http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...arting-point-moved-to-35-touchbacks-unchanged Dan Carpenter isn't just a FG kicker anymore.
Great news for the Fins. Bur WTF is the NFL trying to do? Make the game as boring as possible? What' next? Commercials in between plays?
Almost makes kickoff teams irrelivant. Not many kickers in the NFL can't put it in the endzone from the 35.
You will see the same number of touch backs most likely. This actually is going to emphasize coverage teams a lot more.
Really?? Cause I'm pretty sure most kickers can make in in the endzone from 5 yards closer. On top of that I'm pretty sure coverage teams will make it down the field a second faster. I'm interested why you think this though??
Well, thats pretty disappointing IMO. Just takes kick returns out of the game really. Alot of kickers are putting the ball deep into the endzone already, and those that arent are damn close to it. Giving them another 5 yards should put at least every kicker either kicking it through the endzone, or at least several yards into it, now with the coverage teams starting 5 yards closer as well, this change really limits kick returns. Pretty boring if you ask me. And somewhere... Devin Hester is crying his eyes out.
I do not remember every kicker getting lots of touchbacks years ago when the kickoffs were at the 35 line.
that was back before they began using creatine and human growth hormone.......... and horse steroids. lol.
Kickoff teams will take just as long to get down the field bc they can only line up 5 yards behind the ball now, so slower running start. The ball, however will get there faster unless the kicker can put a higher arc on it. Teams may still try to pin someone deep but it should be much easier to take a KR out of the game
I think I have...... but it's hard to distinguish them from the linebackers now a days, so I'm not entirely sure.
If I were a coach, I'd have my kicker kick inside the 5. If your coverage team is good enough, you should be able to keep them inside the 20.
If you look at the data there's a clear trend with the league trying to kick the ball through the back of the end zone. Counting only kickoff returns and touchbacks, in 1991 about 22% or so of kicks went for touchback. This was on the fast rise in 1992 and 1993 finishing with 27% in 1993. They did the rule change in 1994 and this caused a massive drop in touchbacks to only like 8% of kicks. But by 1998 this had recovered to like 16 or 17% of kickoffs, as kickers got better at kicking distances and coaches got more comfortable with having them try to kick for distance instead of having them try and directional kick it. In 1999 they changed the rules again, the infamous K-Ball came into play, and again this bombed out touchback percentages as kickers needed to get used to it. There was an immediate drop to 10 or 11% touchbacks and that kept going downward until 2003 when kickers started to get used to it and have begun kicking farther again. Each year the percentage gradually increased until now we have in 2010 about 17% of kickoffs going touchback again. We're at a point where about half the teams in the league are averaging over 65 yards on their kickoffs. If the kickoff distances are normally distributed then this should mean that there's potential for somewhere a little under 50% of kickoffs (guessing) to go into the end zone, with the better part of them resulting in touchback, especially now that cover teams start closer to the action at the 35 as opposed to the 30. Considering the league has been trending toward farther kickoffs and more willingness to try and kick for touchbacks, and was only set back once in 1994 by the move from the 35 to 30, and then in 1999 by the K-Ball...this change back to the 35 could unleash a flood of touchbacks that represent (again my guess) 40% of the kickoffs in the NFL. Take a team like the Baltimore Ravens. Billy Cundiff averaged over 71 yards per kickoff. Just over half of his kickoffs resulted in touchback. What's going to happen when he's spotted an extra 5 yards? I think something well over 80% of his kickoffs will be touchbacks. Anyone who plays the Ravens, you might as well erase your kick return unit off the board as far as impacting the game. And there will be others like that as well. The league averages are still trending upward, we have no idea where they'll end up in a steady state. My guess is the league is going to have to mop this decision up within a year, maybe two. By this time next year or in 2012, they'll be changing the rule again to somehow scale back the touchbacks. Incidentally, it already pisses me off the fact that after a team scores, they go to commercial, and then they kickoff, and go to commercial again. How much will that piss everyone off if the little tidbit of football they show between the two commercial breaks is just a perfunctory kickoff for touchback? I know it'd tick me off.
I think one thing they could do that would really make it much more exciting is get rid of touchback unless the ball goes out of the back of the endzone. If players couldn't take a knee and were forced to bring the ball out this would be much more interesting. If that was the thought process though why change the rules at all? Should be interesting to see what happens, providing we actually see football this year.
I'm all for it but I know the owners won't be. They want to minimize injury risk and taking the touchback away altogether does the opposite.
Belichick's comment, "At the end of the year it goes down anyway . . . The ball just doesn’t carry as far in the cold” may indicate the objective of the new rule. This should make KR more decisive for games during the later half of the season while minimizing its impact at the beginning of the season when some teams have a bunch of inexperienced special team players.
