Kickoffs and kickoff returns in the NFL in 2024

Here is the breakdown of the new kickoff from the league’s official site:

ALIGNMENT

• All kicking team players other than the kicker will line up with one foot on the receiving team’s B40 yard line
• Kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line until ball touches the ground or player in landing zone or end zone
• The 10 kicking team players cannot move until the ball hits the ground or player in the landing zone or the end zone
• The receiving team will line up as follows:
• Setup Zone – a 5-yard area from the B35 to the B30 yard line where at least 9 receiving team players must line up
• At least 7 players with foot on the B35 yard line (restraining line) with alignment requirements (outside numbers, numbers to hashes, and inside hashes)
• Players not on the restraining line must be lined up in setup zone outside the hash marks
• All players in the setup zone cannot move until the kick has hit the ground or a player in the landing zone or the end zone
• A maximum of 2 returners may line up in the landing zone and can move at any time prior to, or during, the kick

LANDING ZONE

• Landing zone is the area between the receiving team’s goal line and its 20-yard line.
• Any kick that hits short of the landing zone – treated like kickoff out of bounds and ball spotted at B40 yard line; play would be blown dead as soon as kick lands short of the landing zone
• Any kick that hits in the landing zone – must be returned
• Any kick that hits in the landing zone and then goes into the end zone – must be returned or downed by receiving team – if downed then touchback to B20 yard line
• Kick hits in end zone, stays inbounds – returned or downed – if downed then touchback to B30 yard line
• Any kick that goes out of the back of the end zone (in the air or bounces) – touchback to B30 yard line

MISCELLANEOUS

• No fair catch or signal is allowed. Officials will blow the play dead
• If conditions cause ball to fall off tee twice, then kicker will be allowed to use kicking stick to keep the ball in place. The closest covering official will pick up the stick immediately after the kick
• Onside kick:
• 4th quarter begins, the team trailing has the opportunity to declare an onside kick to the officials
• Current onside kickoff rules would apply. If onside kick goes beyond the setup zone untouched, kicking team penalized for UNS; return team would start the drive at the A20 yard line

Penalties:

• The setup zone and landing zone will not change with any penalties that carry over to kickoffs. Alignment of 10 kickoff team players and all receiving team players would not change – only the spot of the kick would move
• Penalties on scoring plays will not carry over and will be taken on the Try
• Penalties on the Try may carry over, and if they do, only the placement of the kicker will change

For those who prefer a graphical representation see below

One reason for this is how boring the NFL kickoff has become. Last season 73.4% of all kickoffs resulted in touchbacks and only 0.73% of RETURNS resulted in touchdowns. There were only four KOR TDs in 2023 and Marvin Mims had one of those. There were 2561 kickoffs in 2023 and only 550 of those were returned (21.5%). That was the lowest level of returns in NFL history. For comparison there in 1995, 95.4% of all kickoffs were returned.

So in 2023 only 4 of 2561 kickoffs resulted in a touchdown (0.16%). PFR doesn’t have kickoff data before 1991, but the highest KOR TD% was in 2007 – 1.00% or six times higher than in 2023. Back in the early 2000’s the touchback rate on kickoffs was less than ten percent.

So it’s clear that the NFL wants more excitement on kickoffs. So let’s look at the what happened in the XFL on kickoffs. The Football Database has XFL stats for the two season that the new league has existed, 2020 and 2023. I don’t know how many touchbacks there were, because it’s not listed, but here is the data from 2020

and here is the XFL KOR data from 2023

In 2020 in the XFL, 1.18% of all returns resulted in a TD. In 2023 as teams got better at adjusting to the funky kickoff rules, only 0.29% of KORs resulted in a TD. So while there was more excitement because there were so few touchbacks on kickoffs, there was not that much more in the way of KOR TDs relative to the NFL in 2023.

What about average distance on KORs? The average KOR in the XFL in 2020 was 22.6 yards. In 2023 it was 21.3 yards. Assuming XFL kickers were able to place the ball relatively close to the goalline in terms of where it dropped, that means most XFL drives after kickoffs were starting at roughly the 25 yard line. That’s where drives started after KO touchbacks in the NFL last season. In the NFL in 2023 the average KOR was 23.0 yards. In 2020 it was 22.5 yards. The it would appear that the average gain on KORs was not much different in the XFL than in the NFL.

So did the XFL rules lead to longer KOR returns? In the XFL in 2023 there were five KORs that went for 50 yards or more and former Bronco, Fred Brown, had two of them (both for 96 yards). In 2020 in the XFL there were three, but in about half the number of KORs. In 2020 there were only 170 KORs in the XFL; there were 341 in 2023.

Of the 2561 KORs in the NFL in 2023 there were only 10 long returns (>50 yds). So that is 1.82% of NFL KORs. The table below has the comparative data for the NFL and the XFL

So at least for the two seasons that we have data for comparison, the XFL kickoff rules did not result in a higher rate of long kickoff returns.

Some coaches may just choose to have their kicker boom the kick out of the endzone. This would result in a touchback and the opponent starting their drive on the 30 yardline (not the 35 as has been said incorrectly by some folks). Click on that link if you want to watch some of the XFL KORs from the 2023 season. If NFL returns start to routinely give the offense a start beyond the 30, I would expect coaches on the kickoff just to go back to opting for the touchback.

Another approach that coaches might take is to try a “popover” kick. Kickoffs are live, so the kicking team can recover the ball. Since the returners (or returner) can move before the ball comes down, but blockers can’t, if the return team leaves both returners deep to cover the width of the field, kickers could kick the ball so that it lands immediately inside the landing zone (at the 20 or 19) and hope that makes it difficult enough for the returner to catch so that they can “force” a fumble.

If the returners are both in the middle with one up and one back, kickers could try to put the ball in the “holes” in the return grouping both to increase the catch difficulty on the kickoff and to potentially force a bobbled or fumbled kickoff. Kickers may also work on hitting kickoffs so that they land and take “funky” bounces which could also potentially lead to more kicking team recoveries on KOs.

I would also expect that the blockers on the return team to be all OL and DL guys, because there is no chance that they will have to field the kickoff. As athletic as most OL and DL guys are right now, the blocking that could be done for the returner could be really effective, particularly if the kick coverage team is still using smaller faster guys (DBs and LBs) many of whom are not used to dealing with large athletic blockers to get to the ball-carrier.

Teams might also start putting a blocking tight end or a very athletic OL guy back as one of the returners, specifically to be the lead blocker for the actual returner. Can you imagine Garett Bolles with a head of steam as the lead-blocker for the return guy? That could lead to some injuries for the defenders. There are a number of offensive linemen who ran sub 4.8 40s are the combine and weighed more than 295 lbs.

• Tony Brown
• Terron Armstead
• Lane Johnson
• Bruce Campbell
• Joe Staley
• Brian O’Neill

There are also some defensive linemen who have done that – some of the more recent ones

• Calijah Kancey (4.67 at 281 lbs)
• Aaron Donald (4.68 at 285)
• Ed Oliver (4.73 at 287)
• PJ Hall (4.73 at 308)
• Khalil Davis (4.75 at 308)
• Geno Atkins (4.75 at 293)
• Devonte Wyatt (4.77 at 304)
• Fletcher Cox (4.77 at 298)
• Braden Fiske (4.78 at 292)
• Jordan Davis (4.78 at 341!!)
• Neville Gallimore (4.79 at 304)

Any of those guys as a lead blocker would be scary as hell.

Summary

The XFL kickoff rules did not result in a higher rate of touchdowns on KORs or long (> 50yd) KORs relative to the NFL. These rule changes will most definitely lead to a huge increase in the percentage of kickoffs which are returned, but the data says that we should not expect a large increase in long returns or KOR TDs.