There are going to be moments in the 2024 season where everybody is left confused during the new kickoff play. There have been several minor changes to kickoff over the years, but the general structure of the play was largely the same. Now, it is an entirely different ball game. Longtime special teams coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Danny Smith, will not be among the confused.
“I don’t have a lot of questions, to be honest with you. I’ve studied it hard,” Smith told the Steelers media after practice on Thursday in a clip posted by Steelers Live on X. “It’s a rule. It’s in. We better embrace it. We better love it if we’re gonna excel in it…We’re gonna excel in this and our players are learning to love it as well.”
The new rule places the return and coverage units within 5 to 10 yards of each other instead of being spread halfway across the field. Nobody can move until the ball either hits the ground or is fielded by the return man. This will obviously take some adjusting. A quick get off will be necessary with how condensed the whole play is, but too early and the penalty flags will fly.
Referee Brad Allen spoke to the media earlier today and laid out a scenario where the kickoff lands slightly outside the landing zone. It may look close watching it live, but they can nullify the touchdown upon review after the fact. These intricacies of the new rule will likely cause some frustrations amongst fans as they warm up to the change.
Smith also outlined another change in the rule that is small, but very important. Players can’t just let the ball sit in the end zone anymore for an assumed touchback. It will operate like a free kick after a safety where the ball is live and can be recovered by the kicking team for a touchdown. Smith says the Steelers are talking about this stuff “all the time.”
“I start different meetings with different rules, with different things,” Smith said. “I don’t believe that we can excel if we don’t understand it. I don’t want them out there guessing.”
Another interesting bit of information today, and possibly a slight advantage for the Steelers, is the fact that Mike Tomlin assisted the EA Sports team with the new Madden game and making sure the new kickoff system worked in the game. He described it as a genuinely useful learning experience. Tomlin is also on the competition committee and would have been involved with all of the minutiae of the rule implementation. That type of information is invaluable as all teams start at square one with learning and teaching this new rule to their teams.
All eyes will be on the Hall of Fame game tonight as the rule debuts for the first time at the NFL level.
