Under New Rules, NFL Kick Returns Enjoyed A Record Year. The Steelers Regressed.

The NFL’s dynamic kickoff implementation, one of the biggest visceral rule changes the game has seen in decades, was created with two missions in mind:

1. Increase returns and the excitement of the play.
2. Make the game safer and reduce head injuries from the “car crashes” of players colliding at full speed.

One year in and the NFL seems successful in doing both. According to data released yesterday, NFL returns shot up nearly 60 percent while injuries were reduced. We don’t have immediate season-long data but through six weeks, the league charted just one concussion on kick returns after eight occurred in 2023 (with far fewer returns) and 20 in 2022.

Additional data highlights its success. Returns were more profitable and exciting. In 2024, the average kick return was 27.4 yards. In 2023, it was just 23.0 yards, and in 22, it was 22.8. This year’s average was a literal record, the highest mark since stats have been tracked beginning in 1958. Second place wasn’t even close.

The league could tweak its new kickoff rule, but the core of it figures to stay. Assuming so, the Steelers must have a much better plan to partake in some of that success. Despite signing Cordarrelle Patterson, the most prolific kick returner in NFL history, Pittsburgh’s kick return game regressed from a season ago.

Below is a chart of the net increase or decrease in kick return average from the old 2023 rules and the 2024 changes.

Pittsburgh finished 29th in net average, down a half-yard compared to last year. They were one of just four teams to regress from 2023 and the only one in the AFC North. The Vikings can at least use the excuse of no longer having former All-Pro KR Kene Nwangwu. The Patriots and Panthers also finished second and third in kick return average in 2023, giving them less upward mobility into the new year.

The Steelers? Their average a year ago was 15th place. They were dead last in 2024 at 23 yards per return. With the kick returner they signed literally hours after the NFL changed the rule, believing Patterson was the key and would give them the edge.

It fell flat—way flat. Patterson missed most of camp on Reserve/PUP. Curiously and incorrectly, Tomlin opted against giving him any return work in preseason action once he was cleared, telling reporters he saved those reps for young guys. Even with the new changes, that was an adjustment for everyone.

“I don’t know that that’s necessary,” Tomlin said in August about using Patterson in the preseason finale. “I think his resume is as extended as anybody’s on the planet in that space, and I might be more apt to see those that I know less about. Again, that’s a component of balancing the three preseason game model with the four preseason game model.”

And so Patterson didn’t register a return in the finale (nor did he even line up for a kick once). QB John Rhys Plumlee, RB La’Mical Perine, RB Dajun Edwards, and RB Jonathan Ward saw the return reps instead. None of them made the Week 1 roster.

When Patterson got his chance, which didn’t even come until November, he did little. He finished with 11 returns, a long of 33, and averaged 21.8 per try. Not once did he even come close to breaking a big one. It was the worst average of his career, his second-worst long (only ahead of 2023), and his average was the NFL’s worst of anyone with double-digit returns.

No, the sample size isn’t huge. It wasn’t for nearly every returner. But combined, every other kick returner with at least 10 tries averaged 28.9 yards per return. Patterson was more than 7-yards worse. Comparatively, RB Jaylen Warren, with zero return experience, was far more effective. He averaged 25.2 yards on seven returns. Heck, even RB Aaron Shampklin hit the 25-yard mark on his four attempts.

Of his 12 returns (I’ll include his one postseason return not reflected in the above numbers), here’s where each drive began.

– Steelers 29
– Steelers 25
– Steelers 24
– Steelers 21
– Steelers 31
– Steelers 32
– Steelers 31
– Steelers 32
– Steelers 27
– Steelers 23
– Steelers 23
– Steelers 29

Two-thirds of those returns, eight of 12, failed to make it to the 30-yard line, the new touchback line (in most cases) under the NFL’s new kick return rules. The ones that crossed the 30 just barely did, none taking him past his own 32.

Ineffective as it often was, Patterson gave the Steelers more as a running back and receiver than a returner. His best play of the year came on an impressive touchdown catch against the Baltimore Ravens, and he flashed in Week 4 against the Indianapolis Colts before getting hurt and missing the next month.

The Steelers need to jumpstart their return game next year. They can’t clearly lag behind the rest of the league, which hurts the starting field position. It would be wise to look for a returner in free agency, but someone younger with more juice who isn’t out of shape in OTAs like Patterson admitted he was. Or, identify that type of player in the draft, perhaps a third-string running back or reserve wideout.

Like its offense, Pittsburgh’s return game needs juice. It hasn’t had a kick return touchdown since 2017, when then-rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster scored one in the season finale against the Cleveland Browns. Other teams have similar droughts, and Pittsburgh is one of eight teams without. WR Calvin Austin III has at least provided a boost on punt returns, but the kick return game wasn’t fixed. It got worse. Now, it needs to get better.