SANTA CLARA — You all can worry about Brandon Aiyuk’s contract, Jake Moody’s field-goal kicking and the new(ish)-look 49ers’ defense.
I’m just worried about my bathroom breaks.
The NFL demands full commitment at all times. That’s why they have systematically removed the concept of an offseason and why Netflix will be broadcasting Christmas Wednesday (!!!) games this upcoming year. Removing oneself from the league’s vice is no small feat, but having been lucky enough to cover NFL games for 15 years, now, I know a few tricks of the trade.
There is a TV commercial break before and, typically, after kickoffs, and since the kickoff play itself had become perfunctory in recent years, I — a prodigious drinker of liquids during a game — haven’t watched one in years. Instead, I’d go make some tea, hit the stadium buffet, or, more often than not, go to the bathroom. I’d be back in my seat for the real action: the first snap of the subsequent drive, typically starting at the 25-yard line.
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But my lavatorial routine — my time to feel like I was beating the system — is now dead. The NFL killed it. There are new kickoff rules in the league this year and no one — not even 49ers special teams coordinator Brian Schneider — knows the best course of action.
The kickoff might just be the most important play of the game in 2024.
Broncos coach Sean Payton even suggested last month that each team will score 10-plus touchdowns on the kickoff this upcoming season.
Aiyuk, it should be noted, caught seven touchdowns last season.
I’d say double-digit scores are out of the realm of possibility, but with these new rules, the possibilities are endless.
Let’s go over the changes:
• The kick will take place from the 35-yard line — the same as in past years.
• The kick coverage team will line up at the opponent’s 40-yard line. (That’s 25 yards in front of the kicker.)
• The return team will line up at least nine players between their own 30- and 35-yard lines, creating 5 to 10 yards of separation between teams.
• A returner (or returners) will line up between the 20-yard line and the goal line. This is the “receiving zone.” All balls that land (and stay) in the receiving zone must be returned.
• The coverage and returning team blockers can only move once a kick is caught or hits the ground.
• If the ball does not enter the receiving zone, it will be treated like an illegal procedure— possession will start at the 40-yard line.
• If the ball is kicked into the end zone on the fly, it can be downed. Possession will start on the 30-yard line.
• If the ball rolls into the end zone, it can be downed and possession will start at the 20-yard line.
Get all that? Good.
Now can you tell Schneider the best way to manage this entirely new thing?
Schneider spent his offseason watching XFL tape. Poor guy.
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But even the XFL’s kick returns — which featured reverses and were most similar to what the NFL will do in 2024 — couldn’t properly prepare him.
“It’s a lot of anxiety because… the only thing you really have to look at is the XFL and it’s different too,” Schneider said last week.
“Before it was all in my brain,” Schneider said, spreading his arms over his head to indicate the vastness of possibilities. “One thing would go to another and then all of a sudden, I think it’s about here now for me [Schneider made a small circle with his hands], in terms of once we get the fundamentals together, once we ask the players to communicate with us, talk to us, ‘What do you see?’ And once we kind of broke it down that way to get to some fundamentals that will stick in terms of how to get there.
“Now we have to see where it goes. Because it’s different. That’s for sure.”
Did you get all that?
Me neither.
But all that matters is that the players do.
Being a special teams coordinator has, for years, been the football equivalent of herding cats. Kickers and punters have their own specialized coaches — the special teams coordinators aren’t doing much for them. No, instead STCs needed to take players from both the offense and defense and put them in the correct position with the correct rules to execute basic plays.
There wasn’t much nuance to kickoff returns. I’m not even sure teams had variations of the play to go left, right, or center in recent years.
But now Schneider is going to have to actually call plays.
“This is the coolest thing to happen in my coaching career because it’s, ‘What are you going to do?’ You have a great opportunity to do something that’s never been done before. So, it’s a race to figure it out and it’s going to be constantly adjusting,” Schneider said.
That is if Kyle Shanahan lets him innovate.
The Niners could be great at these new kickoffs, too — they have ample options to return kickoffs and the team spent a lot of money in free agency on guys with special teams pedigrees.
But I get the feeling on kickoffs, Shanahan will concede the 10 yards and just boot the ball out of the end zone. For Shanahan, special teams is an area of the game that doesn’t require innovation, but rather mitigation.
And I suspect a lot of other teams will treat their kickoffs the same way.
But I could be wrong. We’ll just have to wait and see. The preseason is going to be wild — must-see TV for football dorks like me.
These rules could spice up the game. In theory, the closed-quarters play should improve player safety.
But what about media safety? Fan safety?
What, we’re just supposed to get in line with everyone else at halftime?
If the league’s rule changes bring about the desired effect, more kickoff returns, and more excitement, it will help the league’s overall product.
It will also hurt profitability, because I will be sending my urology bills to the league.
