GOOD NEWS: Sean McDermott, head coach of the Buffalo Bills, said………
Tuesday morning’s decision by league owners approved a major modification to the kickoff regulation, implementing a low-impact kickoff modeled after one that was previously employed by the XFL.
The rule amendment was approved by 29 of the 32 NFL teams.
The league thinks that by changing the rules, there will be more returned kickoffs and fewer injuries.
At the NFL owners meetings, Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott told SiriusXM, “The two hot areas that we need to address are some of the injury data that’s coming off of the play, and then two is: this needs to be a real play.” “That’s how the game was made a long time ago, and we’ve kept that form and structure in our own game.”
There will be no running starts for players on the kicking team. Five players must be on each side of the ball, with two players needed to be outside the numbers and two between them and the hash.
A “setup zone” is the area between the 30- and 35-yard lines on the receiving side, where at least nine players from the receiving team will line up. As returners, two players will line up downfield.
Until the ball touches down inside the receiving team’s 20-yard line, which is known as the “landing zone,” players from the kickoff team are not allowed to move. The receiving team will receive the ball on their own 40-yard line, as if it had been kicked out of bounds, if the ball is unable to cross the 20. Any kick that goes out of bounds or into the end zone results in a touchback to the thirty, and any kick that lands inside the landing zone needs to be downed or recovered by the receiving yard to result in a touchback to the twenty-yard line.
