When the NFL’s 32 owners voted to approve the new kickoff rule for the 2024 season, the hope was that the change would lead to an increase in kickoff revenue, and while that happened, it wasn’t quite what the league was hoping for.
To fix things, it’s starting to look like the NFL will change the kickoff rule again. During an interview on “Good Morning Football” this week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would likely look to move the touchline to the 35-yard line on any kickoff where the ball is punted out of the end zone. The current touch point in this case is the 30 yard line.
“You can take a touch-and-go and move it to the 35. I think that would be an immediate game-changer,” Goodell said. “I think there will be a change, whether we do it right after the season. We will have a competition committee [meeting] “In the next week or so.”
Moving the touch point from the 30th to the 35th would likely discourage teams from simply getting the ball out of the end zone, which has been a popular strategy this season. According to the Washington Post, roughly 29% of kickoffs were returned through four weeks, which is 17% higher than last year through four weeks, but that’s not quite the level the league wants to see.
The fact that Goodell mentioned the 35-yard line as the touchpoint is interesting because that was actually part of the original rule proposal. For any kickoff that went out of the end zone, the touchdown was supposed to be at 35, but the NFL changed the proposal to 30 just two days before owners were set to vote on the rule in March.
When the new rule was voted on, it was approved on a one-year trial basis, so Goodell wasn’t surprised that the rule might need some tweaking if the league decided to keep it in place.
“We always said this was going to be a work in progress,” Goodell said. “I think if I had to categorize it, I would say it’s incomplete right now. And just in that sense: We wanted to bring back more revenue, but we wanted to do it safely.”
Goodell also noted that it has only been four weeks and the numbers could change.
“So far, this looks pretty good, but it’s really too early to know, and there’s not enough data yet,” Goodell said. “I think it’s going to get to where we got the safety back in this game, and then I think we’re going to have to make some changes on the kickoff that I think will lead to more kickoff returns.”
Basically, the NFL is happy that the new kickoff rule has improved player safety, but the league would still like to see more revenue, so it seems almost a given at this point that the new kickoff rule will be tweaked at some point in the near future. .
