Reforming the draft to The Larry David Rule: NFL changes we’d like to see
The NFL will look radically different next season. The league’s owners voted Tuesday to approve a new kickoff rule originally adopted in the XFL.
It’s one of the most groundbreaking changes in the league’s history. After slowly banishing kickoffs from the sport, the league is embracing a new ‘hybrid’ approach that turns kickoffs into something approaching a traditional football game. Kick-off will no longer be a passing moment, a chance for the broadcasters to squeeze in a few commercial breaks.
Under the new rule, 21 of the 22 players on the field will be on the returner’s side. Only the kicker is in the kicking team’s area. The whole rule is complicated – prepare to learn more about ‘landing zones’ and ‘set-up zones’. But the result is this: more efficiency, more action, fewer injuries. The rule also eliminates fair catches. If the returner catches the ball in the landing zone, he must return it.
Here’s a look at the official proposal for the kickoff change. Teams may have a maximum of 2 returners. The kicking team cannot move until the ball hits or is played into the landing zone. No more fair catches. pic.twitter.com/LaquOHnh3d
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) March 20, 2024
There are few things as nice as one returner making a run. But the NFL has struggled to strike a balancing act between preserving the electric shock of the return game and minimizing the risk of injury. Over the past decade, the NFL has reported a three to five times higher rate of concussions on kickoffs than on typical offensive defensive plays, largely due to the distance between the kicking and returning units and the violence of those collisions.
NFL owners have approved the proposed new kickoff (XFL style). Maybe we’ll see some returns if it gets implemented.
This is positive compared to what they approved yesterday #NFLTwitter pic.twitter.com/EHfeHrIqmn— Variety Sports Network (@variety_sports_) March 26, 2024
In one season in the XFL, the league reported zero injuries on more than 400 kickoffs using the hybrid design. “The goal is to make the number of injuries and concussions comparable to a run or pass play from a scrimmage,” Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, said Tuesday. “Does it go a little higher? Will it be the same? Will it be a little lower?”
The knock-on consequences are profound, both on and off the field. The trial run in the XFL led to some ingenious return strategies and caused a shift in how teams built their special teams units. Returning players will now be more expensive – and the new style’s blocking and defense mechanics will change, meaning the attacking and defending units will be looking for players with different skills.
2024 will be a test run. The rule was approved for a one-year trial period and could be suspended if owners decide it’s a step backwards. However, if it works as intended, it will receive final approval next year, bringing about the most sweeping overhaul of the special teams game in generations.
Introducing the new kick-off is a big change. But the competition can – and must – go further. Here are a few other suggestions to consider.
Eliminate postseason conferences
That hasn’t happened since the 1980s such a difference between the two conferences. You can tie that to luck, a smooth quarterback distribution or incompetence. The potential additions of Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels and JJ McCarthy could help address the imbalance. But for now, the NFC remains the junior varsity conference.
That’s fine during the regular season. Conferences and divisions allow the league to maintain geographic rivalry. But it’s time to change course for the postseason, eliminating the conference rankings and moving into the playoffs regardless of conference affiliation.
A postseason should be about determining the best team, about forcing a franchise to run through a gauntlet. Given the current quarterback landscape, the AFC fits the bill and the NFC does not. The NBA toyed with the idea from moving to a model that left the East-West structure behind and rewarded the sixteen best teams with play-off places. The NFL should do the same with AFC and NFC. Decouple the conference playoffs. Postseason one through fourteen and give us as many great matchups as possible at the end of January.
Exempt quarterbacks from the salary cap
Under the current salary cap, there is a perverse incentive structure for quarterbacks. Players want to maximize their influence and negotiate the strongest contract possible, but taking up too high a percentage of the cap could undermine their team’s ability to build a championship-caliber roster.
Quarterbacks’ reputations (rightly or wrongly) are based on team success. Leaving money on the table to build a contender is a common thread that runs through all quarterback negotiations. When a quarterback chooses to leave money on the table — as Tom Brady did in New England — he is praised for being team-first and prioritizing winning over money while franchise values continue to rise.
Dak Prescott and the Cowboys do negotiate which will be the biggest contract in league history. Next up are Brock Purdy and the 49ers. “It’s a good problem to have when your quarterback is one of the highest-paid guys on your team and in the league,” Niners CEO Jed York said this week when discussing Purdy’s impending contract extension. He is right; the Niners landed the most valuable contract in sports when they selected Purdy with the last pick in the 2022 draft. But now they find themselves in a strange situation. Does Purdy try to make up for lost time by grabbing some of the money he missed on his rookie deal or does he negotiate a cheaper contract to help his team keep their star-studded roster?
NFL owners are swimming in money. The limit is largely there to prevent a handful of owners from indulging their own worst instincts. When the league tried to implement a secret salary cap in 2010, it was no official number of the booksDan Snyder and Jerry Jones couldn’t help it, splashing the cash behind the backs of the other 30 owners.
after newsletter promotion
Lifting the cap all the way is a non-starter. And making a carve-out for one position would be difficult to get through the players’ union – one solution could be this. player, regardless of position, is exempt. But teams would certainly throw their money at the quarterback position because this is so is different. The visibility is different. Their influence is different. There’s a reason why they’re already the highest paid player on most teams. Creating a capless slot would allow money to be distributed elsewhere in the squad, taking away the I-v-team side of negotiations and ensuring continuity for players and teams in the most valuable position in the game.
Reform the design
The design is inherently unfair. Most regular employees are not forced to apply for jobs before waiting to be asked where they will be sent. And in no other workforce are the best applicants sent in descending order from worst to best workplace.
This season alone we’ve had Caleb Williams, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the draft, expressing his disdain for the design structure. Earlier this week, said Deion Sanders he will encourage Shedeur Sanders, his son and the starting quarterback at Colorado, and two-way phenom Travis Hunter, to “pull an Eli” in next year’s draft, forcing trades to their preferred destinations.
From the perspective of the competition, a design makes sense. It creates competitive balance. It allows the NFL to enforce a rookie pay scale that limits financial exposure to bankruptcies. But we can make adjustments.
How about this: Each team is assigned a rookie salary pool, tied to the franchise’s performance in the previous season. Let’s say the team with the worst record in the league gets a pool of $25 million and the Super Bowl champions get $10 million. It is then up to the teams to decide how they want to deploy their resources.
The worst team, in desperate need of a quarterback, can throw as much money at the best college quarterback as they want. But that quarterback could decide to prioritize his landing spot over cash. A star wide receiver would forgo an early payday to play with Patrick Mahomes, Jordan Love or Josh Allen. A rebuilding franchise might prefer to spread the wealth across fifteen prospects rather than pour money into the most coveted draftees.
Such a structure would maintain the excitement from Super Bowl to draft. The Mock Draft Industrial Complex would continue to operate at full capacity. But it would give conscripts some freedom of choice. It wouldn’t reward incompetence. It might encourage franchises to clean up their sewage. Just as importantly, Draft Night remains captivating in its unpredictability, albeit with a fresh twist: every player would be available to everyone. team.
The Larry David Rule
As Curb Your Enthusiasm comes to a close, Larry David has moved on to a new project: eradicating kickers from the NFL. ‘I’m losing the goalposts’ David told the Rich Eisen Show when asked how he would change the sport. “Why do kickers, who have no football skills, who are not football players, kick a ball through the goalposts to decide games? Why don’t we just have jumping frogs to decide games?”
Eliminating field goals – David’s main objection – is one thing. But David goes further. He wants to revise the point-after system. David’s idea is to remove kicked conversions. Instead, teams would choose to take the ball from the one-, two-, or six-yard line, as they do in current two-point conversions, with different point values assigned to the distances. Convert from the one yard line and they score one point. From the two meter line there are two points. From the six-metre line it is three points.
Removing field goals won’t happen anytime soon. But escalate extra points? That’s nice, pretty good.