NFL kickoffs to be tweaked, not eliminated
NEW YORK – Kickoffs may not be well, but they are still very much alive in the NFL.
“When you start talking about eliminating kickoffs, just look at the reaction from fans, coaches and players,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president for football operations, pondered for USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. “All three say it’s not good for the game.”
Yet tweaks are indeed coming.
Vincent is heading a two-day safety summit that concludes on Wednesday at the league’s headquarters in Manhattan. A half-dozen current head coaches and at least as many former players have been summoned to join Commissioner Roger Goodell and other league officials to provide insight as the NFL will implement a new rule this season to ban (or at least significantly reduce) the use of helmets and engage in additional measures to improve player safety.
More: NFL ponders future of kickoffs, but it’s clear they must go
While there has been discussion about scrapping kickoffs – the play that multiple studies have found accounts for more injuries in the sport than any other – Vincent doesn’t see that in the foreseeable future. Instead, the competition committee will likely present a proposal to NFL owners later in May that could eliminate some or all forms of wedge blocking and dictate alignments that remove space on kickoffs.
It is Vincent’s hope that such tweaks would not only make kickoffs safer but also provide a jolt that allows the kick return a revival as one of the game’s most exciting plays.
“As a returner,” Vincent said, “I’ll take that all day long.”
Source:-https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2018/05/01/nfl-kickoffs-rules-tweaks-changes/570488002/
