XFL's Kickoff Rules?

Every kick return that has ever been taken back for a touchdown has a moment where the entire building realizes the returner going all the way. He finds a hole, the crowd crescendos and he’s off to the races. Instant game-changer.

Few plays in sports compare to a touchdown return’s jolt of energy and no fan base understands it better than that of the Minnesota Vikings. Thanks to Percy Harvin and Cordarrelle Patterson, the Vikings have the most (10) kick returns for touchdown since 2009, three ahead of the next best team (Baltimore).

But the opportunities for that instant injection of offense have all but disappeared with the NFL’s current kick return rules.

Last year the NFL’s leader in kick return attempts had just 32 and the entire league totaled seven returns for touchdown. In 2009, the league leader had 66 and the NFL produced 18 awe-inspiring returns for a score.

The 2019 season saw the leader in attempts have the fewest returns since the NFL began tracking return statistics.



The decline of the kickoff return hasn’t just extracted a fun play from football, it’s taken away a tradition of specialty players who become fan favorites like your Dante Halls, Mel Grays, Eric Metcalfs, Josh Cribbses and it’s left a black hole in that space. For fans, all kickoffs mean now is they have time for a trip to the fridge.

But this spring, in its brief return before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the league’s second stint to an end, the XFL offered a solution in the form of a unique return structure that saw 93% of kicks returned while vastly increasing the safety of the play.

The start-up league offered a model for the NFL to bring excitement back to the game’s opening play without sacrificing measures to protect players.

Two years before the XFL booted its first kickoff, the quickly-defunct Alliance of American Football also understood there was a problem with kickoffs that needed solving. Their solution was to eliminate it entirely and start every offensive possession at the 25-yard line. Schwartzstein and the XFL saw that as short-sighted. Why take away something exciting simply because you can’t figure out a better way?

Luck asked his new rule maker: What does the kickoff look like at the moment the receiving team catches the ball?

“I watched over 100 clips of film and paused the film when the ball is caught and the plays are 3-7 yards apart facing each other almost 100% of the time,” Schwartzstein said. “We said, let's just start the play there.”

That’s exactly what they did. Here are the rules they landed on:

> The kicker kicks from the 30-yard line and must kick the ball in the air and in play between the opponent’s 20-yard line and the end zone.

> The coverage team lines up on the return side 35-yard line and the return team lines up on the 30-yard line. Each team must have exactly 3 players outside the hash marks on both sides of the ball and cannot move until the ball is caught by the returner.



By the time the league was shut down, teams’ average starting position was higher than the NFL, they had returns on nearly every play and the once scared sh—less coaches came to appreciate the XFL’s effort.

“At first some XFL people were like, ‘I don’t know about this,’ but by the end they all loved it,” said ESPN reporter Kevin Seifert, who covered the XFL this spring, said.

Returners of the NFL’s kickoff heyday also took notice.

“It was genius by whoever invented it,” former Viking Qadry Ismail said. “The way XFL players executed it was cool and I really enjoyed it. I think it can work big time in the NFL.”

Another former Viking kick returner Moe Williams hadn’t seen it. His response via text when he was sent video of the XFL return: “That’s awesome! There it is, problem solved.”

And on the safety side, Schwartzstein said there were zero concussions reported on kickoffs. When the NFL’s kickoffs were at their height, they made up 21% of all concussions. Recent rule changes have reduced injuries but a big chunk of the drop in concussions is due to nearly eliminating the play.

“To the extent there would be injuries, you wouldn't attribute that to the kickoff because the functional play is not much different than offense and defense,” Seifert said.

Will the XFL come to the NFL?

At the NFL Combine one special teams coach mentioned to Purple Insider that there was some buzz around the XFL kickoff and said he would like to see it in the NFL.

“A couple competition members brought it up unsolicited at the NFL Combine just as, 'What do you think about this XFL thing?' and they brought up the kickoff,” Seifert said. “It was the first thing that caught their eye.”

But there’s a long road between “caught their eye” and happening. Even changes that were implemented in 2018 — which were barely noticeable to onlookers and did not improve the rate of returns — took significant time and debate.

“Whether they would say, 'Let's go ahead and steal this from the XFL,' that wouldn't be in character,” Seifert explained. “They would want it to appear as if it was their own idea so I don't sense any momentum for that….If another season goes by that returns are 30% or 35% and touchbacks are 60% or more maybe they will look at other ways to do it.”

As much as Schwartzstein believes in his product, even he wouldn’t toss it into the NFL without a larger sample size of testing.

“I think if you did it in the preseason or do some more experimenting with other spring games or college football just to make sure it checks out,” he said. “I think it works great. I think it works perfectly. But if I was working for the NFL, I'd want to test it there. Would it be better than what they have right now? Yes.”