Three teams voted against the new kickoff proposal: – Green Bay Packers – Las Vegas Raiders – San Francisco 49ers The new approved proposal is for one year only. They’ll revisit everything next year to see the results.

21 comments

1. And the odd Packers-Raiders connection continues…

2. I wonder why. I would’ve thought with the Nixon renewal we would be supporting the renewal of some sort of kickoff.

3. So confused by this.  I was certain the reason we signed Nixon to the deal we did was to bank on this rule.  Frankly though, it seems like with this rule, his price probably would have gone up in the FA market. 

4. So what’s being proposed?

5. This year will be strange Jacobs and Henry both over 2k yards, Nixon breaking KO TD record, etc.

6. Maybe the Packers aren’t looking at a rule change and how it pertains to a single player. Maybe they were thinking more long term than that.

7. Having watched the XFL, it’s a good concept. I feel like there’s more chance for yards and scoring.

8. Probably says more about our kicker than our return man

9. We have the premier ST Coordinator in the league. I would like to hear RB’s take.

10. Green Bay was like… change? no thanks

11. This seems like an advantage for a Pro Bowl kick returner. Why would they vote against?

12. I don’t like the change. It takes the fun and excitement away.

13. So the new kickoff rule, players line up closer to the returner but can’t move as early? Is that correct?

14. I feel like we always vote against changes to the game?

15. Interesting as to why we were against this I figured we’d be for it considering Nixon is arguably the best kick returner in the league.

16. Makes the Nixon contract even more head scratching. Seriously-what the fuck were we thinking? With the old kickoff rules Nixon is legitimately a liability back there with how many kicks he takes out from deep in the end zone only to get tackled well before the 25 (or has a decent return called back to before the 25 by penalty)

17. After a down year of scoring the nfl is pulling out all the stops this offseason

18. Still happy anytime I get to see the 49ers lose at something

19. If anyone has watched our team the last 20 years, you know that a touch back nerf is bad for us.

20. My speculation: Maybe the Packers were opposed to the rule change because they found a formula for kick return unit that turned it into one of the best in the league under the *old* rule. How the new rule impacts the kick retun unit may be unclear to the front office. So they are going from a known good formula to an unknown.

    On the opposite end, the Packers kick return coverage unit was, maybe average? The new rule may make the kick return coverage unit more vulnerable since more return opportunities are likely and requires better precision from the kicker, which Carlson seemed to struggle with.

21. While this rule might be great for Nixon, are we sure we can say it’s great for our consistently mediocre STs coverage unit in general lol?