It’s not unusual for professional sports to change rules to try to make things more interesting for casual fans. Year in and year out, some fans bemoan the persistent tinkering, and others celebrate it. It’s what has led to things such as the designated hitter in baseball and the 3-point shot in basketball. The NFL’s latest rules change, though, is more drastic than tinkering. The league has completely reshaped the kickoff, something that has been part of the sport since its founding — and made the word “kickoff” an everyday phrase in the English language.
The kickoff has long been considered one of the most dangerous plays in the sport. It has prompted constant regulation over the years to reduce the violence inherent in 11 large grown men running 50 yards at full speed into 11 other large grown men. The extended running start meant that the kickoff was far more dangerous than any other type of play in a sport where catastrophic injuries are commonplace.
The new kickoffs will, according to the NFL’s Football Operations, “Resemble a typical scrimmage play by aligning players on both teams closer together and restricting movement to reduce space and speed.” The purpose of the change is to “address the lowest kickoff return rate in NFL history during the 2023 season and an unacceptable injury rate on kickoffs prior to that.”
To explain every detail of the new kickoff rules, already on display in preseason games, would take too long, as football rules, with millions riding on each game of America’s biggest sport, are written with lawyerly specificity. But the short version is that the players will line up closer to one another for a kickoff and kick into a designated “landing zone” — between the receiving team’s 20-yard line and the front of the end zone.
The NFL has tried different tweaks over the years to minimize danger, all with a view to avoiding returns, which have become perfunctory. Fans got used to watching footballs kicked out of the end zone as players jogged down the field. The kickoff stopped being an interesting play and turned into a good time to grab another beer or go to the restroom. The hope for the new rules is that they can find a way to prioritize safety while restoring the play’s entertainment value, or at least improving on the status quo.
It’s easy to see where the NFL was coming from with this change. After all, it surely makes sense to identify the type of football play that is simultaneously among the most dangerous and the most boring to watch as ripe for change. But what happens when this push and pull becomes too much? Already, pro football today is far different from the smash-mouth sport of much of the 20th century. The first major reform to the rules of football happened after a White House summit called by President Teddy Roosevelt to address the alarming tendency of players to die on the field. Once, delivering a crushing hit that knocked an opposing player out cold was something that made highlight reels. Now it’s more likely to lead to a fine and even a suspension, as the medical profession has realized that the appropriate treatment for a concussion is not some smelling salts and a pat on the back.
This is not to say that football has somehow become nonviolent. But the game has evolved into something that could hardly be imagined 100 years ago when it was played in leather helmets by teams with names such as the Duluth Eskimos and Staten Island Stapletons.
It’s almost certain that even more changes will be made in the future, but the question is when it goes too far and changes the very nature of the game. It’s not that the brutal sport of the past is something to be inherently cherished, but somewhere there becomes a moment of transmutation when the sport on the field today is so different from that of the past that it cannot be considered to be the same game. It’s like the ancient Greek paradox about the ship of Theseus, in which philosophers pondered whether the ship remained the same after every plank of wood had been replaced over the centuries or if it became a new vessel entirely.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The changes in how the kickoff works don’t mean pro football will no longer be recognizable this year. But that’s the same with lots of other changes over the years. In the 1920s, NFL players once regularly executed rugby-style dropkicks. In the 1960s, the star pass rusher Deacon Jones began every play by slapping an opposing offensive lineman in the head. And, in the 1990s, defenders still head-hunted against opposing receivers, trying to knock them out as they attempted to catch passes. None of the individual changes inherently transformed the nature of the sport. Eventually, these alterations add up and the sport becomes something different. Already, 7-on-7 football, a version of the sport without linemen or tackling, is gaining popularity as an offseason pursuit for high school players. In 2028, flag football will be an Olympic sport.
The sport needs to be both entertaining and safe for those participating in it. If it’s not entertaining, no one will buy tickets. And if it’s not safe, the number of willing players will decrease and the legal liability for teams will only grow. These competing pressures point toward an evolution in the game, which will take place over decades. There won’t be a single tipping point, a single “aha” moment when everything changes. But eventually, it will. Babe Ruth, the greatest baseball player of the 1920s, would almost certainly be able to attend a baseball game today and follow along. But Red Grange, the greatest football player of the 1920s? He would require quite a bit of explanation if he was suddenly given a box seat for Monday Night Football in 2024, and it’s hard to imagine how much more translation would be needed in future years.
Ben Jacobs is a political reporter in Washington, D.C.