‘Brand-new for all of us’: Eagles are in the early stages of implementing the NFL’s new kickoff rules
“The more times we can do it, the more comfortable we get,” special teams coordinator Michael Clay said.
Michael Clay has seen more than 400 XFL kickoffs on film during this offseason as the Eagles’ special teams coordinator prepares for the NFL season with a new kickoff format that is among the biggest changes to league rules in a long time. He studied the different angles and schemes and tried to learn as much as he can.
But Clay’s most informative lesson might come Thursday night, when the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans meet in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio. Because while the NFL pulled elements from other leagues, including the XFL, the hybrid kickoff rule change league owners approved in March is a bit different. Thursday’s game will offer Clay his first chance to see how his peers are implementing the new format with their teams.
The Eagles have not practiced the full version of the new format during any of the first five practices media members have been permitted to attend. They have worked on various elements of it, though.
“You kind of have to build it like a house,” Clay said. “You’ve got to start with the foundation and then build up from it.”
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What is the rule change on kickoffs?
Rule changes led to ... rule changes. The kickoff was almost becoming a waste of time. There were returns on just 21.8% of kickoffs in 2023 (zero in the Super Bowl). As recently as 2010, 80% of kicks had a return. But the league changed rules around alignment and blocking in an effort to avoid injuries.
This rule, league officials hope, will be a happy medium — more returns, more excitement, and a similar focus on avoiding injuries with players hitting each other while moving at a high rate of speed.
NFL competition committee chairman Rich McKay estimated in March that as many as 1,200 of the 1,970 touchbacks the NFL had last year could turn into kickoff returns under the proposed rule change.
The kicking team still will kick off from its own 35-yard line. But the rest of the look is different. Click here to see all the details of the rule change.
Here are just some of the new elements:
The 10 nonkickers on the kicking team will line up with one foot on the receiving team’s 40-yard line and cannot move until the ball hits the ground or a player in the landing zone or end zone.
There’s a “setup zone” — a 5-yard area from the 35- to the 30-yard line where at least nine receiving team players must line up, with some specific alignments: at least seven players will have a foot on the 35-yard line with alignment requirements (outside numbers, numbers to hashes, and inside hashes).
Players in the setup zone cannot move until the kick has hit the ground or a player in the landing zone or the end zone.
The landing zone is the area between the receiving team’s goal line and its 20-yard line. Kicks into the landing zone must be returned. Kicks short of the landing zone are treated as kicks out of bounds, and the ball is placed on the 40-yard line.
A maximum of two returners may line up in the landing zone and can move at any time before or during the kick.
Touchbacks move from the 25-yard line to the 30-yard line.
Onside kicks can only happen in the fourth quarter by a team that is trailing and the kicking team must declare it is doing an onside kick. The onside kick itself will look the way it has always looked.
Confused? Don’t worry, players and officials are still learning it all, too.
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How the Eagles are adjusting
The new rules have forced teams to figure out which personnel they want on the field to block and, on the flip side, tackle; what kind of returner they want out there; if a touchback is better than a return; and, among other things, how to instruct their kicker on where to place the ball and how to get it there.
Britain Covey, the Eagles’ punt returner who will be in the mix for kickoff returner duties, seemed intrigued by the personnel permutations the new rules will lead to.
“It’s all going to depend on the body types they put out there,” Covey said. “You’re going to see some teams put out [defensive] ends and [defensive] linemen, and you’re going to see some teams put out corners and safeties. So part of it is matching the body types that are put out there.
“I’m excited for people to see. There’s a lot of variability that can happen. Hang time is irrelevant at this point, which is really unique compared to the rest of the kicking game. Placement is everything.”
Clay, who has been the Eagles’ special teams coordinator since 2021, said there’s an added emphasis during this process on player feedback. “That communication between myself and the players is essential for us to be successful in this,” he said.
With five weeks until the Eagles head to Brazil for their Week 1 game vs. Green Bay, Clay said he wasn’t worried about getting enough of a sample size to figure out the best path forward.
The Eagles will get some live reps in against each other, but they also have three preseason games and a joint practice with New England to get some samples on tape to try to learn from.
Last week during a practice session that was open to the media, the Eagles focused on the timing of releasing during kickoff coverage.
“You get a guy who has been in the league five-six years, they’re waiting for the kicker to run past them,” Clay said. “Now they kind of have to wait to see if the ball hits the ground or once the returner catches the ball. It’s just different. The more times we can do it, the more comfortable we get, the better the get-off we get and that helps us in our kickoff coverage.”
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‘Brand new for all of us’
Clay isn’t alone in wanting to see this all play out. NFL official Alex Kemp and his crew were at the NovaCare Complex on Tuesday going over some of the league’s rule changes, which included a session with reporters.
Kemp said he wants to see every kickoff scenario as quickly as possible during the preseason.
“This is going to be brand-new for all of us,” he said. “What do they want us to look out for? They want us to bring information back to them that’s going to help us properly officiate this play. Because we’re not sure what all those answers are yet.
“I hope we see a hundred different scenarios on this kickoff so that we can officiate a lot of them right. Some of them we’ll get wrong because we won’t know what they’re looking for, and that’s how we get clarification is to give real-live examples because you can’t think of everything.”
Clay said he had questions he wanted answered, too, and that a lot of this was going to be a process that evolves with reps.
The Eagles, Clay said, have a good personnel balance with bigger corners, linebackers who can run, and defensive ends and linebackers who are athletic in space. As for kickoff returners, the Eagles have some options. Covey has fielded mock kicks alongside the likes of Isaiah Rodgers, John Ross, Quinyon Mitchell, Ainias Smith, and Will Shipley so far in camp.
“There’s no perfect build for what the best returner is going to be,” Clay said. “It could be a small guy. It could be a guy going downhill. That’s the beauty and the essence of special teams. With this new rule, it gives us the opportunity to be creative. It gives us an opportunity to bring back the play instead of just putting the ball down at the 25.”
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Count Shipley, a rookie from Clemson with a lot of experience in the return game, among those excited about the new format.
“There’s going to be a lot more opportunities to go make big plays as a kick returner,” Shipley said. “The front line of the kickoff and the kickoff return, they’re a lot closer, so there’s not as much contact. It’s almost like a full-field inside zone play for a running back. You’ve got to find the gap, you’ve got to hit it, be ready to move at any time, and if you get a one-on-one with the kicker, you’ve got to make him miss. You can’t let him tackle you.”
That last part might be the only thing that hasn’t changed.