If the owners gather on August 27 for a special meeting regarding the private equity rules, maybe they should consider making another tweak. To the kickoff rules.
Earlier in the offseason, we predicted that, by the middle of the season, half of the teams will be kicking the ball out of the end zone and conceding the 30. If, as it appeared during Thursday night’s Hall of Fame game, a kick caught in the landing zone from the goal line to the 20, it won’t take many strides to get the starting field position between the 25 and the 30.
So why not just give up the 30 and erase the possibility of a long return?
The easy fix is to move the touchback point from the 30 to the 35. As originally proposed, the magic number was the 35. On the eve of the annual meetings in March, it moved to the 30.
There’s still time to move it to the 35.
On Saturday, Broncos coach Sean Payton suggested the 35 — for all kicks that fail to land in the 20-yard “box.”
“I get the box; I like it,” Payton told reporters, via Parker Gabriel of the Denver Post. “If the analytics tell me that the average drive start or average return is past the 30, well, what do you think is going to start happening? Touchbacks. We’re going to be right back to where we were, and that’s the last thing we want. We’ve got to pay attention to that. And the other thing I think is significant is I don’t like the three different starting spots. . . . If it’s outside the box, put it at the same spot. I think right now it’ll take a lot of fans a lot of time to figure out the three spots.”
He’s right. Currently, fans need to process that, if the ball is short of the landing zone or hits in the box and goes out of bounds, the ball goes to the 40. For a touchback, it’s the 30. For a ball that hits the landing zone and goes into the end zone and isn’t returned, it’s the 20. Reducing it to two potential starting points — the 35 or the 20 — will make it much easier for everyone to understand.
More importantly, it will avoid situations in which teams decide as a matter of strategy to never put the ball in play.
“I’m not going to be comfortable with saying, ‘Hey, kick a touchback and give them the ball at the 35,’” Payton said. “Now, maybe in the fourth quarter with a two-touchdown lead, but the 30 — look, just do the math. If the average return is past the 30 and we’re getting explosives, there’s times where I’m going to look at the scoreboard and say, ‘Hey, we’re up 10 here in the third quarter, we might be comfortable with the 30.’”
Or teams that are willing to trust their defenses will always opt to give the other team the ball at the 30.
Some (like Packers special-teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia) expect some “amendments” to the rule before the regular-season starts. This assumes that teams will show their hands in the preseason in a way that gives the powers-that-be a reason to tweak the rule. Chances are that no one will see how teams truly plan to approach the play until the regular season rolls around.
“Every team in the league will hold on to some of the things they want to do for Week 1,” Payton said. “I was talking to [NFL officiating consultant] Walt Anderson today and I said, ‘Walt, you’re not going to see in the preseason. You just aren’t.’ . . . And I would tell you this — when we get to Week 1, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another tweak or two [to the rules] that they’ve made a change on. Not significant.”
What’s significant is the 30 vs. the 35. Once the season begins under one set of rules, however, the league will be very reluctant to undermine the integrity of the season by shifting the rules.
So do it now. More specifically, do it on August 27, if/when the owners meet to pass private equity rules.
“I feel like the 35 would give us what we initially did all this work for,” Payton said. “Make a box foul. That’s easy. Make it a box foul and there’s two spots [the 35 and the 20]. But right now that’s not where it’s at and we’re pushing.”
Good. They need to be pushing. Because if the touchback point is the 30 when the regular season starts, the league isn’t going to get nearly as many extra plays as it expects.
Put simply, the so-called dynamic kickoff could end up being a dud.