As football fans were riding the highs of triumphant victories or weathering the lows of an early season loss, President Donald Trump criticized a recent NFL rule change.
“The NFL has to get rid of that ridiculous looking new Kickoff Rule,” he wrote Sept. 15 on Truth Social. “How can they make such a big and sweeping change so easily and quickly. It’s at least as dangerous as the ‘normal’ kickoff, and looks like hell. The ball is moving, and the players are not, the exact opposite of what football is all about. ‘Sissy’ football is bad for America, and bad for the NFL!”
His post misleads about the recent rule adjustment’s dangers — 2024 season data showed it made the game safer.
Trump was talking about the “dynamic kickoff,” a rule introduced ahead of the 2024 season. The change has kickers line up at the 35-yard line, and the rest of the team line up along the receiving team’s 40-yard line. Only the kicker and returners can move before the ball hits the ground or a returning team member touches it inside the 20-yard line. In 2024, kicks that went beyond the end zone were ruled touchbacks and went to the 30-yard line. This year, the league tweaked the rule so that teams receive the ball on the 35-yard line in that situation.
Breaking News
The NFL arrived at the rule change after years of review and experimentation as it sought to balance keeping the game entertaining and improving player safety.
Early evidence shows that this season’s change boosted the return rate to its highest point since 2010. Nearly 77% of kickoffs were returned in the first two weeks of play this season, The Washington Post reported.
Before, players on opposing teams ran toward each other at high speeds and collisions often caused significant injuries. With players starting closer together, they collide at lower speeds.
Trump has previously denied the severity of brain injuries. In 2016, he criticized the NFL’s concussion protocols. In 2020, he described traumatic brain injuries U.S. service members sustained during a missile strike as “headaches” that he didn’t consider to be “very serious injuries” compared with people who lost limbs.
Here are three data points that shed light on the NFL’s change:
#1: Concussions decreased 17% after the 2024 rule change
In February, the NFL released data showing a 17% decrease in concussions during the 2024 season compared with the 2023 season.
“The new Dynamic Kickoff rule worked as intended,” the league reported. “Returns increased 57% in the regular season and there were 7 kickoffs returned for touchdowns, the most since 2021. The new rule slowed the average player speeds, as intended, which led to a lower concussion rate (down 43% vs. 2021-2023).”
During the 2015 to 2017 seasons, an NFL injury data review showed that while only 6% of plays were kickoffs, they represented 12% of concussions.
“Data suggested that players had approximately four times the risk of concussion on the kickoff compared to running or passing plays,” the NFL said.
A player who experiences one concussion becomes more vulnerable to future concussions, exercise physiology professor Melissa Anderson told Ohio Today.
#2: Researchers found nearly 92% of former NFL players they’d studied had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
In 2023, researchers at Boston University’s CTE Center said 345 out of 376 former NFL players’ brains — nearly 92% of the study subjects — had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a rare, degenerative brain condition likely caused by repeated head injuries such as concussions.
For comparison, when Boston University researchers studied 164 people from the general population who’d donated their brains to the Framingham Heart Study in 2018, it found only one with diagnosable CTE. The person was a former college football player, the university said.
CTE is incurable and can be diagnosed only after death. It can affect a person’s memory, thought processes, mood and personality and motor functions.
Boston University’s research could overstate the prevalence of CTE among NFL players because people might be more likely to donate their brains for research if they suspect they have CTE.
But the NFL and the sports medicine community have acknowledged that player safety is a significant concern. CTE was discovered in the early 2000s after the deaths of former NFL players. In December 2009, the NFL first acknowledged that concussions have long-term effects and introduced stricter rules about when players could return to play after concussion symptoms.
A 2019 study looking at injuries in high school sports found that football has the highest concussion rate of 20 sports evaluated, including soccer, basketball and baseball.
From 2015 to 2024, the NFL has reported 2,210 concussions — including those sustained during practices, preseason games and regular season games. There are about 1,700 NFL players during a regular season — 53 players for each of the league’s 32 teams.
#3: In 2013, the NFL settled a concussion-related lawsuit for $765 million.
After more than 4,500 former players sued the NFL, in 2013 the league agreed to compensate retired players for concussion-related brain injuries, pay for medical care and fund research.
The league denied wrongdoing, but the settlement followed decades of heightened scrutiny on NFL concussions, the league’s knowledge of concussion risks and NFL head injury protocols.
In 1994, the league created a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee, seemingly in response to high-profile incidents. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, for example, took a knee to the head during a 1994 championship game and later told his agent he had no memory of playing in the game. Merrill Hoge, a Chicago Bears player, retired in 1994 because of the dangers of continuing to play after several concussions, including one that left him unable to recognize his wife and brother.
And for retired players, receiving the NFL’s settlement-promised payouts has been far from straightforward and, at times, mired in racism.
By Madison Czopek, PolitiFact staff writer. PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.