When the NFL implemented the new dynamic kickoff rule, it was designed to make the play safer while also bringing one of the most electrifying plays in football back into the mix.
Through the first four weeks of the season, the play has come back in waves, but according to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, the league and its competition committee continue to work on a way to make touchbacks more disadvantageous for defenses.
Appearing on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football Tuesday, Goodell dished on the new kickoff rule, one that he’s still pleased with due to the increase in returns.
“We always said this was gonna be a work in progress. I guess if I had to grade it, I’d say it’s an incomplete right now, and only in this sense: we wanted to bring back more returns, but we wanted to do it safely so we have more returns,” Goodell said, according to video via Good Morning Football. I think we had an 85% increase in returns. That’ll give us more data to find out is it working? Are we seeing the safety level go back to the same safety levels we see in line-of-scrimmage plays? So far that looks pretty good, but it’s really early to tell and there’s really not enough data yet.”
While the NFL might be seeing an 85% increase in returns, the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t seem to be.
In the first four weeks of the season the Steelers have just one kickoff return, and that was by running back Jaylen Warren in Week 2 against the Denver Broncos. On that return, Warren bobbled the kickoff and then got just 13 yards out of it as the Broncos pinned the Steelers deep.
Other than that, teams are electing for the touchbacks against the Steelers.
Of course, that could be due to the presence of future Hall of Famer Cordarrelle Patterson, who has nine career kickoff returns for touchdowns. As Patterson stated last week, if he were a kicker he wouldn’t kick the ball to himself either.
So, there appears to be an increase around the league overall though, and there is one kickoff return for a touchdown this season. That came in Week 1 in Buffalo between the Cardinals and Bills when DeeJay Dallas returned a kickoff 96 yards for a score.
We’ll see what the safety numbers look like at the end of the season, but so far Goodell feels confident that they are much better on the play than in years past.
But even with the increase in returns and better safety on the play, too, Goodell said that the competition committee might look at moving the touchback to the 35-yard line rather than the 30-yard line, punishing teams further for electing for the touchback rather than putting the ball into the landing zone and forcing the return.
“I think, I think it’s gonna come out where we’ve brought the safety back into that play. And then I think we’ll have to make a few changes on the kickoff, that will, I think, lead to a lot more kickoff returns. I think the touchback…you could do the touchback and move it to the 35. I think that would be a game changer right away,” Goodell said of possible changes to the kickoff. “Yeah, I think that it would encourage everything. I talked to the coaches and as you know, our special teams coaches are looking at this. I’ve talked to some of them and I think there will be a change, whether we make it immediately after the season [or] where we’re gonna have a competition committee in the next week.”
Moving the touchback up is something that’s been talked about even before the start of the season after seeing teams elect for the touchback in the preseason.
Though moving it up just 5 yards doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, it’s like a full-on first down after the kickoff compared to when touchbacks were brought out to the 25-yard line. Having offenses start at the 35 would make things slightly more difficult for defenses.
It seems unlikely that they’d make a rule change in-season, so it might not be something we see until the 2025 season, if at all.
Right now, though, the league feels good about the rule change and the effect it’s having on the game. They’ll keep tweaking though until they feel it’s right.
