The NFL wants to implement changes to the punt after making plenty of changes to the kickoff
by Sean Wagner-McGough @seanjwagner
It's not just kickoffs that are in a period of change in today's NFL. After enacting a number of rule changes in recent years to make the kickoff safer, the NFL will now focus on the punt as it aims to decrease injuries and penalties, league officials told ESPN on Tuesday. Changes could be coming as soon as next season.
According to ESPN's Kevin Seifert, the league will "crowdsource ideas from the analytics community" as "part of the 1st and Future project, an innovation competition that culminates in a Feb. 2 presentation in Atlanta, site of Super Bowl LIII." However, the league did not promise to use any of the ideas brought to them.
So why is the NFL planning on changing the punt? NFL executive vice president of health and safety initiatives Jeff Miller said that punts cause twice as many concussions than normal plays. Meanwhile, penalties most frequently occur during punts, Seifert reported, which is easy to believe after seeing holding and illegal-block-in-the-back penalties get flagged on what seems like every other punt -- if not more.
"We know our fans are not big fans of every play ending in a penalty, and that's one thing we definitely want to look at," Rich McKay, the head of the competition committee, said.
None of this should come as a huge surprise after all of the rules we've seen the NFL modify in an attempt to make the kickoff less dangerous. The NFL decreased the number of kickoff returns by moving the kickoff from the 30 to the 35-yard line in addition to moving the touchback from the 20 to the 25-yard line. More recently, they eliminated wedge blocking techniques by the return team and running starts for the kicking team.
Punts appear to be the NFL's next target. While complaints will undoubtedly be made whenever the NFL does make changes to the punt, it's easy to understand why the NFL is trying to make a special teams play safer and less likely to end in a penalty. Hopefully, the changes won't prohibit the Devin Hesters and Johnny Hekkers of the NFL from making the kind of plays that can make the punt exciting, but even if that happens and the end result is a safer sport, it'll be tough to criticize the league for doing so.
Many critics have bemoaned the changes made to the kickoff in recent years, but those changes have hardly impacted the quality of football in today's NFL while the league says injuries have been reduced to the point where the kickoff won't have to be eliminated entirely, which was mentioned as a possible outcome as recently as March. Next up? The punt.
Originally Posted by Stinger:
I do. Have you seen the field position we get when punters try and punt away from him. He affects the play even though he may not be directly involved.
We can score from anywhere. I just don't want our most important weapon on the most dangerous play of the game. And while our drive start won't be quite as good, I trust Toub to put a player out that would get us at least decent field position regardless.
I mean, even before Hill Toub was getting good to great production out of his punt returners so it's not like our drive starts will suffer greatly from him getting pulled off. Posted via Mobile Device [Reply]
Originally Posted by Stinger:
I do. Have you seen the field position we get when punters try and punt away from him. He affects the play even though he may not be directly involved.
OAK zinged one oob last week, It was very short. [Reply]
The interesting part of this is that the injuries most often occur on kickoffs and punts, probably because those are the plays where the most players reach their highest speeds. Unfortunately, those are also the most exciting plays for that reason, and they're often also the longest plays.
So if the goal is to lower the speeds of players, then whatever they do is going to increase emphasis on either power or shiftiness. Increasing emphasis on power running is not going to ease up injuries on this sort of play, so whatever they do will end up making small quick guys more valuable.
Option #8. All players on punts and kickoffs must wear drag parachutes. [Reply]
Now that I think about it, if we take the female punter idea and build on it, the NFL can send a very important social message. Whenever she's on the field, any player who touches her is automatically ejected from the game. This occurs even if she initiates the contact, so it will be the receiving team's obligation to return the punt while also avoiding any contact with her.
As they say, football is a metaphor for life. This would be a perfect way to add another layer. [Reply]
They need to pair up every player(including the punter) during punts and make punt returns like a three legged race for returners, blockers, tacklers and punters. :-) [Reply]
Step 1) Stipulate that the defense cannot have more than seven men on the line of scrimmage and that at least two men must be further than ten yards off the line of scrimmage when the offense lines up in a scrimmage kick formation.
Step 2) Stipulate the kicking team cannot have more than seven men on the line of scrimmage if lined up in the scrimmage kick formation.
Step 3) Stipulate a punt cannot be advanced by the first man to touch the ball on the receiving team unless it's legally passed backward to another member of the receiving team.
The ball is not live unless it's touched by the second man after an attempted backward pass even if it's lateraled into the end zone from the field of play. A ball lateraled by the first member of the receiving team that is not touched by a second man will be placed at the 10 yard line if downed in the end zone by the kicking team. If caught by a second man in the end zone and not brought out across the goal line, the ball will be placed at the 20 yard line.
The kicking team can down the ball at any point from when it is kicked to when it's touched by the first man on the receiving team and a legal backward pass is attempted. [Reply]
