Take a Knee or Take a Risk
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Take a Knee or Take a Risk
by net.com Mon Aug 08, 2011 6:05 am
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to be an N.F.L. kick returner, to peer toward the sky, hoping to catch a wobbling ball, while thousands of pounds of opponents thunder toward you. It is going to take more — maybe much more — this season.
The new rule that moves the kickoff to the 35-yard line from the 30 nearly ensures that even average-strength kickers will now routinely sail kickoffs so deep into the end zone that only the most audacious, or maybe capricious, returner would think to take them out.
Last year, 16.4 percent of kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The N.F.L. estimates that number could rise to 30 percent, but special-teams coaches say at least 40 percent of kickoffs will end with the returner taking a knee in the end zone. Some kickers gleefully speculate that early in the season, when good weather helps the ball fly farther, about 50 percent of kickoffs could wind up as touchbacks.
But it is agreed that with such limited time to practice kickoffs under the new rules because of the lockout, the preseason games that begin this week will give coaches and players their only opportunities to judge how to manage the new rule.
Some coaches will surely prefer the certainty of starting a drive on the 20, rather than allowing their returner to risk a return from deep in the end zone. If that caution proves widespread, it could spell the slow death of the kick return.
Leon Washington of the Seattle Seahawks would seem to make the perfect test case for the new rule. He had three returns for touchdowns last season, and he aims to make sure the boom-or-bust glory of the kickoff return is not entirely lost.
“I feel like we get past the 20-yard line no matter what,” Washington said last week. “We’re going to do business as usual.”
That might work for Washington, whose straight-ahead running style would seem to give him an advantage when he returns from out of the end zone over players who run side to side. But for the rest of the league, the kickoff return is changing.
Mike Westhoff, the Jets’ special-teams coach, whose kickoff and return teams are among the best in the league, said that when he had returner Brad Smith last year, he lined him up near the goal line and gave him orders to return anything in the end zone. Now, with Smith gone to Buffalo and the new rules in place, Westhoff does not seem so sure. He may put his returner up to 6 yards deep in the end zone and as long as the kick does not push him back, allow him to take it out. Westhoff has rarely put his lead blockers inside the 10, but this season, he said, he could put them at the 2 to allow for returns from deep in the end zone.
But even Westhoff cannot imagine letting his returner take the ball out from the back of the end zone — a starting point that is possible against some strong-legged opponents or in good weather.
“Early, you’ll see people run them out from 8 or 9 deep,” Westhoff said. “Leon Washington wants to run the ball. It’s a mind-set. That could end up being catastrophic. They could tackle you at the 14.”
So goodbye to the kickoff specialist, and perhaps hello to more surprise onside kicks because the kicking team could end up with better field position. The rule was changed for one reason: the occasional big kickoff return is one of the most thrilling plays in football, but the hundreds of returns are also among the most dangerous plays in the game. In addition to moving the kickoff 5 yards forward, the rule was also changed to allow the coverage unit just a 5-yard running start rather than 10 or 15. Two years ago, when owners voted to eliminate the three-, four- and five-man wedges on returns, the league said there were seven injuries for every 100 kick plays compared with five injuries for every 100 regular plays.
Because of the speed of coverage units running down to cover the kickoff, the injuries can be devastating. The Buffalo Bills’ Kevin Everett has made a remarkable recovery from a severe spinal-cord injury he sustained covering a kickoff in 2007. Last year, Rutgers player Eric LeGrand was paralyzed while covering a kickoff, an injury that shook Coach Greg Schiano so deeply that he has become a proponent of eliminating kickoffs in college football and replacing them with a modified punt. Schiano’s proposal, which he first outlined to The Star-Ledger of Newark, would give the “kicking” team the option to run an offensive play from fourth-and-15 on its own 30 or to punt from that position.
Abolishing the kickoff seems too radical right now for the N.F.L., which usually makes incremental rules changes after long study and deliberation. Even when teams voted in March to change the kickoff rules, they set aside a proposal to eliminate the two-man wedge.
But the Philadelphia Eagles’ special-teams coach Bobby April said Schiano’s idea was “awesome.”
“I loved it,” he said. “The punts are totally different than two units coming at each other like Spartans and Trojans running at each other.”
April also said he liked an idea by his boss, Andy Reid, not to allow blockers on the coverage team to go past a certain yard line, making those blocks stationary rather than moving at high speed, which would almost certainly diminish the ferocity of the collision. Still, in an indication of the divide between theory and reality, April admitted that he did not like the change to move the kickoff line.
“It’s a beautiful part of the game,” he said.
April said he was not sure how he would approach the new rule yet. In the past, if the Eagles had given up a 5-yard penalty and the opponent was kicking off from the 35, April’s rule was not to let his returner take the ball out if it was in the end zone. Now he figures the shorter running start for coverage teams will give returners a few more seconds to make their moves. Like most everyone else, he is convinced returners will grow antsy to return a kick, particularly when bad weather late in the season is likely to hold the ball up.
“You can only sit back there and catch the ball and kneel down so many times before you say, ‘Forget it, we’ve been practicing all this time, let’s see what we can do,’ ” Giants kick returner D. J. Ware said.
Not surprisingly, kickers are unabashed fans of the new rule. Jay Feely of the Arizona Cardinals said he thought that older kickers, who generally lose some distance with the years, would retain more value as free agents because there would be less of a premium placed on kickers who could boom the ball into the end zone.
Still, Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes said that teams with good coverage units might kick the ball high to try to pin an opponent well inside the 20. That seems like an especially sound strategy at New Meadowlands Stadium, where the wind, even in good weather, makes kicking treacherous. Last year, in the 16 Giants and Jets home games played there, there were just nine touchbacks in 149 kickoffs (6 percent), according to Elias.
Tynes said he wondered if touchbacks would skyrocket so much that the league would abandon the rule change after only one year. That would not be unprecedented. In 1994, the N.F.L. moved the kickoff line back to the 30 from the 35 to generate more returns.
Denver’s Invesco Field, where the thin air helped turn 50 of 93 kickoffs (53.7 percent) into touchbacks, may not produce a single kickoff return this season, April said. That could give the N.F.L. its clearest glimpse at the balance between safe and stultifying.
“In Denver, it’s going to be a joke,” Tynes said. “They’ll have to put the net up. Do you even work on kickoffs when you play there?”
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The new rule that moves the kickoff to the 35-yard line from the 30 nearly ensures that even average-strength kickers will now routinely sail kickoffs so deep into the end zone that only the most audacious, or maybe capricious, returner would think to take them out.
Last year, 16.4 percent of kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The N.F.L. estimates that number could rise to 30 percent, but special-teams coaches say at least 40 percent of kickoffs will end with the returner taking a knee in the end zone. Some kickers gleefully speculate that early in the season, when good weather helps the ball fly farther, about 50 percent of kickoffs could wind up as touchbacks.
But it is agreed that with such limited time to practice kickoffs under the new rules because of the lockout, the preseason games that begin this week will give coaches and players their only opportunities to judge how to manage the new rule.
Some coaches will surely prefer the certainty of starting a drive on the 20, rather than allowing their returner to risk a return from deep in the end zone. If that caution proves widespread, it could spell the slow death of the kick return.
Leon Washington of the Seattle Seahawks would seem to make the perfect test case for the new rule. He had three returns for touchdowns last season, and he aims to make sure the boom-or-bust glory of the kickoff return is not entirely lost.
“I feel like we get past the 20-yard line no matter what,” Washington said last week. “We’re going to do business as usual.”
That might work for Washington, whose straight-ahead running style would seem to give him an advantage when he returns from out of the end zone over players who run side to side. But for the rest of the league, the kickoff return is changing.
Mike Westhoff, the Jets’ special-teams coach, whose kickoff and return teams are among the best in the league, said that when he had returner Brad Smith last year, he lined him up near the goal line and gave him orders to return anything in the end zone. Now, with Smith gone to Buffalo and the new rules in place, Westhoff does not seem so sure. He may put his returner up to 6 yards deep in the end zone and as long as the kick does not push him back, allow him to take it out. Westhoff has rarely put his lead blockers inside the 10, but this season, he said, he could put them at the 2 to allow for returns from deep in the end zone.
But even Westhoff cannot imagine letting his returner take the ball out from the back of the end zone — a starting point that is possible against some strong-legged opponents or in good weather.
“Early, you’ll see people run them out from 8 or 9 deep,” Westhoff said. “Leon Washington wants to run the ball. It’s a mind-set. That could end up being catastrophic. They could tackle you at the 14.”
So goodbye to the kickoff specialist, and perhaps hello to more surprise onside kicks because the kicking team could end up with better field position. The rule was changed for one reason: the occasional big kickoff return is one of the most thrilling plays in football, but the hundreds of returns are also among the most dangerous plays in the game. In addition to moving the kickoff 5 yards forward, the rule was also changed to allow the coverage unit just a 5-yard running start rather than 10 or 15. Two years ago, when owners voted to eliminate the three-, four- and five-man wedges on returns, the league said there were seven injuries for every 100 kick plays compared with five injuries for every 100 regular plays.
Because of the speed of coverage units running down to cover the kickoff, the injuries can be devastating. The Buffalo Bills’ Kevin Everett has made a remarkable recovery from a severe spinal-cord injury he sustained covering a kickoff in 2007. Last year, Rutgers player Eric LeGrand was paralyzed while covering a kickoff, an injury that shook Coach Greg Schiano so deeply that he has become a proponent of eliminating kickoffs in college football and replacing them with a modified punt. Schiano’s proposal, which he first outlined to The Star-Ledger of Newark, would give the “kicking” team the option to run an offensive play from fourth-and-15 on its own 30 or to punt from that position.
Abolishing the kickoff seems too radical right now for the N.F.L., which usually makes incremental rules changes after long study and deliberation. Even when teams voted in March to change the kickoff rules, they set aside a proposal to eliminate the two-man wedge.
But the Philadelphia Eagles’ special-teams coach Bobby April said Schiano’s idea was “awesome.”
“I loved it,” he said. “The punts are totally different than two units coming at each other like Spartans and Trojans running at each other.”
April also said he liked an idea by his boss, Andy Reid, not to allow blockers on the coverage team to go past a certain yard line, making those blocks stationary rather than moving at high speed, which would almost certainly diminish the ferocity of the collision. Still, in an indication of the divide between theory and reality, April admitted that he did not like the change to move the kickoff line.
“It’s a beautiful part of the game,” he said.
April said he was not sure how he would approach the new rule yet. In the past, if the Eagles had given up a 5-yard penalty and the opponent was kicking off from the 35, April’s rule was not to let his returner take the ball out if it was in the end zone. Now he figures the shorter running start for coverage teams will give returners a few more seconds to make their moves. Like most everyone else, he is convinced returners will grow antsy to return a kick, particularly when bad weather late in the season is likely to hold the ball up.
“You can only sit back there and catch the ball and kneel down so many times before you say, ‘Forget it, we’ve been practicing all this time, let’s see what we can do,’ ” Giants kick returner D. J. Ware said.
Not surprisingly, kickers are unabashed fans of the new rule. Jay Feely of the Arizona Cardinals said he thought that older kickers, who generally lose some distance with the years, would retain more value as free agents because there would be less of a premium placed on kickers who could boom the ball into the end zone.
Still, Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes said that teams with good coverage units might kick the ball high to try to pin an opponent well inside the 20. That seems like an especially sound strategy at New Meadowlands Stadium, where the wind, even in good weather, makes kicking treacherous. Last year, in the 16 Giants and Jets home games played there, there were just nine touchbacks in 149 kickoffs (6 percent), according to Elias.
Tynes said he wondered if touchbacks would skyrocket so much that the league would abandon the rule change after only one year. That would not be unprecedented. In 1994, the N.F.L. moved the kickoff line back to the 30 from the 35 to generate more returns.
Denver’s Invesco Field, where the thin air helped turn 50 of 93 kickoffs (53.7 percent) into touchbacks, may not produce a single kickoff return this season, April said. That could give the N.F.L. its clearest glimpse at the balance between safe and stultifying.
“In Denver, it’s going to be a joke,” Tynes said. “They’ll have to put the net up. Do you even work on kickoffs when you play there?”
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