Blue: Punt Off

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in an exclusive interview with TIME magazine, said the league is considering an idea from Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano that would eliminate kickoffs.

After a touchdown or field goal, instead of kicking off, a team would get the ball on its own 30 yard line, facing fourth down with and 15 yards to go. The options are either to go for it and try to retain possession or punt the ball away. If you try for a first down and fall short, the opposing team would take over with good field position.

The proposal to get rid of kickoffs was one of several topics discussed in an interview focused on the shocking murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher.

It’s been well-known that the heads of the NFL have been looking to eliminate kickoffs from the game of football for a while now. This is just some of the latest information.

The recent concussion information has caused the NFL to crack down noticeably on hits and start to look deeply about how this great sport is played. Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to be less and less hesitant to change the way the game is played in order to keep its players on the field and out of the news, even reportedly looking to abolish all contact below the waist as early as next season.

But for now, this recent news about how Goodell wants to change kickoffs in the NFL comes first. It seems he and Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano have come up with an idea that seems more like a version of “make it, take it” rather than a fair change of possession after every score.

“I believe that day will come,” Schiano said in an October 2012 issue of ESPN Magazine, in which he was asked about eliminating kickoffs from the game. “Unfortunately, it will probably take more players being seriously hurt. But I think there’s another way to do this.”

Be sure to remember that Greg Schiano, who is in his first year of coaching with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coached at Rutgers last season. The same Rutgers in which defensive end Eric LeGrand was paralyzed after leading with his neck on a tackle during a kickoff return in 2010. Schiano came out so effected by the ordeal that he, earlier this year, signed LeGrand to a ceremonial one-day contract with the Buccaneers.

Knowing Schiano’s history with kickoffs and kickoff returns and his obvious passion for player safety, it’s no longer a question as to why Schiano is clamoring for this act.

But is it right for the game?

Forget the kick returners and the excitement of the plays for a second. Let’s just think about this rule.

Last season, the NFL moved kickoffs from the 30-yard line to the 35 and required the coverage unit to start within 5 yards of the ball, closing the distance between the teams. Both rules had their desired effects. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, 16.4 percent of kickoffs led to touchbacks in 2010; last year it was 43.5 percent. The NFL found that players suffered 40 percent fewer concussions on kickoffs in 2011.

This rule would force a team to punt after every possession. While this dramatically increases the value of a punter, it renders all kickers only as valuable as their field goal accuracy and makes return specialists near extinct.

We know the NFL by now. We know how conservative the League can be. So when a team is facing 4th and 15 on their own 30-yard line, we can correctly assume that the vast majority of action will be punts.

The average NFL punt is 36 yards. The average NFL punt return length is 9.2 yards. If a kickoff begins at a team’s 35 yard line, and the new “kickoff” begins at the 35 yard line, then a team’s average field position would start around a team’s own 30 yard line. Currently, average field position begins at the 27 yard line. How much difference would there be?

What about the value of a kickoff return touchdown? Surely, Devin Hester wouldn’t be as much of a scoring threat.

Maybe not, but consider that in 2011, there were 9 total kickoff return touchdowns, with no team experiencing more than one for the season, anyway. Punt return touchdowns for that year? 20, with five teams scoring multiple times in that fashion on the season. This season? 10 kickoff return touchdowns scored and 14 punt return touchdowns. While the disparity between the two was greater in 2011, kick returns have never been a reliable way to score touchdowns, and with an obviously increased rate of punts under the new rule, should it be implemented, would undoubtedly cause many more punt return touchdowns, and theoretically enough to cover for the loss of kickoff return touchdowns.

So sorry, Josh Cribbs and Cleveland Browns fans. With 8 kickoff return touchdowns and only three punt return touchdowns, I’m sure you’d be the one hurting the most between you, Hester, and Ted Ginn, Jr.

What about the 4th and 15 aspect of the play? The recovery rate of an onside kick fluctuates between 10 and sixty percent depending on the winning percentage of the team attempting the kick. However, given the likeliness of teams attempting onside kicks when they have the lead (which is very low–teams usually attempt those when the winning percentage is 10 percent or less, and even then, teams only attempt them 26 percent of the time). We can all imagine that the chances of converting on fourth-and-long is much higher than recovering an onside kick–how fair is it for a team to have such high chances to keep the ball after a score? If anything, Madden players are the ones who would rejoice the absolute most if this rule change comes into play.

Safety is the key. The more we see fallen players and the more the NFL freaks out and tries to change the game in order to accommodate players, the higher chance that these rules will be implemented. I, personally, am not in favor of the rule simply because I am not in favor of drastically altering the game as much as this would, but when you look at the big picture, what are we gaining? What are we losing? Are we sure that it’s as much as we think?

This is a simple case of tradition versus function and adaptation. How far are we willing to go to make this game safe, to make this game even more profitable? How much are we going to have to change and dismantle the game for it to be something we can all enjoy without having our players hurt?