When the NFL’s 32 owners voted to approve the new kickoff rule for the 2024 season, the hope was that the change would lead to an upswing in kickoff returns, and although that’s happened, it hasn’t been quite what the league was hoping for.
To fix things, it’s starting to look like the NFL is going to change the kickoff rule again. During an interview on “Good Morning Football” this week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would likely look to move the touchback to the 35-yard line on any kickoff where the ball is kicked out of the end zone. The current touchback spot in that situation is the 30-yard line.
“You could do the touchback and move it to the 35. I think that would be a game-changer right away,” Goodell said. “I think there will be a change, whether we make it immediately after the season. We’re going to have a competition committee [meeting] in the next week or so.”
Moving the touchback from the 30 to the 35 would likely discourage teams from just booting the ball out of the end zone, which has been a popular strategy this season. According to the Washington Post, nearly 29% of kickoffs have been returned through four weeks, which is 17% higher than last year through four weeks, but it’s not quite to the level where the league wants to see it.
The fact that Goodell mentioned the 35-yard line as a touchback spot is interesting because that was actually a PART of the original rule proposal. For any kickoff that went out of the end zone, the touchback was supposed to be at the 35, but the NFL changed the proposal to the 30 just two days before the owners were set to vote on the rule in March.
When the new rule was voted through, it was approved on a one-year trial basis, so Goodell isn’t surprised that the rule might need some tweaking if the league decides to keep it in place.
“We always said this was going to be a work in progress,” Goodell said. “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.”
Goodell also pointed out that it’s only been four weeks and that the numbers could change.
“So far, that looks pretty good, but it’s really early to tell, and there’s really not enough data yet,” Goodell said. “I think it’s going to 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.”
Basically, the NFL is happy that the new kickoff rule has improved player safety, but the league would still like to see more returns, so it seems almost a given at this point that the new kickoff rule is going to be tweaked at some point in the near future.
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