CHIEFS CONSIDERING USING S JUSTIN REID INSTEAD OF K HARRISON BUTKER FOR KICKOFFS AS TEAMS COME TO TERMS WITH THE NEW NFL KICKOFF RULE
With just over three months left until the new season kicks off on Thursday Sept 5th at Arrowhead Stadium, NFL teams are still trying to wrap their heads around the new kickoff rule and what to expect when football rolls around in the fall.
Conversations with some of the best special teams coaches in the league during OTAs this week revealed how teams have been looking at the new kickoff rules, test driving ideas in practice and plenty of XFL study. The new rule is an adaptation of the XFL kickoff and is set for a one-year trial run in the league this season. Defending back-to-back champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, in particular, are contemplating an entirely different approach going into the season.
The team revealed on Thursday that they’ve considered not using 2019 scoring leader Harrison Butker for all kickoffs and instead using a player like safety Justin Reid due to the amount of tackling, on average, that kickers are expected to be involved in via the new kickoff format. Reid has been used for kickoffs and field goals in the past and played as the Chiefs’ emergency kicker a few years ago against the Arizona Cardinals when Butker had to exit the game due to an ankle injury.
“I like to have somebody that can go back, you know, is able to make a tackle. I mean, [Harrison] Butker is able to make a tackle but I really don’t want him making tackles all year long,” said Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub. “If you watch the XFL, we watched every play, I bet kickers were involved in probably at least 25-40% of the tackles. You know, either trying to make a guy bounce back, or making the tackle itself, or just missing the tackle. So, we don’t want Butker in that situation.”
Toub said, however, that they still intend to use Butker on specific situations including touchbacks or when they want to pin a team deep in their own territory. “But he [Butker] will be a kicker,” said Toub. “He’ll be a guy that we’ll use in certain situations. He’s got a lot of ability to move the ball whereas those other guys may not be as up to doing that, [so] we’ll use him.”
“He can still kick a touchback if we need it. You know, you’re just giving up the ball. If you do kick a touchback out the back of the end zone, now they’re getting it at the 30 [yard-line] instead of the 25, so that five yards makes a big difference. I mean, that’s another 3% chance you’re giving the offense against you to score.”
The new kickoff essentially makes the kicker the last line of defence if the returner gets past the initial wall, making tackling a skill that’s important for the kicker to have. Seventh year safety Justin Reid is one of the more physical defensive backs in the NFL and could be more reliable and efficient in tackling in terms of both technique and durability than Butker.
“Justin can cover, he could kick, which he can do,” said Toub. “And he can go in there and make tackles. He’s [also] an extra guy that they’re probably not accounting for. I mean, they know that that guy [Butker] can go down there and tackle but a guy like Justin is a guy that they have to worry about. You have to get him blocked. And you have to give up blocking somebody else, so that’s the whole thought of that.”
Reid is a huge fan of the Chiefs’ plans for the kickoff and excitedly showed up at the White House briefing room during the defending champions’ Super Bowl visit to the White House on Friday and started answering questions. Asked about his plans for the upcoming season, Reid buttoned up his shirt and jokingly said, “There’s this great new kickoff rule that’s really going to allow me to shine. So, I’m excited about that.”
Toub also went on to elaborate how the new rule eliminates “hang time” which is the amount of time the ball is in the air after being kicked and the time the kicking team has to get to the returner to minimize return yards. The new rule limits the kicking team to only being able to move after the returner handles the ball, which has caused the Chiefs to pivot and instead focus on kicking accuracy, which is important as kicking the ball out of bounds or short of the landing zone gives the receiving team the ball back at the 40-yard line.
Cleveland Browns special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone said on Thursday that they intend to let their kickers practice with some of the team’s defensive backs to learn tackling technique.
“I think you’re going have to, I would say, spend more time with the kickers on true tackling technique,” said Ventrone. “We’ve actually talked to the defensive secondary coaches about getting with our guys on some of the drills that they do. So, I think that you’re going have to anticipate that those guys will have to make a few more tackles.”
Last year’s no.1 AFC seed, the Baltimore Ravens are maximizing their practice reps of the new kickoff to get a feel of what the play is going to be like once the regular season starts. Ravens special teams coordinator Chris Horton said during Week 1 of OTAs last week that the good thing about the play is that it took away a lot of “the running” which allows the team to have a lot more reps of the play.
“We’re figuring out some new things, obviously with the kickoff and kickoff return, and then we’re trying to really just evaluate our players,” said Horton. “I use this time as a lot of skills and drills to set the foundation so when we move further down the line we can do a few more things.”
“The more reps we can get of the play, the more understanding we get of how we’re going to build this thing and kind of how we’re going to put it together… We’ve seen videos from the XFL and we understand what that looks like but we actually have to get out here and we’ve got to practice it ourselves, to kind of see what those angles look like, and see what we can run and we can’t run.”
Horton also said there’s a chance the team uses more of its bigger and physical players like the outside linebackers to cover the kickoff since there’s not as much running in the play anymore.
“I think the guys [that] originally you wouldn’t probably put out there because of the long speed running, that stuff is kind of dead now,” said Horton. “It’s a little bit closer. Really when you think about it that’s almost a defense and offense play, right? They’re within five yards of each other.”
“So, I could see us using more of a lot of our bigger outside linebackers on this phase. Because they’re good with hand-to-hand combat, they’re physical players. So, again, we’re going to experiment with all these different things as we move forward this offseason.”
The new kickoff is one of the biggest mysteries going into the NFL this season and it’s going to be interesting to see how teams adapt and adjust as the league tries to figure out a kickoff that is both safe for the players and more entertaining to the fans. NFL owners will either vote on keeping the rule or changing it at the end of the season depending on its 2024 success.
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: Theonewhoknowsnothingatall. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.