The NFL appears to have fixed concerns with the kickoff. Now the league will have to hope it doesn’t break again.
A year after a major overhaul and six months after a seemingly minor tweak, teams have returned 78.3% of kickoffs during the first four weeks of the season — the highest rate over that period in 19 years. The NFL has seen 519 kickoff returns, the most through Week 4 in its history.
Coaches have reacted strongly to moving the touchback from the 30-yard line in 2024 to the 35 this season, refusing to concede the additional 5 yards. The return rate has more than doubled from last season and has more than tripled the 2023 rate. Health data is not yet available, but if the concussion rate established during the first phase of the overhaul in 2024 carries over, the NFL will have achieved its goal of revitalizing the play while reducing its injury risk.
“‘Mission accomplished’ would be the way I would describe it,” said Walt Anderson, the NFL’s officiating rules analyst. “It has certainly brought the play back into the game, and it seems to be in a very consistent pattern.”
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, a member of the league’s competition committee, said “it’s doing exactly what we intended it to do” and added: “I think that we’re all learning and growing regarding best practices, schematically how to strategize things to do, how to position players. Some of the size of the players in certain positions have changed, and so we’re all absorbing a lot of tape and we’re all learning and growing as we go in this thing, in terms of the best way to position ourselves to take advantage of the new opportunities in the play.”
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As teams search for a competitive edge, one strategy in particular has emerged. The development of specialty kickoffs — most notably one that mimics a knuckleball pitch in baseball — threatens to disrupt the newly curated aesthetics of the play. The knuckleball kick is designed to push the ball through the air in unpredictable directions, making it difficult to follow and catch cleanly. The ball often drops to the ground in the legal landing zone (between the goal line and the 20-yard line) before it is fielded, and the likelihood of muffs increases.
Because coverage men on the kicking team are allowed to begin running when the ball contacts the returner or hits the ground, a muff or bouncing ball gives them more time to get downfield before a returner can secure it. There have been 18 muffs on 661 kickoffs this season, nearly triple the 2024 rate. New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel referred to it as a “dirty kick” while discussing the skill of Carolina Panthers rookie kicker Ryan Fitzgerald, an observation describing the difficulty of cleanly fielding the ball. The Panthers’ coverage team has limited opponents to an average drive start after a return at the 25.8-yard line, second best in the NFL. The only team better is the Los Angeles Rams (23.4), who have their own knuckleball specialist in Joshua Karty.
One potential fix would be to move the kickoff from the 35-yard line to the 30, which would make it more difficult for kickers to ensure that a knuckler could reach the landing zone. If the ball hits the ground before the 20, the ball is placed at the receiving team’s 35-yard line. Anderson, however, noted that receiving teams are making some subtle adjustments already. One of them is not designating a primary returner and instead empowering both of the returners who are typically at the back of the formation to field the ball.
Anderson also pointed out that the knuckle kick is not easy to master. Through four weeks, there have been 12 penalties this season for the ball hitting the ground short of the landing zone.
“There’s certainly a risk reward there,” Anderson said.
Additional effects are likely looming but haven’t materialized yet. Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton said in September that he expected scoring to increase if teams were able to consistently achieve higher return averages and set up better field position. Offensive scoring through four weeks (23.7 points per game) is up only slightly over the previous 10 seasons (22.9).
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Payton also predicted that teams will begin rethinking their decisions when they win the opening coin flip. Instead of deferring possession to the second half, as most teams do, they might accept the ball. If that team takes possession between the 30- and 35-yard line and then doesn’t gain a yard, in a worst-case scenario, a punt would likely pin the opposing team in worse field position than if it had received the kickoff to start.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see that tweak a little if you’re looking to get off to a better start,” Payton said.
In either event, the NFL is thrilled to have a consistently live play to dissect once again after more than a decade of watching it lose action.
Historically, the standard in pro football was to return kickoffs. From 2000 to 2010, the return rate was 85%. It began to decline, however, as the NFL connected its high-speed collisions with a higher rate of concussions. Rule changes designed to incentivize touchbacks began chipping away at returns. By 2022, nearly three out of every four kickoffs (73%) went for touchbacks.
Pulling from ideas first introduced by the now-defunct XFL in 2020, NFL special teams coaches worked with the competition committee to realign most players involved in the kickoff play downfield to reduce the violence of collisions. The rule reversed the decline, increasing the return rate to 32.8% in 2024 from 21.8% in 2023. But coaches still mostly preferred the touchback, with the ball placed at the 30-yard line, after seeing data that the average return was bringing the ball to the 28.8-yard line. They were willing to concede that additional 1.2 yards, but this season they are not willing to sacrifice 6.2 yards after owners agreed to move the touchback to the 35.
Coaches surveyed for this story couldn’t imagine a likely circumstance that would significantly change the return rate the NFL is now experiencing.
“I think that’s what it’s going to be is what it is,” Minnesota Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels said. “I don’t see a decrease in the amount of returns that are going to be happening as the year goes on. You’re probably going to see even more now as the weather starts to change. The ball gets a little bit harder. It’s not going to travel as far, especially if you are trying to kick it out of these outdoor stadiums. I would really expect the return rate to continue.”
ESPN reporters Jeff Legwold and Brooke Pryor contributed to this story.
