Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay is still wrapping his head around the NFL’s new kickoff rule. 
“It just feels weird,” McVay said Sunday after a joint practice with the L.A. Chargers, via Pro Football Talk’s Myles Simmons. “It doesn’t look like anything that has been anything I’ve been familiar with football.”
The new kickoff debuted during the Hall of Fame game between the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans on Aug. 1. It looked bizarre, to say the least.
Expect it to take time for fans, coaches and players to get used to the new kickoff, which is slightly more complicated than the old one.
Under the new rule, the kicking team lines up at the opposing 40-yard line with the return team’s blockers five yards away. The ball is kicked off at the 35-yard line into the “landing zone,” an area between the goal line and the 20-yard line. Players can’t move until the ball is caught or hits the ground.
Any kick outside the landing zone results in the ball being placed at the 40-yard line, like a kick out of bounds. Kicks that land in or outside the end zone are a touchback spotted at the 30-yard line. Kicks that land in the landing zone and roll into the end zone are moved to the 20-yard line.
While McVay doesn’t seem to love the rule change, he understands its purpose. The new kickoff is supposed to increase the number of returns. According to the league’s website, a record-low 22% of kickoffs were returned in 2023.
“I know the intent is right. We’ll try to figure it out. I know everybody that’s been involved in that has their intentions in the right place, but it’s a very foreign-looking play,” McVay said. “However we feel about it, we have to be able to adjust and make sure that we adapt, and it can be something that’s an advantage to us.”
Time will tell whether the new kickoff revolutionizes the game or becomes an odd experiment that fails.
