NFL's rush to implement new kickoff rules is Roger Goodell's latest winning power play
ORLANDO – Welcome back, NFL kickoff return.
With the rubber stamp from team owners secured as the league’s annual meetings wrapped up on Tuesday, a Great Unknown is coming to Roger Goodell’s NFL with a drastic makeover of the kickoff.
One after another, team owners, GMs, coaches and others swore that it had to happen for the good of the game. The excitement of the kickoff return was missing, given all the touchbacks. And with this new hybrid model, passed for a one-year trial, the NFL has supposedly figured out how to make the kickoff safer than ever.
It’s just that nobody has all the answers.
"We’re all going to have to figure out what’s best and then try it out in practice and in the preseason games as best as we can," John Harbaugh, the Baltimore Ravens coach, told USA TODAY Sports shortly after the proposal passed by a 29-3 vote. "You don’t know what kind of players will work best. You don’t know what kind of returners will work best, what kind of schemes will work and not work.
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"It’s going to be a lot of crazy, sloppy play early. Maybe it’ll be weird. Maybe it’ll be really cool. The unintended consequences, it could be a lot of fun."
With so much uncertainty, it’s a bit stunning that the rule – which includes positioning a line of defenders at the receiving team’s 40-yard line for the kickoff, five yards from the wall of blockers − passed the first time it was presented to the owners. Sure, there was pause from some owners. But unlike most other measures – and especially one with such a radical twist − this one wasn’t even tabled until the spring meetings or ticketed for a preseason trial.
"Look, we’re all a little uncomfortable with it because we don’t know what’s going to happen," New York Giants co-owner John Mara told USA TODAY Sports.
Why now?
Hey, it’s another case of what Roger wants, Rogers gets.
Goodell executed a power play to push the rule through ASAP. On Monday, the 24 votes needed for the proposal to pass weren't there. By Tuesday, the votes were in. Never mind the typical mindset when it comes to pursuing big-ticket change in the NFL, described by one owner as "walk-jog-run." Even though the competition committee has explored the idea of creating a kickoff model (which plays off the XFL and USFL versions) for several years, this major revision would not have gone down with this speed without the hands-on involvement of the Commissioner.
"He’s a good arm-twister," Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II told USA TODAY Sports. "That happened. He thought we needed to do something. And look, I think everybody thought we should do something. It had become a dead play, an irrelevant part of the game. But this a pretty dramatic change."
Rooney was one of the three dissenters, at least when it came to instituting the new rule for the regular season. He thought that instead it should have been tested with a preseason trial.
"I got out-voted," he said.
Other owners and coaches also had reservations but refused to comment on the record. This, too, is a reflection of Goodell’s range. One owner, speaking to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity given concern for pushback from the NFL, bemoaned that the league sprinted to the kickoff model rather than taking more deliberate steps. A coach mentioned a fear of drawing retribution in the form of attracting more penalty flags, which is reminiscent of what Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton has insinuated might have happened during his final four years as New Orleans Saints coach, when he contended that opponents ranked 30th, 31st, 32nd and 32nd in penalties called in games against his teams.
Payton, by the way, wouldn’t comment to USA TODAY Sports, on or off the record, about the hybrid kickoff model after it passed on Tuesday. On Monday, he flatly said, “I like the rule.”
I’ve wondered why the league couldn’t have merely moved the kickoff (which remains at the 35-yard line) back to the 30-yard line as a way to produce fewer touchbacks. Rich McKay, the competition committee chairman and Atlanta Falcons president, doesn’t see that as viable, in part because it would not have reduced injuries.
"We’ve been there, done that," McKay said.
In one sense, it is not surprising that Goodell was so invested in revamping the kickoff. He’s been on a crusade, so to speak, for several years on health and safety measures. With the kickoff makeover, the NFL projects that perhaps 1,000 live plays league-wide will be restored while the concussion rate will decrease thanks to the spacing of the players on the front lines and reduced speed before collisions.
"(Goodell) is very persuasive when he wants to be," Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told USA TODAY Sports. "He can also be persistent. A lot of times a play that involves this much change doesn’t pass in the first year. I know he was hoping that we got it done this year, but if we didn’t, we would’ve been back on it next year."
Of course, there’s another school of thought when it comes to safety measures. The NFL Players Association has called for all games to be played on grass fields, but Goodell hasn’t gone that far. And while the announcement that the NFL will stage two Wednesday games on Christmas this year would not have happened without Goodell, it also invites the usual questions about whether the scheduling contributes to injury risk (which Goodell maintains won’t).
In any event, the kickoff rule is a hybrid mission on another sense as it seeks to provide a comeback for an exciting play while making it safer. Last season, which ended with all 13 kickoffs in Super Bowl 58 going for touchbacks, less than 22% of kickoffs in the NFL were returned.
With the new rule, the league projects that at least 50% of kicks will be returned.
"The more we talked about it the less people wanted to continue with a ceremonial play," Mara said.
During the lively debate, Mara said he was struck by a point from his Dallas Cowboys counterpart.
As Mara recalled, "Jerry Jones got up and said, ‘There’s so much excitement building up towards our game. Then we get ready to play. And then we have the kickoff. Is that the way you want to start the game?’ "
Apparently not.
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