NFL has a point, scoring is indeed down

The NFL meetings in Orlando this past week were dominated by two topics — the new kickoff rules that ultimately passed, and the hipdrop tackle that got banned.

But another topic quietly generated concern.

“The only issue that we’ve raised a little bit is scoring, because scoring has trended itself down,” said Rich McKay, Falcons CEO and chairman of the league’s competition committee. “We get nervous when you start going down.”

The 2023 season was the second in a row in which leaguewide scoring was below the NFL’s preferred threshold of 45 points per game. NFL games averaged 43.5 points in 2023 and 43.8 in 2022, down from 46.0 in 2021 and a record 49.6 in 2020.

It’s a worrisome trend for a league that constantly gooses the rules in favor of the offense. Only four seasons in the past 15 years have produced fewer than 44 points per game: 2009, 2017, 2022, and 2023.

“Let’s not act like it’s a huge move, but it is one that we are paying attention to,” McKay said “We certainly want to be above 43.”

McKay and the competition committee presented a few theories in meetings with owners and coaches. The first is that more quarterbacks are playing than ever before, partly because of injuries, and partly because of performance.

Excluding the 1987 season, in which replacement players were used, the

NFL the last two years set a record for number of starting quarterbacks, with 68 in 2022 and 66 in 2023. The 2023 season also saw a record 10 rookies QBs start at least one game.

And the stats aren’t skewed by brief appearances — 60 quarterbacks started multiple games in 2022, and 55 did in 2023. The 2020 season, which broke several scoring and offensive records, had only 46 quarterbacks start multiple games.

Significant injuries to Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins, Kyler Murray (recovering from an ACL tear), Deshaun Watson, Daniel Jones, and Anthony Richardson put a damper on the 2023 season.

“Well, if you don’t have your starting quarterback out there, you’re not going to score as many points,” said Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon, a defensive play-caller.

McKay also presented stats revealing a schematic shift across the league: Defenses played a two-high-safety defense 36 percent of the time in 2022 and 38 percent in 2023, up from 30 percent in 2019.

“It has been a big development over the last handful of years,” said Rams coach Sean McVay, an offensive playcaller. “‘Let’s put a roof over the coverage, try to keep things in front of you.’ ”

McKay presented stats showing that the two-high-safety defense forces more short passes, which cuts down on explosive plays, and forces quarterbacks to hold the ball longer, which increases QB hits and sacks. The trend toward two-high-safety may also explain why the safety market was stagnant in free agency, as teams don’t need to spend as much on safeties who only cover half of the field.

Kyle Shanahan, coach of the 49ers, also an offensive play-caller, said defenses are less aggressive and taking fewer chances.

Over the last 20 years, the 2021-23 seasons represent three of the bottom five for blitz pass attempts per game.

“It’s a little bit more, ‘Bend but don’t break,’ ” Shanahan said. “There’s so many different ways that offenses can attack defenses now that I think guys can’t take as much risk, with all the jet sweeps and so many different formations and motions. I think it’s tougher, so guys play a little bit more conservative, which to me, in the long run, leads to less scoring.”

Conservative defenses are creating conservative offenses. The leaguewide completion percentage of 64.5 and 64.2 the last two years rank in the top five all time. But the yards per attempt of 7.02 and 7.03 mark a decrease of about 3 percent from the previous decade.

“I think it’s become a passing league, but it’s also become a completion league — the volume of completions, maybe being extensions of the run game,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said. “A lot of times with the high completion-type of offense, the clock is running.”

The two-high-safety defense doesn’t just make it tougher to generate big passes. It makes it easier for defenses to disguise their coverages.

O’Connell brought the two-high-safety defense to Minnesota in 2022 after being part of a Rams team that utilized that scheme in its 2021 Super Bowl season.

“I wanted to run that defense in Minnesota, because that original intent was to find ways to deceptively cause the quarterback to really play postsnap, to try to figure out what the coverage is, but also the ability to put a roof over everything and not allow the ball to be thrown over your head,” O’Connell said.

McKay is hopeful that the league’s two big rule changes for 2024 will increase scoring. The new kickoff rules are projected to improve starting field position from the 25.2-yard line to the 28- or 29-yard line. And 15-yard penalties for hip-drop tackles also should boost offense.

“Us defensive guys always laugh,” Gannon said. “You guys make the rules, and we’ll adapt and shut you out.”

KICKING THINGS OFF Rules should increase returns

It took two days of arm twisting, but competition committee chairman Rich McKay and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell got enough owner votes to pass the new kickoff rules, which aim to reduce injuries and increase the number of returns. The rules passed, 29-3, with the Packers, 49ers, and Raiders voting against. The rules passed on a one-year trial basis, with the NFL reserving the right to make modifications this season.

“I think we’re still going to have to tinker with it,” Goodell said. “And if it’s appropriate to make changes in the future, we will.”

A few thoughts:

■ The rules passed after one revision: A touchback on a kickoff that reaches the end zone on the fly will be placed on the 30-yard line, not the 35.

While it seems minor, those 5 yards make a big difference. The NFL projected that a touchback on the 35 would have created a return rate of 80-90 percent, while a touchback on the 30 projects to a 50-60 percent return rate.

That’s a huge improvement from the 2023 return rate of 22 percent, but the modification waters down the intent of creating more returns. A touchback on the 30 isn’t that much of a deterrent to kickers just banging the ball out of the end zone.

Still, the NFL had 1,970 touchbacks and 92 fair catches in 2023, meaning there could be around 1,000 more kickoff returns in 2024.

■ I’m surprised the NFL didn’t do anything to mitigate a disadvantage for the receiving team.

For background: The 19 players aligned in the “setup zone” (10 on the kicking team, nine on the receiving team) can’t move until the ball is caught or hits the ground in the landing zone.

The 10 players on the kicking team are looking right at the ball and kick returner. But the nine blockers on the receiving team have their backs to the action, meaning they will have to react off their opponent’s movement, or have to turn their heads, watch the ball hit, then turn around and attack their man. Either way, the kicking team gets the first-mover advantage, which can be significant when the players are only lined up 5-10 yards apart.

I thought maybe there would be an official’s signal that both teams could see at the same time, but that’s not the case.

“Obviously, the kickoff team has a little bit of an advantage,” said Saints special teams coach Darren Rizzi, who helped craft the new play. “In talking with the coaches, I think it’s going to be one of those things that they work maybe a couple different ways in camp and kind of see what the best is.”

■ One tactic that has been eliminated is the surprise onside kick, as teams can only attempt one if trailing in the fourth quarter. Though it’s an exciting play that the Saints made iconic in their Super Bowl win 15 years ago, the NFL only had two surprise onside kicks in 2023.

■ Another tactic that is now more difficult to execute is the late-game squib kick designed to run clock and keep the ball away from dangerous returners. Under the new rules, any kickoff that lands short of the 20-yard line gets blown dead and the ball placed on the 40.

■ If the ball gets blown off the kicking tee, gone are the days of a teammate holding the ball with his finger. On windy days, the kicker can use a kicking stick.

■ Teams probably will practice kickoffs at closer to full speed, since highspeed collisions should be eliminated.

“When we have joint practices, one of the things we’ve never wanted to do with other teams is practice kickoff and kick return because of the player-safety issues,” Rizzi said. “We think now, because we’ve really eliminated a lot of the safety concerns with the play, that we’ll be able.”

ETC. Onside kick could be next

While the NFL hopes it fixed the kickoff returns, Rich McKay still wants to do something about onside kicks. Constant tinkering of rules over the past decade has rendered the onside kick nearly impossible to recover, with teams going 2 for 41 in 2023 and 3 for 56 in 2022.

That’s a 5 percent success rate that is far lower than the 13 percent rate the league targets.

One rule that didn’t pass at this past week’s meeting was the Eagles’ proposal to give teams a fourth-and-20 play from scrimmage as an alternative to the onside kick, an idea that has been floated several times in recent years. McKay hopes momentum will build to implement the fourth-and-20 alternative next year.

“There was a lot to do to get the kickoff proposal passed this year, so I’m for that next year,” McKay said. “There’s no question that, I call them the traditionalists, they don’t like that discussion very much. But I do think there’s something to discuss there. Because we’ll have another year of onside kick data, which I bet you shows us we’re not recovering very many.”

High-value draft

Tuesday morning at the owners’ meetings, I asked Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell if his team has the appetite to trade up in the draft, i.e. will it try to package picks 11 and 23 to get a topfour pick to draft a quarterback.

While O’Connell said having the two first-round picks gives the Vikings flexibility, he went out of his way to state that first-rounders in this draft are more valuable because this is a strong year for premium positions such as quarterback, wide receiver, and offensive tackle.

“I do think there is value in two firstround picks not only in the same draft, but in this draft — at least the way I’m evaluating the draft,” O’Connell said. “We feel like the people are going to be looking at two first-round picks in this draft as something that may be of greater value than maybe your standard one first-rounder in a year and however many that takes to go ahead and trade like what needs to happen to get up there.”

O’Connell’s point is valid, but it also sounds like he is sending a message to the Patriots and Cardinals that two first-rounders in this year’s draft should be enough for the No. 3 or 4 pick. In 2021, the 49ers traded three first-round picks to the Dolphins to move up from No. 12 to 3, but two of those firstrounders came in future drafts, which makes them less valuable (in the NFL, a first-rounder next year is generally worth a second-rounder this year, and so on).

Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said the team would consider trading No. 3 if it got “a bag,” which most likely means three first-round picks. O’Connell sounds like he’s trying to persuade Mayo that a first-rounder this year is equal to two in the future.

Assist on the call

The NFL has steadfastly avoided using a “sky judge” to call penalties, but it has introduced the concept of “replay assist” to get certain calls right. For the first time, the NFL in 2024 is going to use replay assist to correct penalties such as intentional grounding or horsecollar tackles using “specific, objective aspects of a play when clear and obvious video evidence is present,” per the NFL’s new rule. The NFL also vows to be more transparent about when it uses replay assist.

“We used to say, ‘After discussion, it was determined there was no intentional grounding,’ ” McKay told “The Rich Eisen Show.” “You’re going to change this year. When the replay assistant actually does say something or impact the referee, the referee is going to say, ‘After consultation with the replay assistant, the flag is picked up.’ Our idea was to be very clear and very transparent on what is impacting the call and why.”

Extra points

Those clunky-looking Guardian Caps that all trench players have worn on top of their helmets during training camp were so effective — reducing concussions by 50 percent, per the NFL — that the league is going to require everyone but quarterbacks, kickers, and punters to wear them during training camp this year. However, the NFL is also introducing eight position-specific helmets — it already has them for offensive and defensive linemen, tight ends, and quarterbacks — and players can opt out of the Guardian Caps if they wear the position-specific helmets. The NFL says these helmets are lighter and as protective, or more so, than the helmet-plus-Guardian Cap . . . Another rule that was quietly passed — coaches will get a third challenge during games as long as they get one of their first two correct. Previously, they only got a third challenge if they went 2 for 2 . . . Not every hip-drop tackle was banned, only those in which the defender “unweights himself,” i.e. takes himself off his feet. “What you may think are the drag from behind, that’s still a tackle,” McKay said. “This is only that tackle where the player is lifting themselves in the air, and then falling on the leg.” . . . Rams coach Sean McVay on signing Jimmy Garoppolo to be Matthew Stafford’s backup: “He’s a guy that’s been kicking our ass for years.” Garoppolo, who signed a one-year deal with $3.04 million fully guaranteed, went 8-1 against the Rams as the 49ers’ starter, though his one loss was in the NFC Championship game . . . Everyone saw 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw suffer a noncontact torn Achilles’ as he was running onto the field at the Super Bowl. But defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks also tore his Achilles’ while celebrating an interception. When asked if he has any theories, coach Kyle Shanahan said, “Nothing I want to get into. It’s frustrating,” per NBC Sports Bay Area. One theory is that the spongy UNLV practice field that the 49ers were concerned about all week contributed to the injuries.