Tweaks to kickoffs make them safer
NEW YORK — It is so far, so good on what amounts to the NFL’s last-ditch attempt to avoid future consideration of removing the kickoff from the league entirely.
Six weeks into a season for which the NFL made significant modifications to kickoffs in an effort to make the play safer, league leaders say their early data about the number of concussions suffered by players on kickoffs has been promising. That is significant, given that the final injury numbers for the 2018 season likely will determine whether potential alternatives to the kickoff are contemplated in the offseason.
“The video is showing us something,” said Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. “And we’re hoping that the medical data actually marries with what we’ve been seeing on video.”
The league said at this week’s owners’ meeting in New York that there were zero concussions suffered by players on kickoffs during this year’s preseason games — three fewer than during the 2017 preseason.
The NFL will not release its injury data for the regular season until after the season concludes. But Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, the chair of the league’s competition committee, said this week the preliminary indication is that the reduction of concussions on kickoffs has continued into the early stages of the regular season.
“But,” McKay added, “I think it’s way too early to draw any conclusion from it.”
Even so, McKay said he is cautiously optimistic that the changes made to the kickoff this season will enable it to remain in the game.
“One thing we have really tried to do is keep working with the framers, the way they framed the game, and then make adjustments, as opposed to saying we’re going to start over,” McKay said. “So I think the kickoff’s been a part of our game. Special teams have been an integral part of our game. And we need to keep them in the game if we can.
“I think what was concerning to us is we’ve made a lot of tweaks with that play over the years. And we have moved the (injury) numbers a little bit, we truly have, the right direction, but not far enough. So I think it was time to see if we could really make a change. And I think we have. We can tweak what we’ve changed if we need to... I am optimistic.”
The NFL brought special teams coaches from teams around the league to the May safety meeting to provide input.
“I give the coaches (credit),” McKay said this week. “When we got together in May, we put in our competition committee report a paragraph in there that said, ‘Hey, we need to work on this play ... We just don’t know what the future of this play is.’ And they brought a lot of good ideas.”
The changes were designed to make the kickoff more like a punt, with blockers turning and running downfield alongside prospective tacklers rather than meeting them head-on in jarring collisions. Members of the kicking team were prohibited from getting a running start before the kick. A noblocking zone between the two teams was instituted. All forms of “wedge” blocking, with multiple players lining up shoulder to shoulder, were banned. The hope was that teams would use smaller, swifter players on kickoffs.
“The stationary start is one thing,” McKay said. “But they’re enabled to get up to full speed because they’re getting a full run because we also made it that you couldn’t block in that one zone. So they’re no longer fearful of getting ear-holed if they’re running off the start. So they’re running. But the players are different. It’s space and it’s speed and it’s size. And we definitely made the players on this play smaller. Therefore the impacts are different. And we’re seeing it.”