The NFL is considering a pair of significant rule changes ahead of the 2025 season, the league’s Compeтιтion Committee chairman told reporters.
Last season, the league debuted a dramatically different kickoff, with the kicking team’s players unable to move until the ball hits the ground, a player or the end zone.
The league is now considering further tweaks to that rule, such as moving touchbacks up five yards to the 35-yard-line, and moving the spot of the kickoff back five yards to the 30-yard line. Touchbacks were spotted at the 30 last year, while kickoffs were done from a team’s own 35-yard-line.
‘If something is going to be proposed as far as modifications … which would be the potential of moving the touchback and/or moving the kicker back, I think those will get talked about, you know, within the next 30 days,’ Falcons CEO Rich McKay told reporters on Sunday, via the Washington Post.
‘But it’ll take a little while before we get everybody’s input.’
NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miler previously said that returns had increased 57 percent in 2024 with the new kickoff rule, while the rate of injury was also down.
The NFL changed its kickoff rule last year, having defenders line up at the opposing 40-yard-line but prohibiting them from moving until the ball was touched or hit the ground
The league could also propose an alternative to the onside kick, which is rarely successful
The rule, which was a one-year switch, will have to be re-approved this offseason to be in play for 2025.
All rules must earn the vote of 24 of 32 franchises, or 75 percent of the league.
The league could also look into implementing a fourth-and-15 or fourth-and-20 alternative to onside kicks.
Just 6.45 percent of onside kicks were successful last season, though that was a slight increase from the year before.
‘I could see it because [teams have] brought it up before,’ McKay said of the onside kick alternative.
‘That said, you have to get 24 votes. So you have to have other alternatives, one of which may be, ‘OK, should we tweak the way that they line up and see if we can get the percentage to move?’
The league will hold its annual meeting in Florida from March 30 to April 2.