NFL draft preview: New kickoff rules put added emphasis on return ability
Free Press sports reporter Dave Birkett takes a position-by-position look at the top prospects and biggest Detroit Lions needs in the 2024 NFL draft. This is the third in an eight-part series:
The NFL’s new kickoff rules have given the Detroit Lions something different to consider in this year’s draft.
Lions general manager Brad Holmes said Thursday the team has had “a lot of discussions about” how recent changes to the kickoff rule will impact the personnel teams need for their kick cover and return units.
Teams still will kick off from their own 35-yard line, but beginning this fall, the coverage unit will line up at the receiving team's 40-yard line while return teams must align at least nine men in the setup zone between the 30- and 35-yard lines.
Two return men can be in the landing zone between the goal line and 20-yard line, but no one other than the kicker and return men are allowed to move until the ball is fielded or hits the ground.
“I think we’re still in the, let’s call it, exploratory stages in terms of a personnel standpoint,” Holmes said. “We have an idea of what we think is going to be the right fit. So it has tweaked it a little bit, especially on the return aspect. You might be looking for a different kind of returner than you have been in the past, and vice versa on the other side, on your actual kickoff team. Trying to find your kickoff team and your return unit, does that body type change? Does that type of player change? Does the movement skills change? So we’ve had a lot of discussions on that.”
Holmes did not specify what personnel changes he foresees on the play, but one feeling shared by several NFL teams is that, with less ground to cover on the play, big safeties and linebackers will replace some of the cornerbacks who populated the kick cover unit in the past, while more dynamic one-cut runners with elite vision and explosiveness will fill the return position.
Holmes previously told the Free Press teams might employ extra kickers on their practice squad, too, because that position could be more involved with tackling.
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“I was talking to a GM the other day and he was going through the process of pulling returns on guys from like their freshman year,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “Like the stuff that we used to do a lot of in scouting that you really haven’t had to do over the last few years as the return game has kind of diminished, but now they’re like, ‘OK, well, we’re close on these two corners. Well, this one actually was a kickoff returner two, three years ago.’
“They’re going back and watching all those returns because now that has a little bonus to it, a little added value.”
The Lions have had one of the NFL’s best overall special teams units in recent years, but have not employed a true kick returner under Holmes.
Running backs Godwin Igwebuike and Justin Jackson led the Lions in kick return yards in 2021-22, and Craig Reynolds split time there with cornerback Khalil Dorsey last season.
Several running backs in this year’s draft doubled as dangerous return men during their college careers, including Clemson’s Will Shipley, Purdue’s Tyrone Tracy Jr., Texas’ Keilan Robinson and Marshall's Rasheen Ali.
Shipley averaged 26.6 yards per return in his three-year Clemson career. Tracy earned third-team All-Big Ten honors as a return specialist last season (behind defensive backs Cooper DeJean of Iowa, a potential first-round pick, and Daequan Hardy of Penn State). Robinson had a 95-yard kick return touchdown last season and scored on a blocked punt return in 2022. And Ali had just five career kick returns, but took one back 97 yards for a touchdown.
“I think there’s teams and decision makers that want to be ahead of the curve a little bit and view (the kick return) as that can be a difference-making play, and something that we haven’t seen in terms of how this is set up,” Jeremiah said. “I’m fascinated to see it and I think it’s going to help separate a lot of ties between players and it’s also going to be easy sell for college teams now with some of these premier young players that they have to convince them that, ‘Hey, you can add to your value by being a returner for us.’ So I think that’ll be fun as well.”
Shipley, Tracy, Robinson and Ali project as mid- to late-round picks in a running back class that lacks the top-end talent of last year’s group.
The Lions took Jahmyr Gibbs with the 12th pick of last year’s first round, four spots after the Atlanta Falcons took Bijan Robinson. Robinson and Gibbs were the first two backs to go in the first half of the first round since Saquon Barkley in 2018.
Jonathon Brooks, the consensus top running back in this year’s class, is projected as a Day 2 pick after tearing his ACL late last season; Michigan’s Blake Corum could go in the second or third round as well.
NFL draft preview: Running backs
On the Lions' roster: Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, Craig Reynolds, Jermar Jefferson, Zonovan Knight, Jake Funk.
Dave Birkett’s top 3 QB prospects: 1. Jonathon Brooks, Texas; 2. Blake Corum, Michigan; 3. Trey Benson, Florida State.
Other players with Michigan ties: Elijah Collins, Oklahoma State (Michigan State, U-D Jesuit); Mike Herzog, Hillsdale; Harold Joiner III, Michigan State.
Day 3 sleeper who could interest Lions: Rasheen Ali, Marshall.
Recent Lions draft picks at RB: 2023 — Jahmyr Gibbs (first round); 2022 — none; 2021 — Jermar Jefferson (seventh round); 2020 — D’Andre Swift (second round); Jason Huntley (fifth round). 2019 — Ty Johnson (sixth round).
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: NFL draft preview: These 4 RBs could benefit from new kickoff rules
