Everything to know about NFL's hybrid kickoff rule change - ESPN

ORLANDO, Fla. — Rich McKay joined the NFL's competition committee 29 years ago and is the longest-tenured member in its history. As he took a moment to reflect Tuesday, he could think of only one other rule change that matched the significance of the kickoff overhaul that owners passed that morning by a vote of 29-3.

«And that was replay,» McKay said of the decision to bring back replay review in 1998, marking the permanent infusion of technology into determining the outcome of games. Otherwise, the changes to the kickoff — a fundamental and aesthetic redesign that the NFL hopes will more than double the return rate while dropping the injury rate — is as big as it gets.

«This is going to be brand new to everybody,» said New Orleans Saints special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, who worked closely with the committee on the redesign. «But the big thing is we feel we've made this play extremely relevant and, more importantly, a lot safer.»

ESPN has been chronicling this kickoff approach since the XFL developed it in 2020 and noted the NFL's growing interest last summer. Here's what you need to know about the version the NFL adopted Tuesday for a one-year experiment, based on three days of reporting at the annual league meeting.

The building block of this approach is to line up the majority of players downfield before the kick rather than have them run there while the ball is in the air. That shift should reduce the number of high-speed collisions that cause injuries. The kicker will continue to kick off from his 35-yard line, but the remaining 10 members of the kicking team will line up at the receiving team's 40-yard line. At least nine members of the return team will be between their 35- and 30-yard lines in what's called