Hill: NFL’s kickoff rule has made game better, so stop complaining

The complaints about Thursday night’s game between the Seahawks and Cardinals were flying well before Jason Myers’ winning 52-yard field goal as time expired.

It wasn’t so much that the Seahawks had won or that they had taken advantage of single-coverage on Jaxon Smith-Njigba to quickly move downfield that was such a hot topic.

No, the focus again was on the kickoff rule and the fact that a blunder by Arizona’s Chad Ryland put Seattle in position to quickly move into position to win after the Cardinals had tied the game with 28 seconds remaining.

Ryland tried to skip the ball in play in an effort to pin Seattle back and run some clock, but he kicked it short of the landing zone and gave the Seahawks the ball at the 40-yard line.

Cue the chorus of grievances.

“The new kicking rules are awful,” former NFL quarterback Chase Daniel said on Kay Adams’ show. “(The Cardinals) lost that game because of a half of a yard, not landing in the landing zone. And if you kick it in the end zone now it comes out to the 35.”

Oh, so you mean the kickoff actually matters now?

That was the entire point. And it’s fantastic.

Every play matters

Is the suggestion that the sport was better when everyone could just go get a beer or a snack as soon as the Cardinals scored because the ball was just going to be kicked into the bleachers and the next drive was going to automatically start at the 25. Or if we want to go back further, the 20?

Look, the bottom line is that with all apologies to the haters and stuck-in-the-past, so-called purists (including one of my best friends and former colleague Sam Gordon, who was basically an old man arguing sports at the card table when he was 15 years old) who can’t handle change, it is absolutely working.

Wait, I forgot, it was about safety. And the league says it has dramatically cut down on concussions so let’s just say that part is working.

But this year’s tweak to bring kicks in the end one out to the 35 has the touchback rate all the way down to 17 percent, on pace to be the lowest since 1998. More than 77 percent of kicks are being returned. That number was at 21.8 percent in 2023 and still only 32.8 percent last year when touchbacks came out to the 30.

And the new rule not only made a dead play relevant again, but it has added an immense amount of additional strategy to the game.

Clock management is more paramount than ever knowing that teams are starting drives out beyond the 30-yard line. Smart teams are also starting to figure out that kicking short field goals is coaching malpractice considering you are getting three points yet giving the opposition the ball just a couple first downs from equaling that or perhaps countering with a touchdown.

New strategies emerge

A fundamental change has been made to the game by taking a play that absolutely did not matter and making it completely relevant to the outcome.

How is that a bad thing?

“Every play is crucially important, and you don’t know which one’s going to spell the aspect of the results of the game,” Raiders coach Pete Carroll said Friday. “So, you’ve got to play them all right to the max.”

And by the way, that doesn’t mean just accepting that your opponent is going to have great field position after the kickoff.

A closer look at average opponent field position by team shows that strategy and execution do still very much matter.

The Rams and Panthers are forcing opponents to start inside their own 22-yard line after kickoffs this season, nearly 5 yards better than any other team and nearly 10 yards better than league average. (The Raiders are second worst in the league at 33.08 after giving up a long kickoff return last week).

It’s not an accident. Those teams have been delivering almost a knuckleball-style kick that is tricky to handle.

A study from Opta Sports also suggests teams that are having the most success, including the Rams and Panthers, are keeping the ball low and aiming for the middle of the landing zone instead of worrying about hang time or forcing the ball near the goal line.

All of these things will be studied and teams will adapt. It’s a part of the game and should be for good.

It’s real now, and it’s spectacular.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.