ORLANDO, Fla. — After taking a night to sleep on the discussions had on Monday over the proposed modified kickoff, the NFL owners on Tuesday voted to approve the change that league officials and coaches believe will return the play to relevance.
Twenty-nine of the 32 owners voted in favor of the modification, and it takes effect this coming season — a year after only 22 percent of kickoffs in the 2023 season were returned.
The modification calls for all players on the kicking team to line up at the receiving team’s 40-yard line while the receiving team lines nine players up on its own 35. Two men will line up downfield as returners. The kicker will still kick off from his own 35. The kickoff team defenders wouldn’t be permitted to move until the ball lands on the ground in the “landing zone” — inside the receiving team’s 20-yard line. If the ball lands short of the landing zone, the ball would be moved to the receiving team’s 40-yard line just as if a kickoff sails out of bounds. Touchbacks would call for the ball to be moved to the receiving team’s 30.
The only drawback of the new format is that it eliminates the element of the surprise onside kick. Now, if a team wishes to attempt an onside kick in the fourth quarter, it will declare such intentions and teams will line up in the old formation and kick off.
“I think it’s interesting. … When you put guys in different spots that they haven’t been in before, there’s just different timing (to consider) and how it’s going to play out,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said.
“I think that’ll be a fun thing in the league. I think it’s going to be a different thing each week.”
Members of the NFL’s Competition Committee have spent the last two years studying the format utilized by the XFL. The new NFL alignment is a hybrid of that format. Special teams coordinators John Fassel (Dallas), Richard Hightower (Chicago) and Darren Rizzi (New Orleans) worked extensively to add changes to that format that would best suit the NFL, and then all 32 special teams coordinators met during combine week to further polish the proposal presented to the Competition Committee and then the NFL owners and coaches this week in Orlando.
“I think it’s important for us to find ways to bring excitement back for our fans and us,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said. “And also to make special teams coaches more relevant, right? We don’t want to lose the relevance in any position of what we’re doing. So I’ve got to give those guys credit for coming up with the idea. We’re going to fight the battles of the unknown. Without a doubt, we haven’t seen the play. (We have) seen a form of the play in a different league.”
The change could impact roster composition, coaches and team officials acknowledge. The new alignment could prompt teams to place greater importance on players at certain positions because of the need for versatility on special teams. But that’s a change teams welcome.
“I think there’s gonna be some experimenting going on and just seeing what you need, but the special teams coaches will take care of that with personnel guys and work that out,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “But I think it adds a little excitement and newness.”
Fassel predicted that the change will now cause teams to place a higher emphasis on acquiring quality return men and that such a need could sway some decisions in next month’s draft. Rizzi added that it’s possible that teams could begin to carry a few more linebackers as opposed to bigger defensive ends because of the need for faster and more athletic coverage men.
Both Fassel, Rizzi and NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay called Tuesday “a great day” for football and special teams. Fassel, who said he spent two days experimenting with the new formation during Dallas’ offseason practices, revealed that he has received overwhelming support from his players and from the NFL Players Association because the modification translates into more roughly 2,000 additional plays per season, which means more opportunities for younger/backup players to have an impact on the game.
“We were in constant communication with the NFLPA,” Rizzi said. “The new president, Jalen Reeves-Maybin (of the Lions), is obviously a core special teams player, and guys like Mike Thomas, who’s on the executive committee, a guy that I coached at the Dolphins way back; we spoke to a lot of those guys throughout this process. The NFLPA is on board, and I don’t want to speak for them, but I know in our conversations with them, that they were very supportive of this rule because it brings the value of the returner up, it brings the value of the core players.”
Hightower described the response from players as “pure excitement.”
“They’re eager for these plays to be moved back into the game,” he said. “They knew something had to be done. We all did, and we all worked hard — all 32 special teams coordinators in collaboration — and we feel like this will provide excitement and opportunities that the game has been missing.”
All three coordinators believe that the impact of the change will extend well beyond the NFL. They envision a trickle-down effect that could eventually see the college, high school and youth games implementing similar changes 1) because of the renewed importance of the play, and 2) because of how the change will make football safer, which preserves the longevity of the game.
“The biggest benefit from this — because this isn’t just NFL, this is hopefully going for a long time — is college potentially adopting this, high school adopting it and (youth) football adopting this,” Fassel said. “I think that would make us the most proud: seeing this go to the other parts of football where today I feel like we made football better and we made football safer, and that will trickle down to the other levels.”
NFL owners also voted to move the NFL trade deadline to the Tuesday after Week 9 games from the previous post-Week 8 deadline. Six teams submitted a proposal for Week 10, but Browns general manager Andrew Berry — who’s become the unofficial face of the rule change — said, “if it moves at all, I would be pretty happy.”
“As a league, it makes sense to give teams the most flexibility,” Berry said. “Moving it back (two weeks), we felt that was the sweet spot.”
At the NFL Scouting Combine, Berry, citing research, said the MLB and NBA place their annual trade deadlines after about 65 percent of the regular season has been completed, and the NHL’s trade deadline comes after 78 percent of the season has been completed. He said the NFL’s old post-Week 8 deadline came after 48 percent of the games have been completed, when some NFL teams have played eight of their 17 games (some played nine).
“(The post-Week 9 deadline) helps maintain the competitive integrity of the season so you don’t have a player getting dumped late in the year,” Berry said.
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(Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
2024-03-26 19:46:47
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