With four full weeks of the NFL regular season schedule complete, only one kickoff has been returned for a touchdown under the league’s funky new rules. DeeJay Dallas, who currently plays for Arizona, I took one 96 meters to the house in the Cardinals’ season opener.
NFL kick returners are on pace to score precisely 4.25 touchdowns this season, barely better than the four touchdowns scored on kickoff returns last year. But we’re very early in the season, and judging the effect of the new rules solely by touchdowns is missing the point(s).
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The NFL rewrote the kickoff rules to encourage teams to return more kickoffs, while moving the coverage teams (but not the kicker) 25 yards upfield for the kickoff dispatch, largely to minimize those dizzying, full-speed collisions that have caused far too many. injuries.
As expected, teams are returning more kickoffs – by the load. Through the first four weeks of the season — not including Thursday night’s game between the Buccaneers and Falcons — the NFL’s 32 teams have combined to return 187 of 642 kickoffs, or 29.1 percent, according to NFL statistics. Over the past year, 587 of 2,698 kickoffs were returned, or 21.7 percent.
Kickoffs are always from the 35-yard line, so there have been 437 thrill-killing touchbacks, or 68.1%. But that’s still an improvement over last season’s 73% overall touchback rate. With the cold and wet weather ahead, the percentage of touchbacks will certainly drop.
“It’s always going to be a cat-and-mouse game until the weather changes and the ball isn’t coming out (for a touchback) all the time,” said Eagles special teams coach Michael Clay. Philadelphia, during a press conference. conference last week. “I still think guys are coming out of the back of the end zone at a pretty good clip.”
Clay continues: “I’m sure the guys haven’t shown everything they’ve been working on. Once again, this is done week after week, depending on the staff who return. There will be cat and mouse anyway. But it’s interesting to see what’s happening in the league, and we’re just starting to see what’s happening, what kinds of projects are being implemented there.
Essentially, all kickoffs in the “landing zone,” from the returning team’s goal line to its 20-yard line, must be returned. The other 10 players on the kickoff coverage team cannot move until the ball touches the ground or a player in the touchdown zone or end zone. In the old days, as you remember, coverage teams would make wild starts that led to mind-blowing collisions.
The ball is placed on the 30-yard line, five yards downfield compared to last year, after a kickoff in the end zone and is not returned. But a kickoff that hits in the touchdown zone and rolls into the end zone for a touchback results in the ball being placed on the 20-yard line.
There are other unusual and exciting ways to score touchdowns: among them, bombs, long runs, as well as punt returns, interceptions and fumbles. In the Eagles’ 33-16 loss Sunday to Tampa Bay, Philadelphia defensive back Kelee Ringo returned a Bucs-blocked extra point for two points, for the Eagles.
But the NFL wants to see kickoffs return, especially when a game kicks off. With these new rules, it’s less likely, at least statistically, to see a game start with a kickoff that crosses the end zone for a touchback, forcing everyone to their seats.
Kickoff formations always look strange, especially with the kicker throwing the kickoff away from his teammates. There’s also the matter of a team’s kicker, usually not a big guy, acting as the lone last line of defense. (But that was more or less the case in previous years.)
Teams that trail in the fourth quarter of a game must also call onside kicks, in which the old kickoff rules are used. But it’s also not as important as it seems, because virtually everyone in the stadium knows when an onside kick might be coming anyway.
The general idea is to put the ball in play, but with as little risk of injury as possible. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of kickoff returns fell from 1,087 to just 511, according to the NFL, and return yards decreased from 23,105 to 13,530 and touchdowns from six to four. The average kick return so far this year is 26 yards, up from 21.8 yards in 2023.
Some teams have been more likely to return to kickoff than others. Raheem Blackshear of the Carolina Panthers has 12 kickoff returns and Eric Gray of the New York Giants has 10, but the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers have returned just one kickoff each.
Long kickoff returns haven’t become automatic — at least not yet. DeeJay Dallas’ 96-yard return was just one of four returns of 50-plus yards. Chicago’s DeAndre Carter, with a 67-yard return, leads the NFL averaging 34 yards on five kickoff returns.
After the Giants’ first game, special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial said in a press conference: “What are the consequences of a touchback now?” I don’t know. We’re going to play as it is right now and then obviously figure out what our best strategy is as we start to have bigger and bigger impacts as the season goes on.
When the Giants receive kickoffs, Eric Gray, a running back, gets most of the action — 10 returns, more than any other returner except Carolina running back Raheem Blackshear, with 12. DeeJay Dallas, the only TD scorer, is also a running back. .
“Obviously these guys are used to having the ball in their hands,” Ghobrial said. “They are accustomed to understanding the importance of ball security, and it shows with their collision balance and their ability to navigate through coverage, as I think many of us would agree that this return is more like an attack.
“So the vision of those running backs and their ability to see what gaps open up and what direction to press, all of that is important for any comeback. But the running backs, they just happen to have had the best opportunity with our team to be able to show their success with this.
But everything is subject to change. We still have to go back to 2010 to find the last individual, Oakland receiver Jacoby Ford, who scored three kick return touchdowns in one season. But the chances of that happening are much better than they were last year.
