Kickoffs are going to mean something again - Jason Kelce | NFL Countdown

I think that that there there are real football fans out there that week one are going to turn it on and see the kickoff and go what the is this and we have a representation sort of animated style to give you an idea what this is It's essentially a line of scrimmage play all right teams still kick off from the 35 there are 10 players on each team I should say 10 players from the kicking team start at the opponent's 40 at least nine players on the receiving team have to set up in the zone between the 30 and the 35 then when the ball is touched or hits the ground in the end zone or the landing Zone the area between the receiving team's goal line and the 20 that's when things go Touchback brings it out to the 30 touchbacks that roll into the end zone are at the 20 I know that that's a lot to digest and I don't want to add too much to it to screw it up but the difference between starting at the 20 and the 30 in terms of how much you'd score it increases fairly significantly and again I don't want to bog down the numbers but it's about a 7% increase in terms of how often you score so you understand why teams might contemplate this but there's so much strategy Ryan to figure out about how you want to kick it and how you want to return it what's your sense of what teams are going to do here it's absolutely changed the way you prepare for this in the preseason and also during the week this is now just another offensive play but when you are kicking the football you can play to whether it's a squib or you're going to Pooch it and hope that it rolls into the end zone to try to gain an advantage and now offensively or if you're the receiving teams you're setting up plays like you are talking about the Run game offensively whether it's traps cut back misdirection power you can do all of these different things and so where it's going to look extremely different to the fan it's also going to be worked on and prepared for extremely different when we're talking about these teams I've been in camps and to listen to the special teams coach have to sort of Coach the different things we normally hear on the offensive line or the defensive line from the guys who are stacked on the line of scrimmage there it's very difficult to think that this is where football now is but it's to try to change what we saw which was Touchback after Touchback after Touchback man I could not be more excited about this if you the I think the return rate last year was 19% it used to be before all these rules were put in place to make the play safer it used to be somewhere around 50% so people want to see Cookoff returns there's a guy going to the Hall of Fame this year Deon Hester who is going in for that exact reason he was the best and this play has been made obsolete in the past few years it became basically a Mindless ceremony oh here's the opening kickoff ceremony run down 60 yards for no reason and now all of a sudden it's going to mean something the game is better when special teams play a factor when it when it and it makes a difference and all those guys that put in that hard work get to go out there and actually execute something who's going to be on the field though I mean this is like special teamers you're going to have your o line your dline you're going to have real position players out there aren't you that's a lot of space for a big guy to be I me there's still a 30 yard but they might I mean it typically on the on the kickoff they used to be old lineman on the wedge cuz they were closer to the Turner you didn't have to operate in as much space but um I still think it's probably going to be mostly linebackers and your big skill type guys but I mean they might find a way to use one especially on a trap block or something like that that could get dangerous I think from a defensive standpoint man it's going to be a bit different than your conventional guys because sheding blocks become the premium now right and and look I'm going say it it puts the defense at a disadvantage the space used to create non contact and speed yeah so now up front for real now up front you hand fighting you got to shed blocks immediately I'm not talking about getting a running start and trying to disengage with a guy but it's happening it's a line of scrimmage play it outside of that I just I just wonder looking at all the numbers and every team's got analytics people you look at it and say just let them start at the 30 because they're okay if we can squib it and roll it through then we get it at the 20 but if it goes out of bounds that's the 40 yard line if it lands short of the target Zone the 20 The Landing Zone I should say comes out to the 40 I figured that's way too much risk but I mean Sean McVey said he didn't think teams are going to show their hand in the preseason much like they don't with our offensive game plans now the hip drop tackle now these are the clips that the NFL sent around to show what will result in a 15 yard penalty it's exactly the reason here you see with the PD injury that came in the playoffs a year ago where he went down and the issue is the unweighting of the defender by swiveling and dropping his hips or lower body and this other example which came I believe last year uh Jets and the Giants and you see Gino going out of bounds same story and what you're trying to do is avoid the defender landing on and trapping the runner's legs at or below the knee I think we've all understand fellas that horse collar and hits across the middle we see him immediately we know it's a flag but I I wonder as someone who's never played the game as you all did how do you tackle someone anymore Marcus look you got to click heels now like from if you behind a guy you literally got look the natural instinct when you grab a guy from behind and RC did it more in the open field but even us as defensive lineman most of our tackles for loss on a Zone stretch we grabbing the back waist of the running back and trying to get him down so it's a new technique and look I could get on here and Grumble about the game getting different and you got be so cautious that you can't play defense in a certain way that's that's a Justified reason when you got guys missing a year or you got guys missing time Mark Andrew suffer the injury which was critical for him it's the problem is the same problem that you have harsh collar to me I thought that was an easy fix just don't put your hand inside you can see it this one it it gives me a little bit of a pause because your natural reaction as a football player is to grab waste and and stop weight right and I just want to see how these guys going if you look at the two examples that you gave the Tony poed one seemed like the prime example of what we want to get out of the game if you watch Isaiah Simmons as he's chasing Gino Smith he's actually ball searching he never grabs him right but it's is his momentum as he's ball searching and chasing inside out that make that allows him to fall on the back of Gino Smith's leg which in the end that's the result they're looking for to throw the flag or to find a guy extremely difficult and so now it's going to be not only changing the way you approach this from a uh a strategic standpoint it's also the things that are just innate in us it's innate that if I if I'm chasing a guy from behind I go dead because it's harder to to travel this dead weight with you so now it's going to be about wrapping and clicking heels or making sure you can get both legs together as you hold them on and you're going to go dead flat instead of trying to go dead and swivel around I think it's extremely difficult to police early or to officiate early and it's also going to take a ton of adjustment by defensive players and I've heard that the goal is not to do too much officiating of this early what I've heard from officials around the league and stuff is that the goal is to administer this disciplinary behind the scenes so through the fine system they're going to take their time to look at replays and make correct judgments based off of that I think unless it's something really egregious they're going to try and keep it out but but that works did you ever deal with anything like that just coming outside of the game yeah so I mean for the past few years they've been trying to uh eliminate uh offensive line and leading with their heads on any type of block right but especially when you're pulling or out in space and I've been fine multiple times for that but I've never been called in a game got and I think that's another example where it's that's a really hard thing to officiate in real time so a lot of times they just leave that behind the scenes for you know John ran former eagle and those guys to figure out how much money they want to take from you that I love John but dirtiest guy in the history of the NFL is now in charge of the F system just a slobber you know what we call those Hypocrites question would be though is when it gets to that fine pill or that fine system are you actually coaching me through why you think it's think ille that would have to be the important piece of that I I think there's a lot that's important to it I just think both the kickoff and the and the hip drop are things that are going to sneak up on fans and look someone is going to tackle someone they're going to go dead it's going to be 15 yards it's going to impact the game in a massive way and then all day long on Monday on our Network and every other network people going to be freaking out saying how the hell are you supposed to tackle absolutely and it's it's going to lead to controversial situations because of the subjectiveness of it uh hopefully this thing doesn't cost a game so we don't have to deal with that uh but I think the other thing to keep in mind I mean I think I'm very hesitant to see how this happens but all of these rule changes that have been happening in the NFL I think have largely been successful uh the targeting things have have made a drastic reduction in concussions and receivers going across the middle when you played or before that I mean I used to love watching the highlights but man these guys you know this did some damage and that has worked and initially when that happened I'm like you know when this guy's going across the middle and ducking how is the defender supposed to react in real time eventually people adjust it's just going to take some time [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]