The 2024 NFL season should bring a ton of intrigue because of the single largest rule change in decades. I am, of course, talking about the new kickoff rule that was passed earlier this offseason. Mike Tomlin appeared on SiriusXM Radio’s Movin’ The Chains to discuss training camp and Pittsburgh Steelers football with Pat Kirwan and Jim Miller.
They asked him about the new kickoff rule and whether he would be settling for touchbacks, which are now at the 30-yard line.
“From my perspective, as I sit here today, those 10 or so yards you’re talking about, we’re fighting for,” Tomlin said. “I’m not interested in spotting people on the 30. We can’t live in our fears. From my perspective, if you’re pursuing greatness, you gotta take some risks. We gotta get acclimated to this thing.
“I’d imagine when the field narrows at the end of the regular-season journey and everybody’s good, nobody’s gonna want to give those offenses the ball on the 30-yard line. So we better get really comfortable with competing and running to the fight as opposed to running away from it.”
As you can see in the cover photo for this article, things look a little different now with kickoffs. The green box near the end zone is called the landing zone, and the coverage and return units line up five yards apart from each other. If the kick lands short of the landing zone, it is considered out of bounds and placed at the 40. If the kick goes directly into the end zone, it is placed at the 30. If it lands in the landing zone and then rolls into the end zone for a touchback, it is placed at the 20.
Tomlin makes a great point. If the Steelers’ aspirations are to win playoff games—which they are—then they can’t settle for bypassing the new rule and giving up that kind of starting field position. They preach that the defense needs to defend every blade of grass, so why shouldn’t that apply to special teams? If teams start at the 30, they need just 35 yards or so to be within field-goal range. Increasing that margin will be critical.
A certain portion of the league will probably play it safe with the new rule, especially at the beginning of the season. But as Tomlin says, you can’t do ordinary things and expect extraordinary results.
Special teams coordinator Danny Smith is fired up about the new rules and is convinced the Steelers are going to excel. He has been teaching the special teamers a new thing every meeting and talking about it a lot with the players.
I spent a bunch of time this morning looking at the new kickoff that debuted with the Hall of Fame game on Thursday night. The average starting field position was at the 26.13-yard line. Just one of the eight kickoffs was a touchback and there was only one return that went beyond the 30-yard line to the 32. That is obviously a small sample size, but the early look was not pretty for the returning teams.
Teams are going to approach this in different ways, but the Steelers will be attacking it to try to maximize the amount of field their defense gets to work with. With as good as the defense is projected to be, every yard counts.
