Kickoffs to be "modified"

[PossibleCabbage]

Is there any data on how many of those 1036 kickoff returns resulted in a starting field position short of the 25?  I recall "the returner would have been better off taking the touchback" to have been a really common outcome last year.

[swede700]

5 hours ago, TXsteeler said:

The way the league is going they will get rid of it soon enough.

And it'll be a horrible decision.  

You want to make the game safer?  Take the helmets off.

[Woz]

Just now, PossibleCabbage said:

Is there any data on how many of those 1036 kickoff returns resulted in a starting field position short of the 25?  I recall "the returner would have been better off taking the touchback" to have been a really common outcome last year.

From the NFL.com data itself? Not really. We don't know if the returner chose to come out of the endzone or if the ball was in play and had to be fielded (it's a live ball otherwise).

Indirectly, we can look at Football Outsiders' Special Teams DVOA calculations, but they're a bit confusing:

Quote

Our special teams ratings compare each kick or punt to the league average for based on the point value of field position at the position of each kick, catch, and return. We've determined a league average for how far a kick goes based on the yard line from where the kick occurs (almost always the 35-yard line for kickoffs, variable for punts) and a league average for how far a return goes based on both the yard line where the ball is caught and the distance that it traveled in the air.

...

For the return team, the rating is based on how many points the return is worth compared to average, based on the location of the catch and the distance the ball traveled in the air. Return teams are not judged on the distance of kicks, nor are they judged on kicks that cannot be returned. As explained below, blocked kicks are so rare as to be statistically insignificant as predictors for future performance and are thus ignored.

From that, only thirteen teams last year had a positive kick return score, and only seven had scores of greater than three points. (Baltimore, LA Rams, Seattle, New England, New Orleans, Carolina, Oakland  ||  Dallas, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Philadelphia, Green Bay).

[eagles101]

19 minutes ago, disaacs said:

And it'll be a horrible decision.  

You want to make the game safer?  Take the helmets off.

This has been circling for so long and i just have no idea how people think that it is even remotely logical. Rugby and football are a hundred percent different. The tackles are different because of how the game is played not because there are no pads. 

[Dingo18287]

They just need to make it like a punt. Have 1 returner near the goal line, and have the other 10 guys on kickoff return 10-15 yards away from the kickoff. That is by far my favorite idea I've heard so far.

[youngosu]

Football without kickoffs isn't football IMO. 

I get wanting to make the sport safer but this is one change that would likely end my fandom. 

(Of course I still think moving the extra point back was ridiculous and stupid).

[Chrissooner49er]

Every kick off is exciting, IMO. Perhaps the most unpredictable part of football. I would hate for it to become extinct.

[TXsteeler]

8 minutes ago, youngosu said:

Football without kickoffs isn't football IMO. 

I get wanting to make the sport safer but this is one change that would likely end my fandom. 

(Of course I still think moving the extra point back was ridiculous and stupid).

The draft is unethical to players but if you cut the kickoff for safety purposes I'm never watching again lmao.

[youngosu]

2 hours ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

If it happened even once that’s still too much.

It’s an awful way to squeeze every dime out of advertisers to the detriment of the viewer.

There is a pre-determined amount of commercial breaks during an NFL game. The only time they do what you are complaining about it when they need to make up for missing a previous break (say because you had a 10 minute drive or something similar). There is no fix for this. TV is gonna get its breaks. 

[youngosu]

6 minutes ago, TXsteeler said:

The draft is unethical to players but if you cut the kickoff for safety purposes I'm never watching again lmao.

Ah, someone can't let a difference of opinion go.......

The NFL can eliminate kickoffs if it wants. Football by its very nature requires kickoffs to be football in my opinion. Every version of the sport (going back to its roots as soccer and even before that) has kicks to start games and after scores. Eliminate that and its no longer football to me. Tradition matters. That is my opinion. Find another way to make them safer or risk losing me as a viewer. You have a different opinion, I am happy for you.

But I do find it amusing you are okay with people risking injury (eliminating the kickoffs won't change this) within an economic system that artificially limits the amount they can be compensated for such risk. But yeah, I am the one with an odd opinion. 

[swede700]

38 minutes ago, eagles101 said:

This has been circling for so long and i just have no idea how people think that it is even remotely logical. Rugby and football are a hundred percent different. The tackles are different because of how the game is played not because there are no pads. 

I was being a little facetious, but I'm not in favor of eliminating the kickoffs at all.  There's already enough dink and dunk football that creates a bunch of stoppages in play...eliminating the kickoff just puts more of a focus on it, so you may as well just eliminate the first 25 yards of one side of the field and start every drive on the goal line of the same side to create more intrigue...because if you take out the kickoff,  it makes the game almost as boring as watching a baseball game. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

6 minutes ago, youngosu said:

There is a pre-determined amount of commercial breaks during an NFL game. The only time they do what you are complaining about it when they need to make up for missing a previous break (say because you had a 10 minute drive or something similar). There is no fix for this. TV is gonna get its breaks. 

I get it.

It still sucks.

Make less money for all I care, it’s awful television.

 

[eagles101]

1 minute ago, disaacs said:

I was being a little facetious, but I'm not in favor of eliminating the kickoffs at all.  There's already enough dink and dunk football that creates a bunch of stoppages in play...eliminating the kickoff just puts more of a focus on it, so you may as well just eliminate the first 25 yards of one side of the field and start every drive on the goal line of the same side to create more intrigue...because if you take out the kickoff,  it makes the game almost as boring as watching a baseball game. 

That seems a bit extreme as the kickoff is a small part of the game. But i agree eliminating it is dumb. Its a dangerous sport and eliminating kickoffs doesnt really improve its safety. 

[swede700]

2 minutes ago, eagles101 said:

That seems a bit extreme as the kickoff is a small part of the game. But i agree eliminating it is dumb. Its a dangerous sport and eliminating kickoffs doesnt really improve its safety. 

It is a small part of the game, but it's an important part of the game, as starting within the 10-yd line or beyond the 30 yd line can have a huge impact on a drive.  If your always starting at the 20 or 25, that takes a lot of strategy out of a drive.  

[Calvert28]

5 hours ago, bucsfan333 said:

Do you mean making it (marginally) safer so parents don't stop their kids from playing football, reducing the amount of kids playing football through to college, ultimately slowly killing off the NFL?

God I love this type of justification. "We just want to improve it a little." Then they "improve" it a little more, and a little more. Then in 20, 40 years or so has the lowest viewest views out of any sports because its lost his violent and raw appeal we hear the geniuses talk (usually the people advocated and defended the first changes) about how they went too far with the new rules and restructuring and about how this is a cautionary tale.