A Novel Kickoff Replacement Idea

From PFT:

…one of the options being considered for replacing kickoffs entails giving the ball to the team that would have been kicking off at its own 30, automatically facing a fourth down and 15 yards to go. The team can then choose to punt or go for it, via fake punt or otherwise.

In other words, the kickoff would be replaced with the punt, and the onside kick would be replaced with a fourth-down conversion roughly half the distance of Ray Rice’s recent catch-and-run.

I like the spirit behind this idea. In fact, I’d been wondering about ways to improve the kickoff recently, but I was not approaching it from a safety perspective.

For anyone whose been paying attention for the past 20 years or so, touchbacks have gone way up in the pros. I’m not talking about catching the football in the endzone either. I’m talking about kickers routinely booting the ball past the endzone and out of play. The kickoff is quickly becoming the most tedious play in football as a result. While watching the recent Dallas-Philadelphia game, I think there might have been 1 return I could remember in the entire game with over 71 combined points scored! The only point of the return anymore is the opportunity for an onside kick.

I’d been thinking a solution might be to change the kick from the ground off a tee to a punt style free-kick kickoff like after a safety. I’m not a rules guru, but the problem there might be that there’s no opportunity for an onside kick scenario as the ball is not considered live after the first 10 yards.

This idea floated by Goodell has some merit to it. It preserves the salient features of the kickoff and also improves the likelihood of an actual return to a near certainty. I don’t think there’s any punter that could regularly kick the ball into the endzone with the line of scrimmage being their own 30. That’s a 70 yard punt just to the goal line. Also, my sense is the average starting position for offenses will improve to the 25 or so (I figure it’s the 20 right now.)

I don’t like that the “live ball” feature of the kickoff is lost. Practically speaking though, it’s not that big a deal. It did occasionally lead to some interesting highlights with the squib kicks or returners forgetting the ball was live and such; but those moments are pretty few and far between.

As a way to make the change of possession after a score interesting and relevant again, there’s a lot to like here. I’ll be curious to see where this goes.