Analyzing the New-Look NFL Kickoff

By: Michael Zheng and Michael Ji

Introduction:

In an effort to increase player safety and enhance game excitement, the NFL introduced a new set of kickoff rules for the 2024 season. Per the NFL rulebook, the major changes include:

All players on the kicking team, except the kicker, must line up with one foot on the receiving team's 40-yard line.
A minimum of nine players on the receiving team are required to position themselves in the "setup zone," which spans from the receiving team's 30-yard line to the 35-yard line.
Players on both teams, excluding the kicker and designated returners, are prohibited from moving until the ball has either touched the ground, been touched by a player in the designated landing zone, or reached the end zone.
The kicker initiates the play from the team's own 35-yard line.
The area between the receiving team's 20-yard line and the goal line is designated as the "landing zone."
If the kickoff results in a touchback, the receiving team's ensuing drive starts from their own 30-yard line, an increase from the previous 25-yard line placement.
Onside kicks are restricted to the fourth quarter by the trailing team and must be declared in advance to the officials.

This reform aimed to encourage more kick returns, diversify kickoff strategies, and reduce injuries—addressing long-standing concerns about the kickoff play’s diminishing role in modern football. However, as the season unfolded, it became clear that the effectiveness of these rule changes was mixed at best.

This article will provide a data-driven analysis and visualization of the rule’s impact across multiple dimensions, including kickoff return frequency, strategic adaptations by kicking teams, injury rates, and broader effects on the flow of the game. By examining these factors, we can assess whether the 2024 kickoff rule changes successfully met their objectives—or if they merely introduced new challenges without meaningfully enhancing the sport.

Terms/Measurements:

(All the metrics below pertain to the scope of one whole season (e.g. 2023, 2024) unless otherwise noted.)

Touchback rate: the proportion between kickoffs that end up being touchback (land in or fly out of the endzone) and the total number of kickoffs

Standard deviation of kickoff distance: the measure of variance in the average kickoff distance among the 32 NFL teams

Starting Field Position after kickoff return: the yardage mark of the first play after a kickoff that was returned

League average of yardage gained after kickoff return: the average of the difference between when the returner received the ball and when the returner was ruled down by contact.

Percentage of kick return with injury: the proportion between (the number of kickoff returns that contain “injure” in their play-by-play description text) and (the total number of kickoff returns)

Successful/unsuccessful onside kicks: kickoffs that travel less than 20 yards down the field, either recovered by the kicking team or recovered by the receiving team

Percentage of drives ending in scores / red zone: the percentage of drives ensuing a kickoff that end in a touchdown or successful field goal / reach within the opposing team’s 20 yard line

Analysis:

Impact on Kick Returns:

From the kickoff return percentage bar chart, it is not hard to see that although the new rule in 2024 season has boosted the return rate by almost 10% from 2023, the return rate is still below those of the seasons before 2023, suggesting that the implementation of the new rules is not sufficient to elevate the return rate as means to increase watchability of the game.

As presumably another driving force of the recent rule change, the number of kick return touchdowns rises from 5 to 7 in 2024 season, leveling the average number in the past few years. Yet this increase cannot accurately reflect the effectiveness of the rule change, as kickoff return touchdowns happen so rarely that they oftentimes involve a lot of statistical and probabilistic uncertainty (e.g. the kicking team’s defenders mistackle, or the miscommunication between the officials, coaches, and players, etc.).

Impact on Kicking Team Strategy:

From the bar chart, we see that in 2024, kicking teams still predominantly opt for kicking the ball deep for touchbacks. While there was around a 10% decrease from the previous year, the touchback rate was still higher in 2024 than in each year from 2019 to 2022, suggesting that the new rules were marginal at best for discouraging touchbacks and for encouraging alternative kickoff strategies.

Another way to measure improvements in kicking team strategy is by looking at the standard deviation of every team’s average kickoff distance. With the advent of the new kickoff rules, it was expected that in 2024 there would be more variation in kickoff distance among the 32 teams, as the rules intended for there to be more varied kickoff strategies and strategic placement of kickoffs. According to the bar chart above, while the variation did increase from 2023, it was still much lower than from 2019 to 2022, once again signaling that the improvement in kickoff placement variation was measly at best.

Why Do Teams Still Overwhelmingly Elect to Kick It Deep?

Clearly, even after the rule changes, the “meta” around the league is to kick the ball out the back of the end zone and have the opposing team start at the 30. But shouldn’t the touchback placement moving up five years discourage this? Why are teams still doing this? In the charts below, we examine the degree of success for kicks that were returned:

It’s clear that kicking teams are largely hesitant on kicking it in the landing zone because kick returns are much more successful in 2024 than in prior years. The median starting field position after returned kicks increased by about five yards in 2024. Additionally, in 2024, around half of the starting field positions after kick returns were past the 30 yard line, signaling to kicking teams that it’s not worth it to put the ball in the landing zone and risk giving up a big return. Examining the bar chart on the right, average yardage gained on kick returns also increased by around five yards. This is most likely due to the new kickoff alignment. Since the kicking team doesn’t have a running head start, it’s much easier for the kick returner to rip off larger gains in the return game.

Impact on injuries:

Play-by-play data for injuries was highly limited to find. However, we examined this by looking at the descriptions column in the play-by-play data for kick returns and looked for results with the keyword “injure”. Based on the chart, an injury occurred on around 1.12% of plays with a kick return, a higher injury rate than four of the previous five seasons. This bar chart indicates that the NFL did not achieve its intended effect of reducing injury rate on kickoffs. However, a key limitation of this graphic is that it doesn’t depict the type or severity of the injuries. It is still very possible that these new rules may have had an impact on lessening the severity of player injuries and reducing detrimental injuries such as concussions.

Impact on onside kicks:

One of the key changes brought about by the new kickoff rules was the elimination of surprise onside kicks. However, we see from the bar graph that not much changed in 2024 in regards to onside kicks attempted and onside kicks successfully recovered. Surprisingly, the success rate in 2024 was greater than that in 2023 and the same as in 2020. While many voices complained that eliminating the element of surprise made onside kicks significantly less effective, the truth is that successful onside kicks were already incredibly rare before then and the new rule didn’t change much at all.

Unintended Effects

The increase in average starting field position led to more scoring:

As hinted above, the new-look kickoff led to a drastic increase in offensive starting field position, as the average in 2024 was around 4.5 yards further than in previous years as depicted above. Obviously, this skews the advantage towards the offense, as they have to travel less yardage to get across midfield, get in field goal range, and get in the end zone. In the graphs below, we examine the effects:

In 2024, the percentage of drives that ended in a score and ended in the red zone were higher than in any of the prior five years. Additionally, there was a staggering 4% increase in both categories from the prior year of 2023. While not all of this increase could be attributed to greater starting field position, as for example more advanced offensive schemes such as the use of motion and 4x1 formations boosted offensive success, it’s fair to say that the greater starting field positions played a key role in allowing offenses to drive more easily in scoring position.

Increased penalties and confusion:

Another unintended consequence that arose in 2024 was the drastic increase in penalties. There were 161 penalties on kickoffs in 2024, which is almost three times as much as the 58 in the previous year. The main culprit of this surge in penalties was the shocking number of illegal formations on kickoffs. This is because the NFL implemented strict rules for the new kickoff alignment, one of which being that only the kicker and kick returner are permitted to move while the ball is in the air. Because of this, the new-look kickoff led to increased confusion among the players and thus a greater number of illegal formation penalties.

Conclusion:

Overall, the new-look NFL kickoff rules were marginal at best in achieving its intended effects of increasing kick returns, restoring kickoff strategy, and reducing injuries. Although many key metrics went in a positive direction compared to the 2023 season, these same metrics suggest that kick return rate and variation in kickoff strategy still underwhelm when compared to prior seasons before 2023. While play-by-play injury data is limited, injury analysis suggests that the new rules were also ineffective in reducing the rate of injuries on kick returns. Additionally, the changeup came with unintended consequences such as unfairly skewing offensive starting field position and causing excess confusion and penalties.

One possible fix that would improve this rule would be to alter the alignment in favor of the kicking team. Instead of having the ten players on the kicking team line up on the receiving team’s 40-yard line, move it down five years and have the kicking team line up on the receiving team’s 35-yard line. Then, move the receiving team setup zone down five yards to the area from the 25 to the 30 yard line. This would decrease the yardage gained on kick returns and thus incentivize teams to kick the ball in the landing zone, thus increasing kick return rate and fully revitalizing one of the most exciting plays in football.