New Dynamic Kickoff Rules Explained Using Madden

the all new Dynamic kickoff rule for the upcoming season will noticeably changed one of the most iconic plays in the game the dynamic kickoff was created to address the lowest kickoff return rate in NFL history during the 2023 season and an unacceptable injury rate on kickoffs prior to that from the formation the players take on the field to the zones the ball can land in and when the players can move this play will look completely different from what fans are used to seeing EA Sports team with coaches around the league who help create the rule if it's in the game it's in Madden 25 the dynamic kickoff will keep the excitement of kickoff returns in the game while returning the injury rate closer to that of a traditional scrimmage play The Kicking team will kick off from its own 35 yd line 10 members of the kicking team will line up on the receiving team's 40 yd line a minimum of nine members of the receiving team will line up between the 30 and 35 yd lines up to two returners line up in the landing Zone The Landing zone is between the receiving team's 20 yd line and goal line play begins when the ball's either caught or hits the ground in the landing zone or is returned from The End Zone any kick that bounces from The Landing Zone to the end zone must be returned or down by the receiving team for a Touchback and possession at his 20 yd line if a kick fails to reach the landing Zone the receiving team takes possession at its 40 yd line if the ball enters the end zone in the air the receiving team can return it or down it for a Touchback and take possession at its 30 yd line if the ball goes out of bounds the receiving team takes possession at its 40 yd line onside kicks are only permitted in the fourth quarter setup and Landing zones do not change after penalties or a safety only the spot where the ball is kicked changes while there's a huge benefit to player health and safety here the hope with this rule change is that it will ultimately add more returns and in turn more excitement to the kickoff now let's introduce EA Sports American football prod uction director and Madden rating adjuster Clint oldenberg and how EA implemented the dynamic kickoff into the game when the NFL first approved the rules we had already finished production on Madden 25 and we were in the stage of our cycle where we're fixing bugs and putting polish into the game not building new features so when we found out about the new rules we knew that our players would expect them to be in the game because they value authenticity and we pride ourselves on being very very authentic to the NFL as we went through that process we got to work directly with NFL coaches and NFL officials to figure out how the rules would be applied and how we could apply it to our game and we also got to go a couple levels above just basic rules application the most important thing was getting this right for our players cuz they expect authenticity they they believe that we are the 33rd NFL franchise there's no way that we could not have this in our game when we were working with coaches almost every single one of them thought that this was one of the most significant changes to pro football in over over 20 years which is pretty big for us we were able to work directly with Mike Tomlin the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers who's actually on the rules committee so he had a wealth of knowledge about how this thing would work in the NFL so he got a hold of us because he wanted to see his players real NFL players on NFL field of what this would look like so he could figure out how to teach it properly but he also was already thinking about different strategies and things that he was going to employ so we started working directly with him and picking his brain on how he was going to utilize these rules with his team what strategies he was going to employ and what we found really interesting was he had already mentally mapped out how this thing is going to evolve over the course of the Season everybody who's going to play Madden may not know about these rules or and how they work so we went to that third level and we have a landing Zone indicator that shows where the landing zone is we have commentary support that's going to explain how some of this works and we even have three new kick types which we explain the first time you play the game it's going to be a learning experience as as well as a strategy we can't wait for players to get their hands on these new kickoff rules on August 16th when Madden NFL 25 kicks off you know we're we're going into Uncharted Territory with this kickoff concept there actually no real visuals of the concept my sons play all the EA Sports Games man I got a lot of respect for the realism of their product uh we reached out to those guys and wanted to just kind of get a visual maybe of some of the the the schematics how the alignment might affect the timing of blocks and so forth uh that game is more than entertainment from my perspective uh it is a real simulator we as a staff are moving very intentionally uh regarding the implementation of the new kickoff rule we don't want to teach bad habits um it's some new skills being displayed in a lot of ways particularly from a kicker's perspective having to drop the ball in the landing Zone and so forth you know we're really excited about the unforeseen in this concept um we've shown that in terms of some of our player acquisition um it would probably behoove you to have some experienced special teams players on your roster not knowing the significance of the potential impact of this change you just can't have enough capable veteran dudes that know what they're doing in that space when you're pushing into unchartered schematic territory we hope the fans enjoy it um I'm excited about seeing how it unfolds we know it's going to be exciting and we certainly know it's going to be different and I think it might take a little bit of time for the fans to get used to so I think there's going to be a lot of eyes on the TVs and we had the lowest return rate in the history of the game last year the highest Touchback percentage rate and so we really the play was really becoming more of a ceremonial play we want to bring this play back to the Forefront we wanted to help with the player safety aspect of it we felt there was a few too many injuries on our old kickoff style so driving down the injury rate is a big part of why we did what we did the second second part is we wanted the uh return percentage to go way up it was too low this year and it's such a dynamic play in our sport that we felt it was worth putting in the time to to bring the play back to life for kickers for returners for tacklers for blockers and I think you're going to see a great product a lot of experimentation and hopefully some really big plays and we're excited to bring it to you the dynamic kickoff is here and the game will never be the same [Music]