The hidden agenda here may be to give receiving teams an advantage and make the attempted conversions more common. The trouble with moving the line of scrimmage forward is that a successful conversion puts the ball across the 50 yard line and makes the attempts more attractive since the field position isn’t so advantageous in a failed attempt. Anyway it comes out, this won’t kill football. But it is a big change to the game.
The overall success rate of onside kicks is 26%, with caveats (expected OK’s, unsurprisingly, have a lower success rate than “surprise” OK’s). Read the article for details.
Looking at the chart in this article, the success rate for 4th and 15 is about 15%.
Aikman’s only 46. He may well be one of the ones who suffers no early ill effects from his playing career, but it’s probably too early to tell.
Jim McMahon is a couple of years older than Aikman (53), and is now suffering serious cognitive issues due to his concussions…but those only started to really manifest themselves in the past few years. Up until then, he was still fairly active in charity golf outings, TV appearances, etc.
I don’t blame goodell for the brainstorming, but I just don’t like the idea. Yes, kickoffs are the plays that cause the most injuries, but they’re also an exciting and important part of the game. I understand player safety is a higher priority, but I also think simple rule changes like the one implemented this year to increase the incidence of touchbacks will do a lot more than changing a kick-off into a punt.
There have to be other ways to encourage safer behavior on kickoffs, like finding a way to incentize a fair catch on a kickoff so it can add a level of strategy. Like, straight off the top of my head, a kickoff can be fair caught and, if done so inside like the 10 you get the ball 15 yards ahead of the spot; obviously numbers could be adjusted. The point of that would be to further encourage kickers to kick it through the endzone, not force a player to run if it comes up just short, but still providing the option to run if the other team is slacking, they’re really good at it, or they need a big play.
Overall though, I think the better way to approach player safety is to adjust other aspects. Make more of the safety equipment mandatory. If all the speedy people on kickoffs are wearing more pads, they’ll not only be more protected from the big hits, but probably weighed down a bit more to reduce the speed of impact. They can also increase fines and sensitivity of penalties on dangerous hits. Spend more time and money educating the players about safety, and researching new safety equipment and techniques. I also think adding another bye week to the season would help with player injuries. Get rid of the teams that have a fifth pre-season game, just do 4, or even less, add the extra week to the season for a bye week, and it should be mostly revenue neutral, if not positive, because of extra primetime games.
So yeah, I think this is a bad idea, but I think at least their heart is in the right place. I just think they need to look at other aspects of the league more.
I’m not opposed to the change in principal, but in specifics. Someone said upthread that the ball should just be placed on the “receiving” team’s 20 or 25, first and ten. Either of those sound like good solutions.
If the NFL really was concerned about player safety (I can’t remember where I read this but it made a ton of sense), all linemen have to start the play in a two point stance (with the exception of the center, who is only three-ish anyhow). This will reduce the repetitive head shocks that are documented to be one of the main reasons for football brain damage.
Not a fan of the proposed change—I think it’ll dramatically alter football strategy, and I think they need to try it out only in preseason first—but I do like the thought behind it. I’m not sure if I’ve brought this up before, but would mandating that tacklers only tackle at the waist or below, like they do in rugby, make things safer from a head injury perspective? If it would, then would the change make football unrecognizable from today’s viewpoint?
Because otherwise, I am afraid that Telemark’s various scenarios will come to pass. Think of how big boxing was 50 years ago, and where it is now. Nothing says football can’t follow the same path, if it doesn’t fix its issues.
Hmm. Am I wrong here, or will it be nearly impossible to pull a fake on a punt in most situations where that would be used? If the kicking team is behind with little time left, the receiving team is going to put all 11 men on the line to stop a fake unless there’s some sort of ‘onside punt’ rule added. They don’t care how far the punt goes, and the kicking team can’t take possesion from a punt.
ETA: Never mind, they’ll just short punt and hope someone on the receiving team touches the ball so it can be picked up. That could be interesting. But overall it sounds like a problem to me.
My understanding is the scoring team will be given the ball at their own 30, but it is 4th and 15. They can go for it (the equivalent of an Onside Kick), or punt it (the equivalent of a Kickoff). The could also go for a fake punt, which would be similar to a ‘surprise onside’.
Um, Roger? Aren’t punt returns just about as hard-hitting and dangerous as kickoff returns? They are, you say? OK, thanks, just checking.
I already posted a cite that suggests they are not as dangerous, and other posters explained why that might be the case.
And that’s why I said “just about”. If there’s not that much difference, then this isn’t a good idea.
According to the numbers Marley23 cited, punts are safer than normal run/pass plays, which are, in turn, safer than kickoffs.
It’s not “just about”. There is a measurable difference.
Speaking from the position of a team with Calvin Johnson, I say great idea!
The stats are from before the rules change, but the injury rate on kickoffs was up to 2% and on punts it was around 1.4%. That’d mean kickoffs were 40% more dangerous than punts.
I don’t think that is a good comparison. Today, the only time a team would go for it on 4th and 15 is if it is late in the game, they are desperate, and have failed to convert 3 previous, late in the game plays.
This would be more like a 1st and 15, but you can’t compare it today’s 1st and 15s either, because there is no need to get 15 yards on a first down. There is really no way to tell the percentages, but I think it would be far easier to complete a 15 yard pass than to recover an expected onside kick.
If a team gets on fire at the end of the game and is chewing up yards with 20 yard pass plays at will. Now, they would have to recover an onside kick. With the new rule, they keep the offensive juggernaut going
Remove the helmets.
I realize everybody loves Freakanomics-style counterintuitive proposals, but this is such a bad idea I don’t know how it keeps coming up. When you have 300-pound guys slamming into each other at high speed, stopping them from wearing helmets won’t reduce head injuries, it will get people killed.
It comes up because people love to bring up the comparisons to rugby, where you don’t see so many of these devastating injuries.
Unfortunately, people don’t understand that we have a multi-billion dollar, multi-decade program of building taller, stronger, and faster athletes. Rugby players aren’t generally freakish by comparison to their 60s counterparts, while football players are.
Also, rugby players still get their fair share of concussions anyway (Time article on this subject).
I don’t think that minus a helmet and padding players will ever put themselves at risk of a fractured skull. It’s because of the equipment that you see such brutal hitting. You really think a running back is going to lower his head and slam it into another players head if he’s not wearing a helmet?
I vote for non-indestructible helmets (ones that show damage), and minimal facemasks.
As for the punt-off idea, not bad, not great.