Is the NFL’s New Kickoff Rule Backfiring?

In an attempt to reduce the the frequency of kick returns—and by extension cut down on injuries—the NFL decided in the offseason to put the ball on the 25-yard line after a touchback. The rationale, of course, was that the extra five yards might cause returners to gamble less often on kicks that go into the end zone. 

The problem is that the change has also provoked teams to consider leaving kickoffs short of the end zone. And it makes sense, because the average kick return is about 24 yards, and extra air time on shorter-than-usual kicks would give coverage units extra time to reach the return man. 

Sure enough, as Mark Maske of the Washington Post pointed out earlier this month, touchbacks were, in fact, down, not up, during the 2016 preseason. 

In an officiating video sent to media members, Dean Blandino, the league’s vice president of officiating, addressed that discouraging trend by stating that “preseason kick return numbers do not translate to regular season.” And he’s right, because there are far fewer touchbacks in the preseason than in the regular season. 

However, early returns from the 2016 regular season indicate that touchbacks have indeed become less frequent with the new rule in place. 

Comparing fortnights 

On the surface, it’s not entirely obvious. The leaguewide touchback rate is 59 percent right now, which is actually 3 percentage points higher than the 2015 full-season rate of 56 percent. But touchbacks become much less common as temperatures drop and special teams units become depleted due to injuries over the course of the year. 

When you simply compare the first two weeks of the 2015 campaign to the first two weeks this season, and when you remove onside kicks and kicks coming from better or worse field positions as a result of penalties, you can see that touchbacks have actually become less frequent. 

There have been 311 kickoffs from the 35-yard line this season, and a total of 120 of those kicks have been returned. At this same point last season, there had been 313 kickoffs from the 35, but only 99 were returned. So if we’re comparing the first two weeks of 2015 with the first two weeks of 2016, the kickoff return rate on regular kicks from the 35 actually increased from 31.6 percent to 38.6 percent. 

Players are indeed less likely to return kicks from the end zone. They’ve done so only 23.4 percent of the time, versus 26.4 percent during the first two weeks last season. And it’s safe to assume that the 2016 end-zone return rate will drop as more returners realize that taking the ball out of the end zone is usually a bad gamble with the new rule in place. 

However, far fewer kicks are making it to the end zone. Only 79.7 percent of kickoffs from the 35-yard line are reaching the opposing goal line this season, which is down from 93.0 percent at the two-week mark in 2015. 

At this point last season, there had been only 22 returns from outside of the end zone. This year, there have been 61. And the average kickoff length has dropped from 65.4 yards to 64.5 yards.

That’s because more teams are experimenting with shorter kicks in order to pin opponents back, just as the NFL had feared. And in some cases, it appears to be working. 

Does it work? 

Naturally, teams looking to …

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