Breaking Down The New Special Teams Rule For NFL Kickoffs | New York Jets In A Great Spot

Intro all right guys what's going on welcome in so different style of video here but this is something that I've been wanting to talk about really since they introduced the new rule and it's this whole special teams kickoff shift that we're going to have to uh adapt and adjust with uh in 2024 and the kind of preface right on on how important this new rule is it will this new rule we will literally see games multiple times get decided by this rule wins and losses will be decided by this rule what teams will have success with it what teams will take advantage of this rule uh what teams will be proactive what teams will uh you know drag their feet you know I think there's so many different aspects to this rule that that's you know going to impact again the outcomes of a lot of games this upcoming season so the New The Goal York Jets along with the other 31 teams in football better take it seriously and I think they will right I think the teams that of and really special teams coordinators that dive head first into this rule will benefit in a couple months when the season starts I mean there's so many different Nuance things that you can do I personally would not be surprised if we start seeing legitimate playbooks being int like introduced because of this rule right that's how much just this this change uh can make so let's kind of talk about first the goal right what what's the reason why this is being installed uh according to the NFL they wanted to bring more excitement to the game right uh the old kickoff rule I guess was too boring um you know kickers kicking it out of the End Zone touchbacks Fair catches and whatnot so yes they want to bring more excitement to the game but at the same time they also want to keep it safe for players in special teams right the the whole argument uh before when they initially made some kickoff changes a couple years ago it was we don't want players running full speed at each other and stuff like that I mean even see that at the Youth Level so you know I do understand it from that point you know from from that aspect uh so that's kind of the driving force here bring more excitement two special teams which is you know for the most part a pretty quote unquote boring aspect to a lot of people out there personally I don't think it's boring at all um and normally I'm I'm against a lot of rule changes because I think when you have a lot of rule changes or even really just one rule change um teams will find loopholes teams will poke holes in it right this is not even a this is not a polished rule here there's going to be teams that take advantage of it there's going to be teams that are proactive with it gadell even said himself that you know there could be adjustments to the rule moving forward which tells me that there's going to be problems with it um not necessarily problems to where they're going to have to trash the whole idea but just I could see coaches right the the top end special teams coaches figuring out loopholes how to you know navigate the system navigate special teams if you will but let's kind of dive The Formation into what this whole new rule is because I I still feel like there's a lot of confusion out there and uh to be 100% honest I I I think it's not going to really click until probably you know week two of the regular season when we when we've seen it uh time and time again you know throughout the preseason and whatnot so I I think the most important thing here is the formation right how how the teams line up so the kicker lines up normally right that doesn't change what changes is the fact that we have the rest of the kicking special teams players line up on the receiving teams 40 yd line and it just has to be one foot on the 40 yd line the receiving special teams players will be lined up anywhere from the 30 their own 30 to 35 yd line right so there's that little uh buffer um and I'm expecting to see a bunch of different um you know formations and whatnot not anything crazy but just I mean we all know it football's a game of inches every single yard matters the positioning is going to be really interesting to kind of uh monitor as we you know progress throughout the season with this rule but basically you know again you have your kicker lined up just as normal and then the rest of the squad at the 40 one foot on the 40 then nine special teams players of the receiving team must line up anywhere between between the 30 and the 35 yard line with at least seven players with a foot on the 35 yd line so again when we're talking about the receiving team here we got nine players in this Zone the 35 to the 30 right that little buffer zone the other two players are going to be lined up as receivers or The Landing Zone kickoff Specialists right and those guys are going to be lined up anywh from the goal line to the 20 yd line and they're going to be calling that the landing Zone which essentially turns into like a mini punt right not exactly but same kind of idea on the receiving ends part of it so you're going to want to get uh players the football who who make plays with the football in their hands specifically when we're talking about the New York Jets I think of Malachi Corley I think of Xavier Gibson right I I I I would not be surprised if we see a lot just throughout the course of the NFL star players lineup back there you know I I I think Tyreek Hill makes sense for the Miami Dolphins to do it um there's there's go again this is going to impact the these games whether we like it or not um you know for better for worse we'll kind of see you know I guess but it's just another wrinkle that they're adding to special teams here but going back to the rule you have the two players that can receive the kick now you can't call a fair Catch that's that's being taken out you have to field it now the ball can bounce on the field but if it lands within those 20 yards it must be returned if it doesn't right if the ball gets uh if the ball hits the turf before that 20 yard line it's essentially a penalty and the receiving team will take it out to the 40 yd line if the ball gets kicked and it ends up in the end zone right so it rolls in there or whatever it just bounces In The End Zone but it stays in bounds the receiving team has to go pick up the football and either return it and then it looks like if it's downed then the Touchback goes out to the 30 yard line if the ball goes outside of the end zone right which is what we normally see uh on these kickoffs just when they boot it out that's an automatic Touchback and they put the offense at or the opposing offense at the 30 yard line now an interesting kind of layer that I still personally have a question about is with onside kicks right I mean if if I think back to um you know the days growing up I remember there would be you know times where a team would come out of halftime and just onside kick it and just catch the defense or catch the you know defensive special teams unit off guard uh I I I think there's even been times where you know a team just starts right out of the gate with an off with an onside kick right which is always super exciting but with the miscellaneous Onside Kick rules according to the NFL on their football operations website they they don't really go into detail with it let's take a look at it so in the onside kick uh category here they only have two bullet points fourth quarter Begins the team trailing has the opportunity to declare an onside kick to the officials and then the second bullet point says current onside kickoff rules would apply if the onside kick goes beyond the setup Zone untouched then the kicking team would be penalized and the return team would start the drive at the 20 yard line I mean so you know if we're just going off these two bullet points alone you basically just have to man I I just love the surprise element of of the onside kick you know I I mean I don't know like you don't really see teams do an onside kick when they're up right obviously but I don't know like with this it kind of just seems like you are literally not allowed to do that um and it seems like you have to like like everybody and again the onside kick is such a low probability type of play but there's ways that you can uh make it happen when the defense doesn't or the again the defensive special teams unit doesn't know if it's coming or not but it looks like in this we're going to have to let everybody know right refs will know both teams will know and we'll just have to line up completely different and then it's just all right once that uh football's kicked then you know just all hell breaks loose and it's just you know whoever gets the football gets the football so man it's going to be confusing you like I'm just trying to picture in the season like this actually playing out um I think there's going to be tons of touchdowns I I think uh there's going to be lots of plays where you know your offense scores a TD and then you can't just get up and go to the kitchen or get up and go to the bathroom or something because you got to you know make sure that this opposing team doesn't just freaking take the football all the way back you know if we think about it the 30 to 35 yd line you got your blocker and you got the uh defense right on the 40 so it's like you got to break through a wall but you know again with the way it's set up with these two lines of players uh in such a short distance if you break through that wall like there's a really really good chance that you can take it the distance so again I I think from the NFL's perspective this is going to bring more excitement to the game but like we were talking about before whenever you introduce a new rule there's going to be loopholes there's going to be probably tons of flags that come with this from you know whether it's coaches whether uh you know lining guys up a certain way whether it's players uh potentially being lined up uh incorrectly um or not following the rules exactly how it's laid out here you know from the NFL themselves I I just feel like it it could be a little messy it could be a little sloppy I I can Envision a lot of fan bases really angry for playing a really good game and then blowing it on this new special teams Rule and then you know uh again wins and losses are going to be impacted by this I I truly believe that um so we'll see how this whole thing plays out let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comment section but I'll say this I think the New York Jets are really well positioned to take advantage of this new rule but again I I want to be proactive with it I want to see uh Boer literally draw plays draw up plays in special teams to utilize this rule so that's going to do it for me hopefully hopefully I was able to explain it you know to in a way that it made sense a little bit because I know me you know for me the first couple times of reading over it um you know reading over the rules here and even talking to a couple buddies like literally nobody that I know personally has a clue how this thing is going to work like they they're like bro can you you know do you know anything about the Special Teams rule um so I figured hey you know what let me uh let me make a video about it so hopefully it was clear let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments section thanks so much for watching and as always good J [Music]