Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Boot the Kickoff

The Tennessee Titans did Halloween one better by costuming themselves as an entirely different team

The NFL’s new kickoff rule – allowing a fair catch, ball spotted on the receiver’s 25 – is having the desired effect. Between stronger placekickers booming the pigskin into the end zone for a touchback, and returners raising their hands to fair catch, kickoff returns are way down.

Last season 38 percent of kickoffs were run back. So far this season, 23 percent.

Photo by Keith Johnston on Unsplash

Kickoffs are the most concussion-prone down in football, two groups of men running toward each other at full sprint. The NFL’s reasoning on the new fair-catch rule is that fewer returns will allow concussions to be reduced on kickoffs without fundamental alteration of the sport.

So why not just do away with the kickoff altogether?

The NFL is the most television-based of sports, and kickoffs are the least popular down with viewers. Team A scores. Some commercials air. Team B receives the kickoff. More commercials. Finally the game resumes.

There is more to the kickoff question than meets the eye, and it involves the high school version of the sport, which has about 500 football players for each one NFL player – hence a far larger toll of concussions.

Your writer lives in Maryland, where the biggest fish in high school football coaching is Bob Milloy, who coached at the large-school public level (“4A” in Maryland) and at a large private school, retiring with 405 victories (Bill Belichick has 300) and 12 state titles (Belichick has six NFL titles).

A few years ago, Milloy told me he favored eliminating the kickoff.