There was one player that every football fan wanted to see what happened whenever this player touched the ball...Devin Hester... Thank God he was in the NFL before the rule changes. Wherever you were watching a Bears game, the whole place would come to dead silence as Hester was waiting for the ball to descend into his arms.

The kickoff used to be one of the most exciting parts of the game, especially when Devin Hester was on the field. The NFL ruined the earning potential for return specialists and took away some of the most exciting moments when a kick returner gets leveled, or defies the odds and takes it to the house.

The NFL keeps focusing on what is “the most dangerous tackle” so that they can ban it…. But drawing that to its logical endpoint necessarily implies that tackling will eventually be removed altogether

Leave the kicking team runners where they’re at, but move the kicker and the ball back 5-10 yards. More balls won’t reach the end zone so more returns will happen. But the rushers are still in the same place with no running start so less injuries

A replacement for the fair catch.... Look to the Canadian Football League's "no yards" rule. The kicking team has to stay back from the receiving player at least 5 yards until he catches the ball. Once he catches it he's fair game. That forces a return and prevents the receiving player from blindly getting hit.

I honestly think the removal of “big hits” is leading to more twisting and extremity injuries as defenders get creative with bringing people down.

"I need to feed my family, well me too...BAM!" lol

Wait until they try to stop the “hip drop tackle” that will be a nightmare to officiate.

What about something like a 4th and 15 or 20 from your own 20-30 yard line and you punt it away? Punt returns are generally more exciting than kickoff returns. Way fewer injuries in punt returns than kickoff returns. And there’s a built-in “onside kick” option by trotting the offense instead and trying to convert a first down. Also throw in that you always could have a fake punt at any time (like surprise onside kicks).

NFL ruined football in general

Xfl system is way more of football then what we have now

I suspect there will be an avalanch of new "protect the QB rules no matter what" because of all the QB injuries.

Nothing more exciting than a 99 yard kickoff return! What makes football even more exciting to watch! Bring it back ❤

Leave the fair catch, but have teams get it on the 20 if they opt for that. So if a team really wants to skip the return, they can, but if they go for, there's a real chance they'll get better field position.

Easy fix: make it a penalty to kick the ball out of the back of the end zone. Treat it like a kick out of bounds. (Both Rugby codes have rules similar to that, so there’s precedent.)

Put the kickoff team on the receiving teams 40 yard line, keep kicker where they are currently. Once receiving teams player catches ball, it goes live.

I'd like to see the kick off neutral zone reduced to 5 yards. I think it increases the odds of a successful onside kick back to what it was before the eliminated the run up and still allows us to take away the run up. I know that doesn't address the return problem, but there is another problem with the kickoff right now in that top few onside kicks are recovered.

Ive seen a few reports that injuries have actually increased to equal to before the major rule changes. I actually believe more injuries are likely because people arent at full speed. We’re seeing a ton of muscle,ligament and tendon injuries on top of a noticeable decrease in the quality of play. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing LBs and safeties having to sit still while passes are complete due to the rule changes.

Make the kickoff like the xfl where your 10 yards apart no one moves until the guy catching the ball catches it

Put it back to how it used to be.

The XFL fixed this problem last year 🤷

if they ruined it then why not return it to a state before it was ruined is that to easy or something or too obvious

Would be interesting to move the kicker and kicking team even closer, maybe midfield, so there’s less collision, but make it a penalty if the kick goes out of the end zone, similar to the penalty of kicking OB. This forces the kicker to control the kick distance, and would likely result in more returns.

Put the touchback to the 20

Thank goodness. I've been saying this since the implementation of this rule. Basically it's a wasted play on every game. I think they should move the kickoff back further give the receiving team more time and a chance to set up a blocking scheme by stretching the kickoff to slow down the gunners. I don't know. Just some ideas.

If you ruin something with a new rule the easy way to fix the problem is 1. repeal the new rule, 2. return to the old rule. And don’t forget the “Mistake” so you don’t repeat.

" I need to feed my family...me too. Bang!" Lol

It's stuff like this why I continue to wear my Colts #1 jersey with pride. Love how smart Pat is.

I'm still in favor of some variant of the Schiano Proposal of turning the kickoff into a 4th& long play, giving the kicking team the option of punting straight up or running an actual offensive play in lieu of an onside kick. That being said, I believe at some point in the next ten years coordinators will realize the effectiveness of squib kicks and the meta game will shift away from deep kicks altogether, making most of these arguments moot.

The Schiano Proposal, I really like: replace kickoffs with 4th-and-15. Punts/punt returns are safer, more interesting and more like regular football than kickoffs.

20.5% of kicks being returned? In the games I see it's a minor miracle that a return happens at all! I'd say < 10% are actually returned.

BRING BACK THE KICKOFF RETURNS

This may be a hot take, but why do we care about players getting injured? Every time we make a change that reduces injuries, it makes the game less exciting. When are people going to acknowledge that there's no way to improve football without also making it more dangerous.

Revert touch backs to only balls landing in the end zone. Require the kicking team declare an on sides kick in order to gain possession of the ball if they recover/touch it first. If on sides is not declared treat the kick as a punt where the kicking team can down the ball where they touch it if the receiving team has not touched it. This eliminates the excessive touch backs while also providing some strategy of weather the returner waives off the catch.

Sacrificing the quality of the sport for the sake of player safety. Unfortunately too many former players have made their money and fame by selling their futures away, then proceeded to turn on the league and claim it didn't do enough to keep these men safe.

What if they were forced to return the first kickoff of both halves?

Make the kickoff and return teams 6 players each instead of 11. Half the chance of injury and a higher chance of a big run back. Easy. I'll take my million dollars now Pat.

As a non American with a background in brutal ball sports, what ruins it is the over excessive celebrations, celebrations when you're behind with no chance of winning and celebrating for making a tackle...like dude it's your fkn job don't celebrate like you just won a UFC belt

Move kicker back to 20 yard line. Kicking beyond back of end zone brings ball to 50, not 20. Move kicking team up to position anywhere they want. But they cannot move feet until ball lands. Receiving team ‘designated receivers’ can move anywhere while ball is in air. Other receiving team players cannot move until ball lands. No fair catch. Once ball lands, anyone can get it. Receivers have advantage since they can move while ball is in air and catch it. Kicking team can only touch ball with hands after it bounces once. Receiving team can catch it. If during a trial period there are too many return touchdowns, change a touchdown on return to be worth only 3 points. Benefits: 1. Reduced injuries from high speed collisions. 2. More return action (fewer dead kicks) 3. Strategy involved on where to position players. Where to kick it. 4. Longer returns, more scoring. 5. Still small opportunity for kicking team to recover ball.

Going back to the old rule would be a phenomenal start Lol 😂

I like the idea of giving the kicking team a 4th and long. Most kickoffs will be a punt, there'll be a decent number of returns without too many injuries, and teams will choose to go for the first down instead of kicking late on in close games. Plenty of scope for entertainment

The fix is the "XFL kickoff"

Punt play, with the punter at a seperate distance. Have the blockers and gunners down by the returner and they all line up 10 yards apart, with the returner behind the blockers. They all move once the returner catches the ball. If the ball hits the ground or goes into the endzone, touchback and set at 20 yardline.

Allow kickoffs to go out of bounds. But only off the bounce. And move the kickoff tee back 5 yards. You get a coffin corner element so kicker skill has to improve. That element forces everyone on the field to slow down so you have less high impact collisions. The play remains exciting and becomes much safer. Keep the fair catch so if the kick is just THAT good people don't have to return and risk injury.

If the ball lands inbounds and bounces out of bounds it should not be a penalty and the ball will be placed where it went out of bounds. This will encourage the kicking team to kick a returnable ball to one side of the field and will encourage the receiving team to catch it and return it.

They need to address the on side kick rules as well. They've almost totally killed it.

The kicking team can't go inside the 25 unless the ball is mishandled. If the kicking team has to stop at the 25 that can't go full speed.

Talking about street ball when we used to throw the ftball straight up and whoever caught it was toast lmao

We need to keep the “foot” in football. Otherwise the name of the sport should change.

The CFL's No Yard Rule so a 5 yard protection area or a 15 yard penalty

Easy fix: if kicker kicks it through the uprights on a kickoff, team gets a point. Or if that is too drastic a change, make it that a kick through the uprights means the other team starts at the 15 instead of the 25....every fan will watch every kickoff to see if kicker can make the long distance kick. Picture fans cheering Justin Tucker's 82% kickoff field goal rate

Keep pushing!

The fix is to adopt the XFL kickoff rules. They are obviously safer, more exciting, and increase the importance of special teams and kickers in particular. EDIT: So NFL teams practice kickoffs using what is essentially an XFL kickoff because it's good for player safety. Seems self-justifying. But the XFL kickoff isn't just a drill with guys placed down the field, it also is a modification of the kickoff rules themselves to force a return every time, instead of 1/5 kickoffs seeing any return at all. You're gonna have to pick between an egregiously dangerous play, something that is a ceremonial non-play 80+% of the time, or something that resembles a kickoff in no way whatsoever. How are you OK with a scrum, but not a safer version of an actual kickoff, especially when the kickoff includes an actual return every time?

Have the kicker kickoff from the 25. The rest of the team lines up at the 50. The kicking team can't move until the ball is fielded. If the ball is fair caught in the end zone, it comes out to the 25.

Thats crazy, making Hester being out of the HoF even more shameful

-No tackles/blocks on players without the ball on kick off both offense & Defence. (reduce qty of collisions) -Receiving players can be anywhere between endzone and 40 (more targets to dodge for defence slowing speed of collision) -if kicker kicks out of bounds on the full play starts on 50 if it bounces out the play starts where ball went out (incentives for good kicks and catching) -kicking team players start on 50. (reduce the gap and speed of impact)

As silly as it may sound - one thing that would make kicks more interesting is if the refs threw less flags. Seems like well over half of them there is a block in the back or holding call that negates whatever happens. Some of them are warranted, some less so. All I know is it seems pointless to return a kick regardless because the odds are its not going to count.

Give the kicking team the ball on the 30 or 35 in a 4th&10 or 4th&15 scenario. In most situations the team will punt, which is a lot safer since the blockers all start from scrimmage. If a team really wants to steal a possession (where they would normally onside kick) they can just trot out the offense and go for the 4th down conversion. Jon Bois made a video on this years ago, I think it's called 'kickoffs are stupid and bad' or something similar

"I need to feed my family!" "Me too, brother! BOOM!

The NFL should adopt the CFL's 5 yard halo rule.

Kicking team can choose what yard line from their own endzone to the 50 to kick from, their whole team lines up from there. The receiving teams endzone becomes a sideline, if the kick goes out of bounds it's placed at the 50. There's an incentive to keep the ball in play, room for teams to figure out how to get advantages.

How would this stop Polamalu from lining up in the C-gap?

The Shiano rule proposal is still the best one .

Move the kicker back to allow for a return but move all players to the center of the field. Set it up like the tip-off at a BB game. Each player would saddle up next to his counterpart. Now you have a defender able to slow the progress of the kickoff team right from the start which would eliminate the head-on collisions at max speed.

We need the Schiano rule. In lieu of kickoffs, kicking team offense gets the ball at 4th and 15 at the 25. USFL rule except there is no choice to kickoff or onside

The idea of "safety" being the main reason for the Kickoff rule is erroneous on all accounts. It's not safe to hit a guy on a Kick-Off that has a bigger head start and more time to prepare for a hit. But on a Punt Return, it's okay for defenders to sit and wait right on top of the returner and rock him while he's looking up at the ball as he catches it like a sitting duck. The idea of safety for the kick off rule is really stupid when you consider how much more violent the hits can be on a punt return when defenders making those hits don't have to give the ball carrier any space at all before he catches it. The rule literally makes zero sense when punt returns are way more dangerous.

The receiving team must touch/catch the ball in the end zone for the ball to come out to the 25, if the ball is not touched it goes to the 20.

Just model it after the XFL kickoff method. That brought it back and it was exciting to see.

They should just change the rule in the nfl that if a player gets past you you have to stop the pursuit because you might accidentally do the hip drop tackle.

It’s almost like NFL is scripted or something

Make the kick return, punts instead 1. No fair catches 2. Special teams will set up as a punt (like on a safety) but at the 50 yard line 3. If ball goes into the end zone the return team gets the ball at the 30 yard line. 4. If ball is outside the end zone you must return it

Change endzone kicking to starting at 40 to penalize teams for playing it safe. Remove fair catch. Either the punt retuner catches the ball and returns it or, allows it to hit the ground. Where it is recovered by the kicking team or it goes out of bounds where the receiving team will start based off that.

They ruined the pocket passer by letting qbs slide for safety. If a qb runs he should get the same treatment as a rb. No more slides

I dont remember players getting hurt on kickoffs and kickoffs were the most exciting part of the game. Anything could happen . Ravens got to and won their 1st Superbowl because of Kick off tds.

You gotta push the kick off 10-15 yards back to where there can still be touchbacks in situations but also more space between players so even if kicked 4-5 yds deep in end zone a returner might still just wanna try it

They need to fix every form of the kicking game. So rare to see onside kicks or kickoff tds anymore. Same w block punts and block fg those are the plays that change the game especially at the end.

I hate this argument that refs aren’t full time so they care less. Refs are paid $12,000 a game. They don’t need to be full time cuz the part time they work makes them 1%ers. And they are wrong so often. I’d love to get paid $12,000 to call a game incorrectly

I heard the perfect suggestion the other day. It came from a random guy on the internet but trust me it’s a good one. You start with the ball at the 1 yard line. Then, a corndog is crammed up a dudes cornhole and five hungry Rottweilers chase after the corndog. Team begins their possession at the spot where the dog got the corndog.

They also ruined Catching... Tackling... Referees... Celebrations... Journalism... Spongebob... Offense... Defense... Taxpayers... You get the point.

Set it up 8v8 on the LOS. Must be 10 yard neutral zone between the two lines. Returner and 2 free blockers, kicker and 2 gunners. It's a great big punt.

NFL will be flag football by 2025. The L in flag is silent btw

Reward the kicker if the kick is projected to land within 8 yards of the end zone. The receiver could take the risk and allow the ball to bounce into the endzone for a touchback, but its a live ball if it doesn’t reach the end zone. The receiver would NOT be able to call fair catch within the 8 yard zone. Any kick 9 yards or more away from the end zone could be called for a fair catch. Any kick that is 20 yards from the end zone (excluding onside) is automatically dead. These cold / hot zones should help with player safety. The deep kick allows receivers a couple of seconds to assess the field and make a judgment call to run. Shallow kicks in the NFL are a death sentence and I understand the concern. Shallow kicks are like MOABs for nuclear hits, especially when you have defenders willing to serve them up like funnel cakes at the game.

Just throwing this out, very little thought behind it, very specifically - the receiving team can't turn the ball over via backward laterals - only on the return, and only during the act of a backward lateral. So fumbles are still 100% unchanged, the ball would just be marked dead at the spot of the backward lateral. Edit: - marked dead if the backward lateral fails/ hits the ground. This would not protect say an interception style turn-over where the receiving team backward laterals to the opposing team.

Love It Pat ThePatMcAfeeShow Bro Let's Gooooooooo.

Pat slipped into a Madden mumble at 2:37. 🤣

My idea, if the ball is in the playable field (not touchdown areas) you can FC but the ball will be spotted at the 15 yard line. If it’s in the TD area then you can take the FC but for the 25 yard line. Incentives returns if playable and also stop kickers from booming it because then the spot is the 25 yard line.

Two things to do - the first is to move the kicking team forward 5 or 10 yards, leaving kicker where they are currently or moving back 5 yards. This will reduce the amount of "run up" time the kicking team has, you don't want them at break neck speed and allows for more blocking. Second thing to do is penalize the fair catch. If you opt for fair catch then regardless of where the fair catch happened place it on the 10, maybe 15 yard line. This de-incentivizes fair catches from the receiving team's point of view but may still see it occasionally.

Get rid of the 25 yard start for fair catch/touchback, allow the licking team to go for a 1 pt if they boot it through the uprights. If they make it they get 1 pt and the opposing team starts at the 20. If they miss, touchback, etc starts at the 30 yards line. Kicker legs are only getting stronger, make a system that rewards potentially both teams, while of course allowing for an actual kickoff return

Was just thinking about how much I missed kickoff returns the other day

Kick off at 30, touchback at 20, fair catch at 15, 8 players in the “box” for receiving team.

I think we need an untimed 4th down and 20 on the kicking team’s 25 yard line. Most of the time, you would get a punt that is likely returned. But instead of an onside kick, you could get a fake punt or choose to simply run a play to try to get the 20 yards.

Easy fix. Safe catch only available inside the 20 and you actually have to catch the ball for it to count. This way, the receiving player has to adjust to the ball and catch it creating a reasonable chance for a fumble. He also has to read the situation perfectly to get the most out of the play putting more emphasis on having a player specifically trained for that position. Game restarts from the spot of the catch. Encourage kicking inside the field of play. Any kickoff lands untouched directly outside the field of play, including through the end zone, or inside the field of play and bounces out the sidelines untouched, they start from the 40. Ball lands in the field of play and bounces out through the end zone untouched, they start from the 20. This way kickers have to really work for it to back the opposition and would stop them from booming kicks through the end zone.

Have a kicker snd a returner and then 1 blocker and 3 defensive players

Use the CFL rule must stay away 5 yards until the ball is touched gives the receiver a chance to return the ball without getting run over No yards penalties are called when a member of the kicking team is within a 5 yards of the receiving team's player when the ball is caught. This is one of the hardest rules to tell from a TV screen. The 5-yard distance is a 5 yard circle around the player. They recently changed this to be a 15-yard penalty

Remove kickoffs and replace them with, you start at the 20. If you scored a touch down, you start every drive the opponent scores at the 30. And so do they. Field goals mean you start five yards further. No kickoffs.

At this rate football will look more like a international soccer game

Every player on Kickoff return and coverage teams should have to be over 270 lbs. Having only offensive and defensive linemen on kickoffs will lead to more exciting and safe plays.

The suits said “take off the tank tops boy” and he said yes sir 😂

If you wanna make it more impactful make any kick that goes through the uprights it’s worth an extra point to be brought out to the 25 for the receiving team. Gives the play an impact plus changes aspects of the game going forward.

There’s a middle ground between starting at the 25 and handing out brain trauma like it’s skittles.