NFL owners on Tuesday voted to approve a radical change to the kickoff play, and those who have watched XFL games already have an idea of what it will look like.
Under the new kickoff rules, 10 players on the kicking team and at least 9 players on the receiving team must line up 5 yards apart from one another. The 10 players on the kicking team will line up at the receiving team’s 40-yard line. The non-returners on the return team will line up in the “setup zone” between their own 35- and 30-yard line.
The kicker will still kick off from his own 35-yard line, but other players are not permitted to move until the ball either reaches or is picked up by a player in the landing zone, which is defined as the area between the receiving team’s 20-yard line and the goal line.
The video below of a kickoff from an XFL game shows how the new NFL kickoff will look:
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1772615947922149879
The only minor difference between the XFL and NFL rules is that non-kicking and non-returning players are lined up slightly deeper in the receiving team’s territory in the XFL.
Rules regarding touchbacks and illegal kicks have also changed. You can read the full details here.
Just over 20% of NFL kickoffs and free kicks (after safeties) were returned last season. Most of the league viewed that as a significant issue, which is why the new kickoff format has been implemented. The goal is to increase the number of kicks that are returned while also limiting the risk of injuries that are caused by players getting running starts and sprinting full-speed at one another.
