Under a one-year rules change approved by NFL owners in the spring, the ball will be placed on the 25-yard-line if a kickoff returner makes a fair catch inside the 25-yard-line. It had no impact in the preseason, but that means nothing for the regular season.
The Rams had the only fair catch of a kickoff in Week 2 of the exhibition season, Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports.
Fair catches do nothing in the evaluation of players, which is what the preseason is for, so that number is not a surprise. But teams are expected to use the rule more in the regular season.
“I think that the way that clubs approach the preseason on special teams is different,” Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs and policy, said last month. “They want to see whether a player potentially can make the team as a returner, what their return team looks like, what their kicker looks like. So I think it’s . . . strategic in that regard as to how they want to approach the preseason. . . .I guess I wouldn’t draw substantial conclusions.”
Thirty-eight percent of kickoffs were returned last season, and the league projects that to fall to 31 percent this season under the new rule, per Maske.
Special teams coaches did spend more time practicing squib kicks this preseason than in 2022, trying 27 compared to 20 last season, according to Maske, but the average starting position following a squib kick was the 29-yard line.
The goal is to make the play safer, and if the fair catch rule does that, expect it to become a permanent change.
