The so-called “dynamic” kickoff was looking more than a little dyslexic on Saturday night in Jacksonville.
The most dramatic change to the rules since 1974 (when the NFL moved the goalposts to the back of the end zone and instituted overtime for regular-season play) has left everyone with plenty to learn. And it’s more than the fans. It’s the media. The players. The coach. The officials. And the self-styled rules experts.
The situation increases the obligation of the NFL to teach all of us the rules, from the obvious to the nuanced. Most importantly, we need to know what’s different and why.
Watching football creates expectations regarding the application of the rules. Our most recent expectation is that, when a kick lands in the end zone, the play immediately ends.
That’s what happened on Saturday night in Jacksonville. The ball hit the end zone, before bouncing back into the playing field. Last year, it would have been a touchback. This year, it was a live ball.
Chiefs returner Mecole Hardman had to scoop it up and return it. He didn’t. He instead took a knee and pulled the ball into the end zone. That made it a safety.
Most people didn’t know, because our football-watching brains have been wired to think “touchback” when the ball strikes the end zone. This one confused everyone — except Jaguars coach Doug Pederson and, inevitably, the NFL’s internal replay-review function.
It’s good that it happened now. The preseason becomes the best way for all to learn that specific twist in the rules.
The problem is that there will be others. The biggest lessons will be learned when someone makes a mistake. And three weeks of preseason play might not bring every example to light.
For example, if Hardman had simply assumed the ball was dead when it struck the end zone and walked away from it, the Jaguars could have recovered. That would have been the case if the ball had stayed in the end zone, or if it had bounced back into the field of play.
It becomes imperative for the NFL to get the word out, using all channels available to it. Identify the ways in which the new formation conflicts with our prior expectations, and make sure we understand them.
It’s also important to streamline the entire process. That will make it easier for fans, media, players, coaches, and officials to understand it. As Broncos coach Sean Payton has argued, there should be two possible placements of the ball after a kick that isn’t returned — the 35 (if it fails to hit the landing zone, if it goes out of bounds, or if it’s kicked into the end zone, stays there and isn’t returned) or the 20 (if hits within the landing zone, goes into the end zone, and isn’t returned).
Then again, it might not matter much. If the touchback point remains at the 30, plenty of teams will just kick the ball out of the end zone. With the average starting field position through the first week of the preseason the 29 for all kicks and the 28.5 for returned kicks, it makes sense to just concede the 30 — and to avoid a long return.
Giving up the 30 also avoids the glitches and other complications that could confound coaches and players and officials and media and fans. It’s all the more reason to bang it out of the end zone, like before.
And that’s all the more reason to move the touchback point from the 30 to the 35.