There have been, what seems like anyway, a shitload of kick return TDs in the opening week of the season. Everybody (myself included) predicted the death of the kickoff return TD.
What in the world happened?
It’s Week One, after a compressed training period with unusually high and rapid personnel turnover, especially on the back end of the roster where the cover teams’ rosters are made up from.
Check back midseason.
Why would you predict the death of the kickoff return btw? I don’t really follow football that closely, have any rules changed?
Kickoffs were moved from the 30 back to the 35 - the idea is fewer returns, fewer returners getting concussion-inducing hits.
To me, it certainly seemed like there were more touchbacks. That being said, what something feels like is often a poor indication of the actual numbers.
Seems that rather than do the predictable/safe thing, players are choosing to run the ball out of the end zone. Guess they figure they can at least make it back to the 20 anyway.
But they also limited the running start of the kicking team to just 5 yards, so if it isn’t a touchback, the return team has an advantage.
Yeah. Statistically, there were more touchbacks, but also numerous long returns. The shortened offseason (and no two-a-days) has made many guys less physically fit at the beginning of the season, and don’t forget that Special Teams is loaded with guys on the bottom of the depth charts.
I don’t think most people were arguing that during the clamor over the new rule. The issue was more about the ratio of touchbacks to returns and the underlying point that this change doesn’t really do anything to make anyone safer. The new rule doesn’t really change much about the returning teams ability to create TDs and big returns, if anything it helps it because of the other new rule about coverage men only being allowed 5 yard head starts.
From a safety perspective, isn’t that exactly what you would want? More touchbacks (no bone-crushing tackles) and more TDs (no bone-crushing tackles) and fewer players running into each other at full speed.
I really only watched one entire game; Browns - Bengals. Josh Cribbs only returned one kickoff ouf of six and he brought that out from about 8 yards deep in the end zone. So yeah, I’d say there was some affect.
From a safety perspective it would better if we watched soccer.
Sure, but I thought safety was the motivation behind the rule change. From that perspective it looks like a success.
Rule changes in football to address player safety have been happening for over a century. It’s a part of the game.
The forward pass and the rule forcing 7 offensive players on the line of scrimmage were both safety based rules to address serious player injuries and even death.
Teddy Roosevelt (once a football player and not exactly a wimp) was responsible for pushing many of the early rule changes to improve player safety.
There’s been, since day one, an attempt to balance player safety with the violent nature of football. I don’t see why we need to stop doing so now.
Besides, I though we’d still have some nice returns, even for TDs, with the new rule. There’d definitely be more touchbacks, but historical data (from less than 20 years ago) indicates there’d still be a fair number of returns, especially in cold weather in outdoor stadiums.
If there come to be too many touchbacks without an appreciable improvement in safety, we can always change the rule after the season, anyway.
No one is opposed to rule changes on behalf of safety. Typically that’s fine, though there’s often debate on the best way to do it and the enforce-ability of such.
This is a wildly stupid rule because it’s not a rule change to enhance safety, it’s a rule change to remove plays from the game. That’s not enhancing safety, that’s shortening the game. There are a 100 things that could be done to make kickoffs safer. This is simply a step towards eliminating them, not making them safer. It’s the idiots’ solution.
You don’t make cars safer by lowering the speed limit to 35 miles per hour. You just make things slower, fewer people will crash but that’s not the same thing as making a car safer.
I read something…possibly in Peter King’s column…that said we may actually get more returns under the new rule. Apparently some players and coaches are opting to return kicks from deeper in the endzone than in previous years. I know the one against the Saints went for 108 yards…and most years that probably would have been a touchback.
I’m all for eliminating some of the truly dangerous aspects of the game. e.g. spearing, clothes lining players, etc. I dislike trying to reduce certain types of plays because they are dangerous. Perhaps receivers should no longer be allowed to run routes across the middle of the field? Punt returns are dangerous for the runner. How will the NFL try to reduce them?
Go to 5 downs. That’d do the trick!
Lowering the speed limit improves overall safety. Cars themselves might not be safer but fewer people get hurt.
If this rule change reduces the number of injuries, then it worked, whether it makes kickoffs themselves safer or whether it fundamentally alters the game as a whole to make the game safer.
If the tradeoff in the number of plays is judged unacceptable in terms of game excitement, then we’ll go back.
I’m just not seeing the cause for outrage on this particular rule change. If it turns out we have 40+% touchbacks, I’ll think we need to go back but will believe this was still a useful experiment. If we end up with 30% touchbacks (vs the 17% we had before), I don’t mind keeping it.
Besides, a similar rule was in effect through the 80s, and we still had good football.
As I noted above, this means you dislike an aspect fundamental to football.
Football likely would not exist if we didn’t reduce certain types of plays due to safety concerns. After a rash of serious injuries and deaths, Roosevelt had to step in and insist on such changes. It survived then, and I have no doubt professional football will find a way to become more popular even with such changes (just as it has for the last century).