ORLANDO — As of midday Monday at the NFL‘s Annual League Meeting, owners remained open to the idea of dramatically changing the kickoff.
What there remains very little appetite for at this time?
Changing the onside kick, which has basically been written out of the game due to player health and safety-inspired changes.
NFL Opposition to Onside Kick Change Remains
The Philadelphia Eagles‘ proposal to swap out the onside kick with an untimed 4th-and-20 offensive play failed to receive the necessary 24 votes Monday, meaning it’ll be another NFL season of failed recovery attempts and failed last-minute comebacks.
Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL Competition Committee, remains in favor of eventually changing the current system to a more competitive play. But he acknowledged Monday that this isn’t the appropriate time, given owners are considering a separate, complete overhaul to the current kickoff format.
“I’ve always been more in favor of an alternative,” McKay said. “I think that once we took away the running start on the kickoff, the opportunity to recover is very difficult. That said, you know, I’ve lost a game on losing an onside kick. So that isn’t great either.
“Thirteen percent [success rate] is where we’d like to get to. Why? Just because that’s kind of our historical number. We’re at 5% this year. I think for us, at least for me, I’ll speak for me, I’m for considering the alternative onside kick proposal.
“There was a lot to do to get the kickoff proposal passed this year. I’m for that for next year and the discussion as opposed to this year. And in this year’s proposal, the traditional onside kick remains in the fourth quarter. You elect it. We line up just like we do. Now, we run the onside kick just like we do now, felt like that was less changed and it helps us when we do that thing called vote counting.”
Strong Resistance To 4th-and-20 Onside Kick
McKay remains optimistic that another year of 95% failed recoveries could change some minds.
But resistance is stronger than he might understand.
Darren Rizzi, the New Orleans Saints special teams coordinator who helped write the NFL’s kickoff overhaul proposal, is so dead-set against the 4th-and-20 play that he would be against his own plan if it was ever combined with the Eagles’ pitch.
And he makes a pretty convincing argument.
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“When you run an onside kick, there’s no penalty that the kickoff return team can have that would give the kickoff team the ball,” Rizzi said. “On 4th-and-20, you could have an illegal contact, a holding, a hands-to-the-face. These automatic first-down penalties are really, in my opinion, what kind of hurts the play.
“And you expose the quarterback, because a quarterback now on 4th-and-20 is not going to get rid of the ball. He’s gonna hold on to it. You can’t slide, you can’t throw it away.”
Rizzi added: “I can’t speak for everybody. I can speak for the special teams coaches and the guys that have a hand in game management. They aren’t big fans of it.”
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