NFL owners have approved a rule change that will dramatically change kickoff return rules during the 2023 season and potentially beyond.
The new regulations owners voted at the league's spring meetings in Minneapolis to allow kick returners to call a fair catch and have the ball placed at the 25-yard line. Fair catches from safety or kickoff must happen behind a team's line to be able to place it at the 25 afterwards.
Former Indianapolis Colts punter-turned-analyst Pat McAfee has already been an outspoken critic of the change before it became official. The NFL cites player safety as the reason behind the amendment, expecting concussions will decrease as the rate of returns drops from a nine-year high last season.
Chairman of the NFL's competition committee, Rich McKay, explained the change to NFL Network. "The kickoff play for us has been a play that has had a lot of changes for us over the years, all really driven by health and safety.
"The concussion rate on the play has gone up. It's gone up because the ball is being returned more by kicks that are being hung inside the 5-yard line.
"College made this rule change in maybe 2018 or 2019. We looked at their data and said, you know what, this is the right thing to do now." Modelling reportedly predicts the kickoff return rate will decrease from 38% to 31%, and the concussion rate will drop by 15%.
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McKay also acknowledged the anticipated backlash from special teams coaches, who are said to have unanimously opposed the change. "It's never easy for special teams coaches," he added.
"They've coached it a certain way, they think they have an advantage, so they're not gonna be happy with changes like this, but the changes needed to be made because, in our mind, we have the data that said it should be made."
The competition committee chair has also addressed why it will initially be a trial run. "In our mind, this is a rule that needed to be passed. We needed to pass it for one year, see what the data is and consider what the future of the kickoff was."
"So that was kind of the pathway we took. That doesn't mean that coaches and/or players wouldn't feel negatively about it. I would anticipate they would because change always means you got to look at things differently - and I get that.
"But, in our case, we're going to be driven by the health and safety data, and that's what's going to inform us as far as making rules proposals." On that point, NFL executive Jeff Miller also told NFL Network: “The kickoff play has the highest rate of concussion year after year. You can’t stand by and do nothing.”
Miller also suggested that this could be the tip of the iceberg. “There may be more to come,” he added.
