Are the NFL’s reimagined kickoff rules working? The early returns are mixed

With four full weeks of the NFL regular-season schedule complete, merely one kickoff has been returned for a touchdown under the league’s funky new kickoff rules. DeeJay Dallas, who actually plays for Arizona, took one 96 yards to the house in the Cardinals’ season opener.

NFL kick returners are on pace to score precisely 4.25 touchdowns this season, only slightly better than the four touchdowns scored on kickoff returns last year. But it is very early in the season, and to judge the effect of the new rules just by touchdowns is to miss 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, in large part to minimize those breakneck, full-speed collisions that have caused far too many injuries.

As intended, teams are returning more kickoffs – in spades. 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%, according to statistics from the NFL. Through all of last year, 587 of 2,698 kickoffs were returned, or 21.7%.

Kickoffs are still made from the 35-yard line, so there have been 437 thrill-killing touchbacks, or 68.1%. But that is still an improvement over last season’s overall touchback rate of 73%. With cold and damp weather on the way, the touchback percentage is certain to fall.

“There’s always going to be a cat-and-mouse game until the weather changes and the ball doesn’t go out [for a touchback] all the time,” Michael Clay, the Philadelphia Eagles’ special teams coach, said at a news conference last week. “I still think guys are kicking out the back of the end zone at a pretty good clip.”

Clay continued: “I’m sure guys haven’t shown everything they have been working on. So again, it goes week-by-week, personnel-based, who is the returner. There’s going to be cat-and-mouse regardless. But it is interesting to see what’s going around the league, and you just start to see what is happening, what kind of schemes are being run out there.”

Essentially, all kickoffs in the so-called “landing zone”, from the return team’s own goal line to its 20-yard line, must be returned. The other 10 players on the kickoff-coverage team can’t move until the ball hits the ground or player in the landing zone or the end zone. In the old days, as you recall, coverage teams got off to flying starts that led to head-rattling collisions.

The ball is placed at the 30-yard line, five yards upfield from last year, after a kickoff sails into the end zone and is not returned. But a kickoff that hits in the landing zone and rolls into the end zone for a touchback results in the ball being placed at the 20-yard line.

There are other unusual and exciting ways to score touchdowns – bombs, long runs, plus punt, interception and fumble returns among them. In the Eagles’ 33-16 loss Sunday to Tampa Bay, Philadelphia defensive back Kelee Ringo returned a blocked Bucs’ extra point for two points, for the Eagles.

But the NFL wants to see kickoffs returned, especially on the opening kickoff of a game. With these new rules, it is less likely, at least statistically, to see a game started with a kickoff that flies through the end zone for a touchback, causing everyone to plop back into their seats.

The kickoff formations still look strange, especially with the kicker launching the kickoff far from his teammates. There is also the matter of a team’s kicker, usually not a big fella, acting as the lonely last line of defense. (But that was more or less the case in previous years.)

Teams that are trailing in the fourth quarter of a game also must declare onside kicks, in which the old kickoff rules are used. But that is not as significant as it sounds, either, because virtually everyone in the stadium knows when an onside kick might be coming, anyway.

The general idea is to put the ball into play, but with the lowest risk of injury. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of kickoff returns had dropped from 1,087 to just 511, per the NFL, and return yards had dwindled from 23,105 to 13,530, and touchdowns from six to four. The average kick return so far this year is 26 yards, compared with 21.8 yards in 2023.

Some teams have been more likely to return kickoffs 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 only one kickoff apiece.

Long kickoff returns have not become automatic – at least not yet. DeeJay Dallas’s 96-yard return has been only one of four returns longer than 50 yards. DeAndre Carter of Chicago, with a 67-yard return, leads the NFL with a 34-yard average on five kickoff returns.

After the Giants’ first game, special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial said at a news conference: “What are the consequences to kicking a touchback now? I don’t know. We’re going to play it as it is right now and then obviously figure out what our best strategy is as we start to trickle down more and more in the season.”

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, those guys are used to having the ball in their hand,” Ghobrial said. “They’re used to understanding the importance of ball security, and you see that kind of with their collision balance and their ability to navigate through the coverage, since I think a lot of us would agree that that return is looking more like an offensive run game.

“So, the vision of those running backs and their ability to see which gaps open up and which way to press stuff, those are all important for any return. But running backs, it just so happened that they had the best opportunity with our team to be able to show success with that.”

But everything is subject to change. You still have to go way back to 2010 to find the last individual, Oakland wide receiver Jacoby Ford, who scored three touchdowns on kick returns in one season. But the odds of that happening are a lot better than they were even just last year.