Chicago’s Matt Eberflus and Houston’s DeMeco Ryans were the first two NFL head coaches to see how their teams do with the NFL’s new kickoff rule, as the Bears-Texans matchup in the Hall of Fame Game provided the first live-action look at the radical rule change. Figuring out the proper strategies is a work in progress.
Eberflus said after the game that the Bears tried a few different techniques on both returns and coverage and will continue working on it for the rest of the preseason.
“You have to figure it out, like, ‘Hey, what is it going to look like?’” Eberflus said, via ESPN. “So, certainly, we’ve tried different things on the return team and different ways to attack on the cover team and putting different bodies in different spots. So, we’re really just trying to figure it out, and I think that’s where all coaches are. We’re just trying to figure it out and do the best thing we can. And that’s going to be ongoing through the whole season. You’ll have to adjust. That’s the way the NFL is.”
One preseason game is far too small a sample size to make any real judgments of the new rule, but in the first game there were lots of returns but little excitement: All but one kickoff was returned — a dramatic departure from last season, when most kickoffs went for touchbacks — but the longest return was 31 yards and the average field position was almost exactly at the 25-yard line, which is where the ball went on all those touchbacks last year.
Coaches are hard at work trying to design returns that will break big plays. But we didn’t see any big plays on kickoffs on Thursday night.