The NFL has already made one tweak to the league’s new kickoff rule ahead of the 2024 season, and if Sean Payton gets his way, there might be another change coming soon.
The Denver Broncos coach was asked about the new kickoff rule on Saturday, and apparently, he’s a little worried that the new rule might not end up fixing anything. If returners thrive in the new kickoff formation, then teams will just start kicking touchbacks again, which is what the NFL was trying to avoid when it approved the new rule.
“If the analytics tell me that the average drive start or average return is past the 30, well, what do you think is going to start happening? Touchbacks,” Payton said, via the Denver Post. “We’re going to be right back to where we were, and that’s the last thing we want. We’ve got to pay attention to that.”
To fix that problem, the Broncos coach would make one key change to the new kickoff rule: If the ball gets kicked out of the end zone, then the receiving team would get a touchback that goes all the way out to the 35, instead of the 30, which is where the ball will currently be going under the new rule.
“I’m not going to be comfortable with saying, ‘Hey, kick a touchback and give them the ball at the 35,'” Payton said.
Under the new rule, there are currently three different types of touchbacks:
- Touchback at the 40-yard line. If the kickoff lands before reaching the return team’s 20-yard line or if it goes out of bounds, then the return team will get a “touchback” that puts that ball at its own 40-yard line (or 25 yards from the spot of the kick). If the ball is kicked out of bounds, the receiving team will get the ball at its own 40 or the spot where the ball went out of bounds.
- Touchback at the 30-yard line. If the ball is kicked into the end zone on the fly and downed in the end zone, then the receiving team gets a touchback at its own 30-yard line. This touchback also applies if the ball is kicked out of the back of the end zone.
- Touchback at the 20-yard line. If a ball hits the ground in the landing zone and then rolls into the end zone — and doesn’t get returned — then the touchback will only go out to the 20.
The crazy part here is that Payton’s proposed rule change was actually A PART of the original rule proposal. For any kickoff that went out of the end zone, the touchback was supposed to be at the 35, but the NFL changed the proposal to the 30 just two days before the owners were set to vote on the rule in March.
“I feel like the 35 would give us what we initially did all this work for,” Payton said.
Not only does Payton want to see the the 30-yard line touchback moved to the 35, but he also wants the NFL to cut down from three types of touchbacks to two.
“The other thing I think is significant is I don’t like the three different starting spots,” Payton said. “If it’s outside the [landing zone], put it at the same spot. I think right now it’ll take a lot of fans a lot of time to figure out the three spots.”
The new kickoff rule made its debut on Thursday in the Hall of Fame Game, and out of eight kickoffs, there was only one touchback. That happened when Chicago’s Cairo Santos kicked the ball out of the end zone for a Houston touchback. The Texans got the ball at their own 30-yard line, but under Payton’s proposal, they would have gotten the ball at their own 35.
The NFL made a minor change to the kickoff rule just before the start of training camp. The league made it illegal for the kicker to put the football sideways on the tee. After seeing that change, Payton thinks it’s completely possible that the league would make a few more tweaks over the next few weeks.
“When we get to Week 1, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another tweak or two that they’ve made a change on,” Payton said.
Payton is one of several coaches around the NFL who believe that the rule could undergo a few minor changes before the start of the season, so at this point, you probably shouldn’t be too surprised if it actually happens.
