NFL OWNERS APPROVE NEW KICKOFF PROPOSAL, UNANIMOUSLY BAN THE SWIVEL HIP-DROP TACKLE, PUSH BACK TRADE DEADLINE AT NFL ANNUAL MEETING
NFL Owners have approved a massive revamp of the kickoff play for the 2024 season, opting for a new format that originated from the XFL, the league confirmed on Tuesday.
The new format, which was proposed by the NFL Competition Committee last week, prohibits the fair catch and its signal as the league aims at increasing returns from last year’s dull kickoff affair, which saw zero kickoff returns from 13 opportunities in the Super Bowl. A fair catch or signal will be blown dead.
The rule change aligns both teams closer together, with the 10 players on the kicking team lined up at the receiving team’s 40-yard line and at least 9 players on the opposing team lining up in a “set up zone” between the 35- and 30-yard lines, resembling a typical scrimmage play. The league aims at reducing run-up space and speed in play, which NFL owners believe translates into fewer injuries.
Up to two returners can line up in a “landing zone” between the goal line and the 20-yard line.
Per the new rule, the 10 players on the kicking team cannot move until the ball hits the ground or the player in the landing zone/end zone, similar to all the players on the receiving team. The new rule also mandates that kicks that hit in the landing zone (between the goal line and the 20-yard line) must be returned while kicks that hit before the landing zone will be a touchback to the 40-yard line, as if it went out of bounds.
The new rule also allows the Replay Official to automatically review whether a free kick legally touched the ground or a receiving team player in the landing zone.
Kicks that hit the landing zone and roll into the end zone must be returned or downed by the receiving team. If not, it will be a touchback and will be downed at the 20. Kicks that land in the end zone or go out the back of the end zone, however, will be a touchback to the 30-yard line.
A key aspect of the new kickoff rule is that it eliminates the surprise onside kick with teams needing to declare their intention to do an onside kick during the game if they want to attempt it. The league’s current onside kickoff rules would still apply, however.
The new kickoff rule change is the eighth kickoff rule change in NFL history. The first kickoff rule change was made in 1994 when the kickoff yard line was moved from the 35 to the 30-yard line to increase kickoff returns. It was moved back to the 35 in 2011. The league has made four changes to the kickoff in the past 6 years dating back to the elimination of wedge blocks and creation of set-up zones in 2018, to elimination of blindside blocks in 2019, and last year’s fair catch to the 25-yard line.
Three teams voted against the new kickoff proposal including the Green Bay Packers, Las Vegas Raiders, and San Francisco 49ers. The new approved proposal is for one year only and the league will revisit it again next season to review the results.
Another significant rule change was made at the NFL Annual Meeting on Monday when owners unanimously agreed to ban the swivel hip drop tackle, despite opposition from the NFLPA. The NFL Competition Committee had proposed to ban the play last week, a proposal which the players association had expressly said that they were in opposition of.
According to the NFL, there were 230 hip drop tackles across the league in 2023 that would have been penalized under the new rules. Of all those 230 plays, 15 players got injured and missed time going forward, which is an unusually high incidence of injury from just one play.
Some of the players that were injured via the hip drop tackle include Ravens TE Mark Andrews, former Cowboys RB Tony Pollard, former Titans QB Ryan Tannehill, and Seahawks QB Geno Smith.
NFL Competition Committee Chairman Rich McKay said officials will be told they can call penalties for swivel hip-drop tackles but must see all three elements in order to flag it: grabbing/wrapping the runner with both hands; unweighting as a defender; and landing on/trapping the opponents’ legs below the knee. He also said, however, that a caveat for officials is that there’s no way to get practice reps officiating the play since it doesn’t happen in practice.
New York Giants President and CEO John Mara spoke to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo about the changes the owners made on Monday about the hip drop tackle. “I think it certainly will [help player safety moving forward],” said Mara. “It was a tactic that we had to get out of the game. The injuries were too severe and there were too many of them.”
While most of the players who responded to the news about the rule change on social media were largely unhappy with it, former Raiders’ and recently Browns’ running back Kenyan Drake was glad that it’s not going to be a legal play in the league anymore. Drake recounted his devastating right ankle injury from December 2021 against the Washington Football Team which cut short his playing time in Las Vegas. The former Alabama running back ended up being released by the team the following summer.
“I don’t care about popular opinion,” wrote Drake, quoting a post from 2021 in which he advocated for the league to ban or penalize the swivel hip-drop tackle. “I lost my right ankle and a quarter of the 2021 season to this type of tackle. Something had to give and I’m glad it’s not anybody’s legs or ankles anymore.”
Speaking about the unhappiness of the defensive players with the rule change, Mara said: “In my experience being on the [NFL] Competition Committee, the players have never been happy with a lot of the safety-inspired rule changes. They always feel like it always makes the defensive players’ jobs that much tougher – and it does – but at the end of the day, it’s going to protect guys from injuries and it’s just a tactic that we had to get out there.”
“These players are the greatest athletes in the world. Every time there is a rule change, they adapt, they figure out how to tackle the ball carrier without the horse caller, without the helmet to helmet. Now they’re going to have to do it without the hip-drop maneuver.”
NFL Competition Committee Chairman Rich McKay also told reporters on Monday that the league will also apply replay assist to correct mistaken or inaccurate calls on the field, including first-down or third-down yardage/calls, intentional grounding calls, roughing the passer calls, and clock irregularities.
Amongst other rule changes at the NFL’s Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh’s proposal for the trade deadline to be pushed back a week to the Tuesday after Week 9 was also approved. This means that this year’s trade deadline will be Nov. 5th.
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.