Donald Trump has rejected the NFL’s new kickoff rule and demanded the league “get rid of it.”
Trump secured a second term as president this week after a resounding victory over Kamala Harris in a one-sided election.
While he’s busy planning his return to the White House, Trump clearly made time to watch football on Sunday.
However, he was clearly unimpressed with the NFL’s new kickoff rule, which was introduced at the start of the season in September.
The President-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform, “The NFL needs to get rid of the ridiculous new Kickoff Rule!”
Donald Trump on Sunday denounced the NFL’s new kickoff rule and demanded they get rid of it
The president-elect called the rule, which went into effect this season, ‘ridiculous’
The NFL introduced a new “dynamic” kickoff for the 2024 season in an effort to reduce high-speed collisions at an “unacceptable rate of injuries.”
The change was also intended to encourage teams to run the ball back – rather than calling a fair catch.
The change now places players on the kicking team on the opponent’s 40-yard line, instead of behind the kicker.
They cannot move until the ball hits the ground or a player in the landing zone or end zone.
The designated landing zone is between the receiving team’s goal line and the 20-yard line. Any kick that lands in this area must be returned.
It is not the first time that Trump has criticized the rule change. He did so during the Alabama-Georgia college football game in September.
“I don’t know what they do with the kickoff return in the NFL, and I don’t want to get involved in any controversy, but it looks so bad, and I noticed they didn’t do that in college, and they shouldn’t do it, and I think the NFL should back off,” Trump told Outkick.com’s Clay Travis.
Referring to the more traditional kickoff lineup still used by the NCAA, Trump admitted “maybe it’s a little more dangerous” before quickly contradicting himself.
The NFL has introduced a new rule in an effort to reduce the number of high-speed collisions
“I doubt it’s more dangerous,” he told Travis. “It’s, you know, it’s football. I think [the NFL] made a terrible mistake. But look at this, [college football hasn’t] I did it, it was the first thing I looked at. I said, ”Did they do it?” It looks so strange and you don’t take something that works and change it.
“But this is really big-time football,” he said, referring to Alabama’s upset of rival Georgia. “And it’s great to see.”
His condemnation of the new kickoff rule wasn’t Trump’s only NFL-themed post on Sunday.
Nick Bosa continued his celebration of Trump’s landslide election victory by impersonating the president-elect to celebrate a resignation.
And Trump was clearly impressed by Bosa’s celebration, writing, “Nick Bosa is a great player!”
Nick Bosa appeared to mimic Donald Trump’s dance moves after he was fired on Sunday
The San Francisco 49ers star was fined by the NFL 24 hours earlier for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat during a post-game television interview last month.
But when he got back up after sacking Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, Bosa pulled out a dance routine that seemed to mimic Trump’s famous moves from the campaign trail.
Trump dancing to the Village People hit “YMCA” became a feature of his rallies on the campaign trail.
The president-elect, 78, often used the song to get his audience moving, showing off a bit of hip action and raising his arms up and down to the beat.