Possible rules change to Kick-offs. Thoughts?

[texaspackerbacker]

Also accurate hahahahaha.

NFL games are the supply; WE the fans are the demand. It's up to them to please us, The players are merely skilled labor - some more skilled than others hahahaha. However, you're probably right, most people would keep watching even if they do this safety stupidity - just like most players would play even if they don't do the safety shit. All WE will do is complain about the stupid crap.

This really isn't that big a deal. It's a mini-step in the wrong direction IMO, but not like if they got rid of tackling and made if flag football instead.

[Frozen Tundra]

So they're trying to spice it up, which is good, but man, the detailed knowledge required to even comprehend what's going on is going to cost the NFL at some point.

Yeah. Opening weekend. At least one fan base will be ready to riot by the end of the first set of games.

[MadtownPacker]

This is lame. Diluting the product, and the product is the fight between teams on the field doesn’t sit well with me. For those complaining about the safety of players. I don’t get paid millions or even hundreds of thousands for work. Unlike Bobble and Tex most of us aren’t big money ballers.

The game I play also involves risk and I can get hurt too. My job doesn’t change because of it. The same applies to all of you most likely. AntiPolarBear could get burned really bad flipping your burger. Do we just microwave the hamburger so he is safe? The loss of quality and enjoyment would be tremendous. These mofos can alway work a regular job and still find themselves physically wrecked at old age. Ask welders or someone who works at a sheet metal place. Food manufacturing plants have sharp shit alll over. Occupational hazard is basically what watch.

When the price of tickets keeps going up and the physical action goes down we are getting ripped off. Yes there should be measures to stay safe like equipment upgrades but game flow should remain untouched.

[Frozen Tundra]

When the price of tickets keeps going up and the physical action goes down we are getting ripped off. Yes there should be measures to stay safe like equipment upgrades but game flow should remain untouched.

100%. I'm not paying this much money every year to watch flag football. Kick returns are one of the most exciting parts of the game; it can turn the momentum of the game around in a matter of seconds, more than any other play short of an interception or home-run touchdown pass or breakaway run.

Take that one off the table and you're taking a lot of the excitement out of it, for both the fans and the players. Look at the 1996 Super Bowl, where Desmond Howard took the momentum back from the Patriots in the 3rd quarter with that TD return, slamming the door in New Enlgand's face. Would that game have been anywhere near as exciting without that return? Or even have turned out the same way?

Or Nixon's return against the Niners this year? One of the best moments of that game, to that point. It was a huge part of that game.

Matt Lafleur has said a number of times this past season that our offense goes onto the field fired up and ready to rock and roll every time Nixon returns a kick; he says the whole team is excited and amped up whenever he catches the ball, because they want to watch him run it back. And when they run out onto the field afterward, they're totally pumped because of what he just did to try to put his teammates into the best possible field position. He has said that it's a huge inspiration for the whole team, that he just hurls himself headfirst into that wall of tacklers running straight at him at full speed. He thinks it's an invaluable way to start out every possession.

The NFL needs to stop pussyfying football in its never-ending quest to keep profitiziing it.

Is that even a word?

Either one of them, for that matter?

[texaspackerbacker]

If you want them to be words, they're words hahahahaha. Good Post.

Boss (Madtown), it looks like you took a few days off from us all here and are back now. Good.

You've got little ol' me lumped in with bobblehead as being a "big money baller"? I wish. I'm just a cheap old guy living off my pension and my wife's income as a burger flipping assistant manager.

[sharpe1027]

I'm not bitching about safety, I'm bitching about people that complain every damn time there's a change for safety. If you believed all the complaints, you'd be certain the game was boring as hell and nobody watched anymore. Funny how there's plenty of fans still interested despite all the whining from the old dudes about pussification.

Kick returns are boring as hell today. They're not going to make it worse because it's the worst part of the game. I'd rather they just got rid of them all together.

[Fritz]

Sexist old guy here to suggest they put sex back in the NFL. Bring back the lingerie league so each NFL team drafts a parallel women’s lingerie league roster. Then use them for the kickoff, with current rules. Safe, but not boring!

[Frozen Tundra]

Sexist old guy here to suggest they put sex back in the NFL. Bring back the lingerie league so each NFL team drafts a parallel women’s lingerie league roster. Then use them for the kickoff, with current rules. Safe, but not boring!

Well, when it comes to rule changes, and player safety, it's a complicated issue and needs to very carefully considered. To begin with, I thi....

Wait a minute. I'm sorry, did you say something about sex? And lingerie?

I'm sorry I interrupted you. Please keep talking.

[Ratatouille]

I'm a fan of kickoffs and punts as these plays can in an instant change the momentum of the game. Both have some of the highest injury risk for plays in the game but all plays have risk and I doubt the game can ever be made entirely safe. I convinced the NFL would prefer to eliminate kickoffs entirely (with punts to follow) but would make it more unwatchable.

These are just the rule changes made to formation and kickoff spot in the SB era. You can see a complete list of all kickoff changes at the following link.

https://www.footballzebras.com/2018/...rules-changes/

Formation
2006 A minimum of 4 kicking team players must be on both sides of the ball

2009 Kicking team must have on each side of the ball at least 3 players outside the hashmarks including 1 outside the numbers

2011 Kicking team players must be no more than 5 yards behind the ball

2018 Kicking team players must be no more than 1 yard behind the ball and no prekick motion

2018 Kicking team players must have 5 on either side of the ball, at least 2 between hashmarks and numbers, at least 2 outside numbers

2018 Receiving team must have 8 players within the “setup zone” (15-yd zone between 10-25 yards from the ball)

2018 Receiving team cannot exit the setup zone on either side until the ball touches the ground or a player

2021 Receiving team is permitted to have a 9th player in the setup zone at their option

Kickoff Spot
1974 35-yard line

1994 30-yard line (17 seasons)

2008 Kickoff must be made at the restraining line, removing an option to place anywhere behind

2011 35-yard line (33 seasons total, as of 2023)

[Fritz]

Well, when it comes to rule changes, and player safety, it's a complicated issue and needs to very carefully considered. To begin with, I thi....

Wait a minute. I'm sorry, did you say something about sex? And lingerie?

I'm sorry I interrupted you. Please keep talking.

I'd watch her watch the football sailing through the end zone for a touchback.

I'd watch her make a fair catch.

I'd watch her make an unfair catch.

Yeah, I'd watch the kickoffs.

[MadtownPacker]

Sexist old guy here to suggest they put sex back in the NFL. Bring back the lingerie league so each NFL team drafts a parallel women’s lingerie league roster. Then use them for the kickoff, with current rules. Safe, but not boring!

This is actually a great idea. Except use it to replace cheerleaders. Then we can see them during the game and they bounce around a bit.

[MadtownPacker]

I'd watch her watch the football sailing through the end zone for a touchback.

I'd watch her make a fair catch.

I'd watch her make an unfair catch.

Yeah, I'd watch the kickoffs.

that red mark on her arm is from a creep like you trying to grab her.

[Fritz]

I’m the toothless old skeez sitting at the end of the bar, cackling at the barmaid and leering at the girls in the bar forty years younger than me.

A true sexy dude.

But if I was grabbing her, the arms are not the body part I’d be thinking of.

[red]

seems like a whole hell of a lot of new rules, just to make the game lamer

refs already don't know the rules we already have

just put the flags on the players already and call it soccer