Saints are currently 40 million over the cap for this year, which is bad, but not impossible to deal with. The bigger issue is that they’re already 45 million over the cap for 2025.
It means all the good ones are getting tagged or signed. Teams likely won’t be letting anyone good hit the market with a pile of extra money to spend.
Predictable but still a bummer.
Not draft related, but it is an NFL development in the pre-draft timeframe. We can split this into its own thread if OP or others don’t think it fits.
It looks like the owners will vote in March on adopting XFL-style kickoffs in another attempt to balance exciting plays against concussion risk. In XFL kickoffs, the kicker kicks from his 30 yard line, and the rest of the kickoff team lines up on the opponent’s 35 yard line. The return team lines up on their 30 yard line, with the returner behind them. No one except the kicker and returner can move until the returner has fielded the ball.
I’ve watched a few examples, and I guess it’s not terrible. The reports I’ve seen don’t mention an alternative to an onside kick, but in the XFL the kicking team has the option to attempt a 4th-and-15 play from their 25 yard line, so I assume the NFL would do something similar.
A travesty? A good idea? Got something better?
And runbacks for TDs are possible.
I like it.
As far as I can see it’s no less likely to lead to running the ball back for a TD, and maybe it will be more likely given that the defense has to stand still until the ball is caught.
I haven’t watched the XFL enough to really know what to expect here, but conceptually it seems like a good idea.
The returner has a pretty big advantage on kicks short of the end zone. He’ll likely have 20+ yards of completely unimpeded space to build a head of steam. Setting up a wedge/wall will be harder, but I think coaches will figure out ways to have guys retreat and rotate to create some interesting plays.
Because of that there’s a major premium on kickers who are able to bury them deep in the end zone. I can imagine teams rostering a kickoff specialist if they find their FG kicker is leaving it short. Teams who don’t force either a touchback or a return from deep in the end zone are very likely to give away a lot of field position.
I can’t imagine a scenario where teams are intentionally kicking it short hoping to force a return the way they do today. Muffs and fumbles will probably be dramatically reduced. There will probably be a lot more returns, or else everyone will kick it out the back of the end zone.
The 4th and 15 play in lieu of an onside kick feels fundamentally wrong to me. It just feels contrived but the success rate on onside kicks is so low that they aren’t interesting. I can see a lot of teams opting for this play in the middle of games a lot more often. I can even see the analytics saying that you should do it almost all the time if teams are effective throwing the ball or have a scrambling QB. I worry a little that this could end up being the proverbial 5 point shot from Rock and Jock.
In other news, the unofficial start of the Combine is today. Teams and traveling to Indy and there will be some media availability with coaches and GMs. Testing and interviews start tomorrow. The workouts start on Thursday.
In the XFL, a ball kicked into the endzone for a touchback is placed at the 35 yard line. If it lands short and bounces into the endzone and is downed or goes OB, it is placed at the 15 yard line. So there is incentive to not kick it too deep.
One article I read said the XFL uses the 4-and-15 rule, but this says that a team can state before the play that they will be attempting an onside kick, in which case the teams line up as they do today in the NFL. I’m not sure what’s right.
But even if they go with the 4-and-15 approach, I think there’s no risk of it being used in anything other than desperate situations. The downside risk – the opposing team gets the ball somewhere around their opponent’s 25 to 35 yard line – is too great. You’re never going to get the expected points of 4-and-15 from 75 yards away to pencil out against 1-and-10 from 25-35 yards.
I like that kickoff rule. For the onside kicks I think 4th and 20 from the 20 would be better than 4th and 15 from the 25.
For the onside kick rule, whatever the analytics say works for me. First we choose whatever percentage we want onside kicks to be successful, then we pick the fourth down distance to match that percentage.
I would not do it in field goal range, though. Whatever the average resulting field position was for a failed onside kick, I’d mark the conversion to have to go there. Let’s say that failed onside kicks, on average, end up with the opposing team having the ball on their own 45. And just to pick a number, let’s say our onside kick 4th down distance is 13 yards. That would mean an onside kick would be 4th and 13 from your own 42.
Alternately, instead of aiming for the average yard line on a fail, base it on the average yard line for when the onside kick is recovered. Either way is fine by me. Hell, maybe do the average of the two.
I think that’s the catch, if there is one. If the new kickoff rule leads to more touchbacks to the 35 or more successful returns to around the 35, then that becomes the baseline for the mid-game onside.
If you use something like Ellis’ suggestion and the failed 4th and 15 turns the ball over at the opposing 45 you’re only surrendering 20 yards of field position in exchange for an attempt at an extra possession.
So you need to balance the risk reward. Even if a 4th and 20 started from their own 20, and you gain 15 in a failed attempt you’re still only surrendering 30 yards in exchange for a chance at the ball. Sure, an incompletion or a sack leads to a 45 yard shift and the ball in the red zone, but we’d have to see how the situational odds work out.
Looking it up, kickoffs currently happen at your own 35, meaning that’s where onside kicks happen. Ball has to go 10 yards before you can recover your own onside kick, meaning you would recover on your own 45. So that could be a reasonable target.
I think it’s a good idea, and I’ve been in favor of trying something different for several years. The league realizes that the injury rate on the current style of kickoffs is among the highest in the game, but they (and fans) seem unwilling to just do away with them entirely, so something like this would seem to worth trying.
As far as the 4th-and-15 (or whatever) in place of an onside kick, for me, the key is what the distance is that the success rate gets back to something like the 15% rate that onside kicks used to be at, prior to the changes in recent years (no running start for the kicking team, no stacking players on one side of the line). IIRC, the success rate for onside kicks in recent years has been around 5%, which is, IMO, too low, but I don’t think it should be any higher than the old ~15%.
So the vaunted combine is here.
Seems like the whole thing tends to muddy up the waters much more than it clarifies anything, but cynically, that may well be the entire point.
Chances of the Bears landing him after this performance are close to zero, but I’ve developed my first post-Combine man crush on Braden Fiske. Dude’s an absolute horse. We’ll see if he’s just an underwear Olympics guy or not, but his production at FSU certainly seems to be legitimate.
I’m almost totally ambivalent about the combine, but Texas Tech DB Tyler Owens really caught my attention. Not for his 40 time or how he looks in underwear, but for his interview, where he said:
“I don’t believe in space. I’m real religious, so I think we’re alone right now. I don’t think there’s other planets and other stuff like that.”
He went on to point out that Flat Earthers raise some “valid points”.
Yes, he is. Between him and Verse going into the draft, our D-Line has some rebuilding to do.
This was fun to watch.
Fifth-year senior, graduated with a degree in “university studies,” which as far as I can tell is a bullshit major so scholarship athletes can get credit towards a degree no matter what classes they take.
Denver officially announced that they’re cutting Wilson. I guess no trade opportunities materialized.
The Broncos take an $85m hit over the next two seasons. Ouch.
I’m going to predict that he ends up in Pittsburgh.