Kickoffs to be "modified"

[vikingsrule]

2 minutes ago, ianlewis16 said:

Get rid of them already. Onside kick or have it at the 25. Done. I can live without kickoffs

Don't like it. Takes away the potential for surprose onside kicks. 

NFL needs to stop tinkering with the kickoff. Up next will be eliminating punt returns once removing kickoffs is successful.

[ianlewis16]

2 minutes ago, vikingsrule said:

Don't like it. Takes away the potential for surprose onside kicks. 

NFL needs to stop tinkering with the kickoff. Up next will be eliminating punt returns once removing kickoffs is successful.

I can live with it. I don't like it, but this is the way it's trending. I'd be shocked if football still exists anything like it does today in 20 years. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

22 minutes ago, warfelg said:

So we wouldn't have the chance at the Saints-Colts SB second half kickoff with a surprise onside.  This is why I'm not a fan of taking away the kickoff and making a team declare an onside.  You are taking away strategy and surprise. 

That’s right, we wouldn’t, just like we won’t have all of those exciting kickoff returns for a TD.

You sacrifice something to increase player safety.

[BStanRamFan]

8 minutes ago, WizardHawk said:

When concussions and billion dollar lawsuits stop, they probably will.

When the NFL lied about concussions caused CTE and brain damage, I get the lawsuits. 100%. Players can say we knew we put our bodies in harms way, but not our brains. yadda yadda. Now that it is out there and documented that concussions cause CTE,  how can players still sue? You now are fully aware of what you sign up, you are compensated well for it. If you do not wish to play, you do not have to.

[Broncofan]

7 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

That’s right, we wouldn’t, just like we won’t have all of those exciting kickoff returns for a TD.

You sacrifice something to increase player safety.

Yeah, that's the reasoning.     But let's face it, the NFL is going to do everything they can to have their cake and eat it too.

Moving up to the 35, now making it so they can't short kick to the 5 yard line and try to pin O's deep with kamikaze style coverage with the fair-catch rule (not confirmed, but makes too much sense).   If anything, this increases the likelihood the K will try and hammer it through the EZ.    But then leaves the option of the onside kick at any time.    And a bad kick, and then the return team tries to get that big play.   Absolutely doesn't help player safety when that happens, but the league can sell that overall they're making it safer, without hurting team's chances to come back.

I agree that the safest thing to do is to just remove it unless there's an onside kick declared, but I bet the league is hoping they can leave the option of a KR big play and the unpredictability of an onside kick anytime.   They'd love to say they're making the game safer but keep both options still there.    Even if what they do now pretty much only encourages the K trying to nail the ball through the EZ now when it's not an onsides kick.    

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

11 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

Yeah, that's the reasoning.     But let's face it, the NFL is going to do everything they can to have their cake and eat it too.

Moving up to the 35, now making it so they can't short kick to the 5 yard line and try to pin O's deep with kamikaze style coverage with the fair-catch rule (not confirmed, but makes too much sense).   If anything, this increases the likelihood the K will try and hammer it through the EZ.    But then leaves the option of the onside kick at any time.    And a bad kick, and then the return team tries to get that big play.   Absolutely doesn't help player safety when that happens, but the league can sell that overall they're making it safer, without hurting team's chances to come back.

I agree that the safest thing to do is to just remove it unless there's an onside kick declared, but I bet the league is hoping they can leave the option of a KR big play and the unpredictability of an onside kick anytime.   They'd love to say they're making the game safer but keep both options still there.    Even if what they do now pretty much only encourages the K trying to nail the ball through the EZ now when it's not an onsides kick.    

I’d argue the possibility of a big play and all of that, which happens so rarely anymore, is negated by watching the kickoff team run down the field after the kicker boots it through the end zone multiple times per game.

Remove the charade and proceed with the action.  Touchbacks are awful television and worse live imo.

[TXsteeler]

1 hour ago, bucsfan333 said:

Once there's a way to replace the onside kick, it sounds like kickoffs are donezo.

Someone somewhere suggested just letting teams do like a 4th and 25 or something from their own 20 in place of an onside kick.

[Broncofan]

8 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I’d argue the possibility of a big play and all of that, which happens so rarely anymore, is negated by watching the kickoff team run down the field after the kicker boots it through the end zone multiple times per game.

Remove the charade and proceed with the action.  Touchbacks are awful television and worse live imo.

Yeah, I hear you.  But the NFL isn't selling touchbacks.  They're selling the hope of a big play.   Hope of an unpredictable onside kick, and the unpredictability of it.

Hope sells.

Of course, on the flip side....

[eagles101]

28 minutes ago, BStanRamFan said:

When the NFL lied about concussions caused CTE and brain damage, I get the lawsuits. 100%. Players can say we knew we put our bodies in harms way, but not our brains. yadda yadda. Now that it is out there and documented that concussions cause CTE,  how can players still sue? You now are fully aware of what you sign up, you are compensated well for it. If you do not wish to play, you do not have to.

Well the lawsuit included staight lieing about other injuries. Its not just we didnt know the risk it was directly they lied about the risk. Multiple players had the team tell them they weren’t injured while hving serious injuries. So you can still have lawsuits if they can prove they tried to hide concussions from players. Them trying to help reduce concussions and having concussions protocols help prevent further lawsuits.

[TXsteeler]

56 minutes ago, warfelg said:

So we wouldn't have the chance at the Saints-Colts SB second half kickoff with a surprise onside.  This is why I'm not a fan of taking away the kickoff and making a team declare an onside.  You are taking away strategy and surprise. 

How often do teams use surprise onside kicks? A handful a season if that? How many games do people miss from injuries suffered during kicks?

[warfelg]

Just now, TXsteeler said:

How often do teams use surprise onside kicks? A handful a season if that? How many games do people miss from injuries suffered during kicks?

So just because it doesn’t happen often we should take away the option of doing it? There is a middle ground here where you can keep the ability to do the surprise onside and midi gate the risk of injury on a kickoff. 

[eyecatcher]

Eliminate kickoffs and there will never be another one of these.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upOmjohOvb4

 

Surprise onside kicks are successful 60% of the time and expected onside kicks are successful 20% of the time.  I guess you could create a dice that the coach would roll for each instance.  We want to try a surprise onside kick they pull out the 60% die.  At the end of the game you want to try the expected onside kick you pull out the 20% chance die.  

[TXsteeler]

33 minutes ago, BStanRamFan said:

When the NFL lied about concussions caused CTE and brain damage, I get the lawsuits. 100%. Players can say we knew we put our bodies in harms way, but not our brains. yadda yadda. Now that it is out there and documented that concussions cause CTE,  how can players still sue? You now are fully aware of what you sign up, you are compensated well for it. If you do not wish to play, you do not have to.

So why would they? NFL ratings are going down while other sports are staying the same or rising right? Why would a world class athlete want to play in the NFL when they could make more money playing elsewhere without risking dementia? Kid's moms are taking them out of youth football, what are they gonna do when the pool of skilled players dries up in 15 to 20 years?

[TXsteeler]

1 minute ago, warfelg said:

There is a middle ground here where you can keep the ability to do the surprise onside and midi gate the risk of injury on a kickoff. 

Ok what is it then?

[Woz]

23 minutes ago, bucsfan333 said:

Once there's a way to replace the onside kick, it sounds like kickoffs are donezo.

Modified Schiano suggestion:

• 4th & 10 from the team's own 35 (Schiano originally made it 4th & 15)
• Any penalties that would result in an automatic first down do not grant a first down (until either a first down is accomplished by the attempting team or the attempt fails and the ball is turned over on downs). The penalty yardage does count, and if that is enough to get a team a first, then the "try" was successful and now all penalties return to granting automatic first down status.

12 minutes ago, warfelg said:

So we wouldn't have the chance at the Saints-Colts SB second half kickoff with a surprise onside.  This is why I'm not a fan of taking away the kickoff and making a team declare an onside.  You are taking away strategy and surprise. 

Per pro-football-reference.com's Play Finder, from 2002-2017 (the 32 team NFL era), there have been 176 onside kicks in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters (a fair approximation of a "surprise" onside kick). During that same time span, there have been 790 onside kicks in the 4th quarter(*). So about 18% of all onside kicks were "surprise" kicks. That's good.

Except during that time span, there were 32,182 kickoffs in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters, meaning onside kicks comprised only 0.54% of all kickoff down plays outside of the 4th quarter. As for the 4th, 8,546 kickoffs in the 4th quarters means that onside kicks were only attempted 8.5% of the time.

 

So, if there is the ability for a team to "steal" control of the ball via a normal football play instead of worrying about the random bouncing of an irregular oblong ball, isn't that better? Would that perhaps encourage teams to take more risks? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see Ben, Bell, and Brown steal the ball from the Ravens by just imposing their offensive will on Baltimore's defense?

 

 

 

(*) There was one onside kick in overtime during this span, but I discarded it as it counted for only 0.1% of all onside kicks. In case you care, that one onside kick represented 0.4% of all overtime kickoff down plays during the time period.