The NFL’s new kickoff rule has already undergone several small tweaks since being approved in March and the league hasn’t fully ruled out the possibility of making yet another change before the start of the 2024 season.
During a conference call with reporters on Monday, the NFL’s Chief Football Administrative Officer, Dawn Aponte, was asked if the league might think about moving the touchback from its current spot at the 30-yard line out to the 35-yard line.
Aponte didn’t rule it out, but she did say that it’s unlikely that there would be a change that would be made at this point.
“It would be not likely,” Aponte said, via the Associated Press. “The way that we passed this and discussed it with the competition committee as well as membership at large was really about continuing to evaluate. It is a one-year rule change, so we anticipate to evaluate this throughout the season.”
Although the touchback might not be moving, Aponte did leave the door wide open for other possible tweaks.
“As things progress through the preseason, it’s very possible that we will see some changes as we head into the regular season,” Aponte said, via The Athletic. “We will continue to monitor it.”
The NFL has already made two minor tweaks to the kickoff rule. First, the league made it illegal for the kicker to put the football sideways on the tee. Another tweak is that a 12th man is allowed on the field to hold the ball for the kicker if there’s inclement weather.
Through the first two weeks of the preseason, one aspect of the new kickoff rule is definitely working: There have been more returns. The NFL has seen 78% of all kickoffs get returned, which is a huge jump over last year’s preseason number of 63%. That being said, the average starting field position has been the 28.3 yard line and that’s apparently where there’s some concern. If returners are getting that far, teams might just start booting the ball out of the end zone to give the receiving team a touchback at the 30-yard line. On average, that would only cost the kicking team 1.7 yards of field position, but they wouldn’t have to deal with the risk of giving up a long return or even a touchdown.
The longest return during the preseason so far has been 74 yards.
If teams start utilizing the touchback strategy, that would cut down on the amount of kick returns. Moving the touchback from the 30 to the 35 would likely discourage teams from just booting the ball out of the end zone. During the early portion of training camp, Broncos coach Sean Payton said a touchback at the 35 makes way more sense than the 30 and that the NFL should think about changing the rule.
Interestingly enough, 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.
The NFL’s 32 owners are getting together for a meeting on Aug. 27 and if there are going to be any changes made to the kickoff rule before the start of the season, that will likely be the league’s last chance to do it.
