The NFL made one of the most dramatic changes in league history last season with the introduction of a new kickoff rule, and although the rule was mostly viewed as a success, there’s a good chance a few more changes could be coming to the kickoff before the start of the 2025 season.
The co-chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, Rich McKay, admitted on Sunday that the new kickoff rule will likely undergo a few tweaks this offseason. The most likely scenario would see the touchback moved from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line, which would discourage the kicking team from simply booting the ball out of the end zone on a kickoff.
McKay also said that the NFL could consider moving the football five yards back for the actual kickoff, which means kickers would be setting the ball up at their own 30, instead of their own 35-yard line.
“You’ll have people that’ll say both,” McKay said, via the Washington Post. “You’ll have people say one or the other. It’s always easier to start with one or the other than it is both. And you want to have all of the health and safety implications or potential implications from either change. But I think it’ll be one or the other, I would think. You never know. I know there’s people already talking about, ‘Hey, let’s talk about both.’ But I also know there’s this thing called 24 votes.”
With his “24 votes” comment, McKay is referring to the fact that any rule change has to be approved by 24 of the NFL’s 32 owners before it can pass, so none of the tweaks to the kickoff will happen unless 24 owners want it to happen.
One interesting thing about the kickoff rule is that spotting a touchback at the 35-yard line was actually INCLUDED in the original kickoff rule proposal last year. 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 2024.
Although the kickoff return rate in 2024 was up compared to 2023, it was still the NFL’s second-lowest rate since 2000, so the league is now looking for ways to continue to boost the kickoff return and moving the touchback out to the 35 seems to be the popular solution for that right now.
Even though the kickoff return rate probably wasn’t as high as the NFL would have liked, there were still 332 more returns in 2024 compared to 2023.
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One other thing the NFL wants to improve on going forward is the onside kick, which has become one of the most boring plays in football. There were 42 onside attempts in 2024, and only three of them were recovered. Over the past few years, several teams have proposed replacing the onside kick with a fourth-and-15 or fourth-and-20 alternative where a team would get one play to gain the needed yardage instead of being forced to kick the ball. According to McKay, that option will likely be discussed once again this year.
“I could see it because [teams have] brought it up before,” McKay said, via the Washington Post. “That said, you have to get 24 votes. So you have to have other alternatives, one of which may be, ‘OK, should we tweak the way that they line up and see if we can get the percentage to move?'”
The NFL is clearly happy that the new kickoff rule has improved player safety, but the league would still like to see more returns and more onside kick recoveries, so it seems almost a given at this point that the new kickoff rule is going to be tweaked.
When the new kickoff rule was originally passed, it was approved on a one-year trial basis, which means the rule will definitely be voted on again at some point this offseason. The next owners meeting is scheduled for March 30 thru April 2 in Palm Beach, Florida, and there’s a good chance there will be more clarity on what the kickoff will look like in 2025 after that meeting.
