Troy Vincent: Kickoff has become a "dead, ceremonial play"
In making the kickoff safer, the NFL has made the kickoff largely irrelevant.
On Wednesday, NFL executive V.P. of officiating Troy Vincent made the league's perception of the play clear.
"I think kickoff stats, they speak for themselves," Vincent said. "It’s a dead, ceremonial play today."
It's dead and ceremonial due to various changes aimed at making the play safer by making it happen less frequently. From moving the kickoff point to the 35 to moving the touchback to the 25 to, for 2023, allowing teams to call a fair catch inside the 25 and get possession at the 25, returns are way, way down.
So what happens next?
"This is where we’re going work with the special-teams coaches," Vincent said. "We have a committee made up of some head coaches, special teams coaches. It was a one-year only rule that we need to address. A little less than twenty percent of return rate today."
As PFT explained in August, the NFL is considering the XFL’s kickoff configuration. There, the kick happens at the 30 yard line. Other than the kicker, the players on the kicking team are aligned at the receiving team’s 35 yard line. Ten of the receiving team’s players are positioned five yards away. Only the kicker and the returner may move before the ball is touched by the player fielding the kick.
That approach reduces high-speed collisions by packing players together and minimizing the running start. It might be the only way to say the play.
Of course, that also would require an onside-kick alternative along the lines of the fourth-and-15 play that the XFL utilizes. To replace the kickoff, the NFL would need to embrace both prongs of the XFL's approach.
