With 4 full weeks of the NFL regular-season schedule full, merely one kickoff has been returned for a landing below the league’s funky new kickoff guidelines. DeeJay Dallas, who really performs for Arizona, took one 96 yards to the home within the Cardinals’ season opener.
NFL kick returners are on tempo to attain exactly 4.25 touchdowns this season, solely barely higher than the 4 touchdowns scored on kickoff returns final yr. However it is rather early within the season, and to evaluate the impact of the brand new guidelines simply by touchdowns is to overlook the purpose(s).
The NFL rewrote the kickoff guidelines to encourage groups to return extra kickoffs, whereas shifting the protection groups (however not the kicker) 25 yards upfield for the kickoff, largely to reduce these breakneck, full-speed collisions which have prompted far too many accidents.
As meant, groups are returning extra kickoffs – in spades. Via the primary 4 weeks of the season – not together with Thursday evening’s sport between the Buccaneers and Falcons – the NFL’s 32 groups have mixed to return 187 of 642 kickoffs, or 29.1%, based on statistics from the NFL. Via all of final yr, 587 of two,698 kickoffs have been returned, or 21.7%.
Kickoffs are nonetheless produced from the 35-yard line, so there have been 437 thrill-killing touchbacks, or 68.1%. However that’s nonetheless an enchancment over final season’s general touchback charge of 73%. With chilly and damp climate on the best way, the touchback proportion is for certain to fall.
“There’s all the time going to be a cat-and-mouse sport till the climate modifications and the ball doesn’t exit [for a touchback] on a regular basis,” Michael Clay, the Philadelphia Eagles’ particular groups coach, stated at a information convention final week. “I nonetheless assume guys are kicking out the again of the tip zone at a fairly good clip.”
Clay continued: “I’m certain guys haven’t proven every part they’ve been engaged on. So once more, it goes week-by-week, personnel-based, who’s the returner. There’s going to be cat-and-mouse regardless. However it’s attention-grabbing to see what’s going across the league, and also you simply begin to see what is occurring, what sort of schemes are being run on the market.”
Basically, all kickoffs within the so-called “touchdown zone”, from the return staff’s personal aim line to its 20-yard line, have to be returned. The opposite 10 gamers on the kickoff-coverage staff can’t transfer till the ball hits the bottom or participant within the touchdown zone or the tip zone. Within the previous days, as you recall, protection groups bought off to flying begins that led to head-rattling collisions.
The ball is positioned on the 30-yard line, 5 yards upfield from final yr, after a kickoff sails into the tip zone and isn’t returned. However a kickoff that hits within the touchdown zone and rolls into the tip zone for a touchback leads to the ball being positioned on the 20-yard line.
There are different uncommon and thrilling methods to attain touchdowns – bombs, lengthy runs, plus punt, interception and fumble returns amongst them. Within the Eagles’ 33-16 loss Sunday to Tampa Bay, Philadelphia defensive again Kelee Ringo returned a blocked Bucs’ additional level for 2 factors, for the Eagles.
However the NFL needs to see kickoffs returned, particularly on the opening kickoff of a sport. With these new guidelines, it’s much less probably, at the least statistically, to see a sport began with a kickoff that flies via the tip zone for a touchback, inflicting everybody to plop again into their seats.
The kickoff formations nonetheless look unusual, particularly with the kicker launching the kickoff removed from his teammates. There’s additionally the matter of a staff’s kicker, normally not an enormous fella, appearing because the lonely final line of protection. (However that was kind of the case in earlier years.)
Groups which can be trailing within the fourth quarter of a sport additionally should declare onside kicks, during which the previous kickoff guidelines are used. However that isn’t as important because it sounds, both, as a result of nearly everybody within the stadium is aware of when an onside kick could be coming, anyway.
The final concept is to place the ball into play, however with the bottom threat of damage. Between 2022 and 2023, the variety of kickoff returns had dropped from 1,087 to only 511, per the NFL, and return yards had dwindled from 23,105 to 13,530, and touchdowns from six to 4. The common kick return thus far this yr is 26 yards, in contrast with 21.8 yards in 2023.
Some groups have been extra more likely to return kickoffs than others. Raheem Blackshear of the Carolina Panthers has 12 kickoff returns, and Eric Grey of the New York Giants has 10, however the Inexperienced Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers have returned just one kickoff apiece.
Lengthy kickoff returns haven’t change into automated – at the least not but. DeeJay Dallas’s 96-yard return has been solely certainly one of 4 returns longer than 50 yards. DeAndre Carter of Chicago, with a 67-yard return, leads the NFL with a 34-yard common on 5 kickoff returns.
After the Giants’ first sport, particular groups coordinator Michael Ghobrial stated at a information convention: “What are the implications to kicking a touchback now? I don’t know. We’re going to play it as it’s proper every now and then clearly determine what our greatest technique is as we begin to trickle down an increasing number of within the season.”
When the Giants obtain kickoffs, Eric Grey, a operating again, will get a lot of the motion – 10 returns, greater than some other returner besides Carolina operating again Raheem Blackshear, with 12. DeeJay Dallas, the one TD scorer, can also be a operating again.
“Clearly, these guys are used to having the ball of their hand,” Ghobrial stated. “They’re used to understanding the significance of ball safety, and also you see that type of with their collision steadiness and their potential to navigate via the protection, since I feel plenty of us would agree that that return is trying extra like an offensive run sport.
“So, the imaginative and prescient of these operating backs and their potential to see which gaps open up and which strategy to press stuff, these are all vital for any return. However operating backs, it simply so occurred that they’d the very best alternative with our staff to have the ability to present success with that.”
However every part is topic to alter. You continue to need to go means again to 2010 to search out the final particular person, Oakland broad receiver Jacoby Ford, who scored three touchdowns on kick returns in a single season. However the odds of that taking place are quite a bit higher than they have been even simply final yr.
