to be ready for it.
