{"id":356416,"date":"2025-09-10T08:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T08:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/356416\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T08:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T08:45:10","slug":"nfls-kickoff-rule-change-leads-to-highest-return-rate-since-2010-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/356416\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL’s kickoff rule change leads to highest return rate since 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small tweak to the kickoff rule<\/a> led to a big increase in kickoff returns in the first week of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Teams returned 75.6% of kickoffs in Week 1 for the highest rate in any week since the 2010 season, the last time the kickoff spot was at the 30-yard line.<\/p>\n

The league moved kickoffs to the 35 the following season and the return rate dropped from 80% in 2010 to 53.4% in 2011 as kickers could easily reach the end zone for touchbacks.<\/p>\n

The return rate kept dropping and reached a record-low 21.8% in 2023, leading to the decision to adopt the so-called dynamic kickoff last season.<\/p>\n

The first year of the experiment led to a modest uptick in returns, with the rate rising to 32.8% last season, while reducing the rate of injuries on the play.<\/p>\n

The rule made kickoffs more like scrimmage plays by placing the coverage players and blockers close together to eliminate the high-speed collisions that had contributed to so many injuries on the play. The league said the rate of concussions dropped 43% on returns, with a significant reduction as well in lower-body injuries.<\/p>\n

By moving the touchback to the 35 this season, the league projected that the return rate will rise to somewhere between 60% and 70%, with a similar increase in long returns, adding more excitement to the game.<\/p>\n

It exceeded those goals in Week 1 with more than three-quarters of all kickoffs getting returned.<\/p>\n

The average drive start after a kickoff return was the 29.5 yard line in Week 1 compared to the 29 for all of last season, according to Sportradar. The bigger gap in starting position following the average of return compared to a touchback is leading to teams kicking the ball short of the end zone more often.<\/p>\n

Seven of the returns went for at least 40 yards, including a 71-yarder by Tennessee’s Chimere Dike that set up a field goal at the end of the first half for the Titans against Denver. There haven’t been more returns for at least 40 yards in a single week since there were nine in Week 13 of the 2015 season.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small tweak to the kickoff rule led to a big increase in kickoff returns in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[1954,1953,441,7,1956,226,1955,820,1917,255,88,2321,2097,6,1958,1959,9,1957,1951,1599,1952],"class_list":{"0":"post-356416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-cars","9":"tag-classifieds","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-homes","13":"tag-jets","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-local","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-jets","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkjets","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-radio","23":"tag-salt-lake","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-television","26":"tag-traffic","27":"tag-utah","28":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115179128361533996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}