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Thread: Stats from the new kickoff rules with touchbacks at the 25

  1. #1
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    Default Stats from the new kickoff rules with touchbacks at the 25

    When they announced this, most people seemed to think that this new rule would lead to more kickoff returns. As it turns out, the rule is working as intended. 60% of kickoffs are now touchbacks as compared to 55% last season and 50% the year before. Mase has an article here breaking it down:

    http://www.denverbroncos.com/news-an...ampaign=buffer

    So what's happening?

    "One of the things that comes into play is kind of like what I talked about last week -- it's that it's hard [for kickers] to control the ball flight a lot of times," Special Teams Coordinator Joe DeCamillis said. "It's harder for those guys to put the ball three or four [yards] ahead of the goal line, rather than inside the goal line."


    And when the ball does get to the end zone, it's not often returned. Opponents have returned just 156 of 900 kickoffs (17.3 percent) that went at least one yard into the end zone after being kicked from the 35-yard line, according to pro-football-reference.com.

    Last year, teams returned 43.8 percent of kickoffs that got into the end zone.

    Clearly, the additional five yards has made all the difference league-wide.

    "There's such a big incentive to leave the ball in the end zone," DeCamillis said. "If it ends up in there, you're talking an extra five yards every time. So I think that's part of it."

  2. #2

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    Makes sense; balls roll, and the only ways to prevent that are 1) kick it out bounds (WAY worse than kicking it into the end zone; it's cost GAMES) or 2) kick it very short of the end zone and hope it doesn't roll in anyway, at the cost of giving the returner a much shorter field.

    It's much easier and safer to just take the 25 yds, despite inherently unbalancing the game by making the receiving team automatically more likely to score next. Sure, they'll have to kickoff themselves if they do, and the first halfs receiving team is always the seconds receiving team, but it puts us back to the good old days when coaches who won the toss always elected to receive: Because if they capitalize on their chance to score first, even an opponent who matches them every step of the way is playing catch up the whole game. You can try to "double up" at the end of the first half, but that's tricky to do without a pretty good offense in the first place, and UNLESS you do, receiving the second half kick doesn't get you much: It was already your turn anyway, and if they scored on the first halfs initial AND final possession, you end up two scores down instead of one.

    I'm coming to despise this rules change almost as much as the PAT rule change (The NFL: Making the Worst of a Bad Situation Since God Only Knows When. )
    Oh, valid point. I thought you meant all starters, you should take the time to be more descriptive, don't be shy. Jaded

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