The new kickoff rule is the best reason to watch this year’s preseason. In theory, anyway.
In practice, preseason kickoffs haven’t given football fans much to get excited about.
Thursday night’s two preseason games gave us a total of 10 kickoff returns for 246 yards, an average of 24.6 yards per return, with a long of 29 yards. That follows a Hall of Fame Game that saw seven kickoff returns for 159 yards, an average of 22.7 yards per return, with a long of 31 yards.
Three preseason games is too small a sample size to draw any conclusions, but the NFL hoped that the new kickoff rule would increase the excitement of the game. So far the rule change has increased the number of returns, but not added a lot of excitement.