NEW YORK — The most exciting play in football is back.
No longer will fans have to leave their seats to grab food or go to the bathroom after a score. There won’t be a break in the action anymore.
The kickoff has meaning again in professional football. In one of the biggest rule changes the NFL has made in decades, the league significantly altered the free kick to bring returns back to the game after last season recorded the lowest return rate in the 105-year history of the league.
“It was one of those plays that really started to disappear in the game,” The NFL Today on CBS analyst Nate Burleson told CBS Sports last month. “I was a kickoff returner, I remember playing in Seattle coming out of halftime. We get the ball and I take it to the house, 90 yards. I go to celebrate and look up and there are so many seats open. That’s what the kickoff return has become.
“In this new format, it makes it more enjoyable. It makes it safer. Viewers are now going to have to play more attention. There are stakes.”
The ball is still kicked from the 35-yard line, but that remains the only constant with the new rules. All kicking team players other than the kicker will line up with one foot on the receiving team’s 40-yard line and the kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line until the ball touches the ground or player in the landing zone or end zone. The 10 kicking team players cannot move until the ball hits the ground or player in the landing zone or the end zone.
There will be a setup zone for the receiving team, a five-yard area from the receiving team’s 30-to-35 yard line where at least nine receiving team players must line up. Seven players on the receiving team must have at least one foot on the 35 and all 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.
A landing zone has been created for the receiving team, which is…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ex-super-bowl-champ-longtime-wr-on-new-nfl-kickoff-rules-you-might-see-more-superstar-players-back-there/
Author : Jeff Kerr
Publish date : 2024-09-01 15:15:59
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