Tag: kickoff rules

Mitch Wishnowsky should handle kickoffs for 49ers with new NFL rules

The 49ers should have Mitch Wishnowsky take their kickoffs this year.

Part of the reason the 49ers picked Jake Moody No. 99 overall in the 2023 draft was because of his ability to handle kickoffs. He had the leg to launch his kickoffs through the back of the end zone for touchbacks to eliminate potential big kick returns. Now with the new kickoff rules though, it may behoove the 49ers to put punter Mitch Wishnowsky on kickoffs.

The NFL’s new kickoff rules will ostensibly force kick coverage teams to play along a line of scrimmage in a way that could often leave kickers as a last line of defense more often than they used to be. Having a kicker that can’t stick his nose in and tackle will cost some teams points. The new rules also put the receiving team at the 30 for a touchback to incentivize keeping the ball in the landing zone between the 20 and the goal line.

Kansas City is already experimenting with putting safety Justin Reid on kickoffs to ensure they have a tackler on the field who won’t force them to play 10-on-11 on kickoffs. For the 49ers they don’t have to go that far because Wishnowsky, a former Aussie rules football player, can hit.

Exhibit A from his first preseason:

This is the kind of play that might start being required by kickers under the new rules. The coverage team and return team will line up five yards apart, limiting the amount of layers to a coverage team. One seam in that coverage unit could be enough to spring a long return.

If the kicker isn’t an active part of that coverage, those seams may be easier to come by. If the kicker is flying up like Wishnowsky did in the video above, it could shut the faucet off on what would’ve been a big return that puts the kicker against a returner in space.

Perhaps the 49ers are fine with Moody banging touchbacks still. They might also be fine with him launching kicks high in the air to give the coverage team time to get down the field. Wishnowsky should at least get a look though, particularly if kick coverage becomes a problem for San Francisco.

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Of course 49ers voted against new NFL kickoff rule

The #49ers voted against the NFL’s new kickoff rule. Because of course they did.

The NFL on Tuesday voted to adopt a new rule for kickoffs that the league hopes will reduce injuries while also bringing kick returns back into the fore. For the last several years kickoffs have become a largely ceremonial process where the kicker blasts the kick out of the end zone. The new rules and kickoff formation will likely generate more returns, which makes it not surprising the 49ers were one of three teams to vote against it.

Under the new rules teams will kick off from their own 35 with 10 members of the kicking team lining up on their own 40. There’s a landing zone between the receiving team’s 20 and their goal line that the kick must reach. No fair catches are allowed, and touchbacks give the receiving team possession at their own 30. The kicking team won’t be able to cover the kick until the receiving team has caught the ball. There are a handful of other stipulations, but here is in general what it’s supposed to look like, as executed in the XFL:

According to MMQB’s Albert Breer, San Francisco was joined by Green Bay and Las Vegas in voting against the rule.

There are a handful of reasons the 49ers might’ve voted against the deal. Matt Barrows of the Athletic reported the team wanted to revisit the rule at the October league meetings after more health and safety evaluation was done. Barrows added that San Francisco was “leery of unintended consequences of such a big change.”

Typically we’ve seen the 49ers under head coach Kyle Shanahan do everything humanly possible to eliminate variance in the special teams aspect of the game. They messed around with short kickoffs to try and pin teams deep in their own territory, but by the end of the 2023 season kicker Jake Moody was launching kicks out of the end zone to remove the potential for a big kickoff return that flips field position.

By implementing the new rule the league will require a level of strategy on kickoffs that wasn’t in play before. Shanahan will have to dedicate at least some level of energy to kickoffs and kick returns that he didn’t before. While it shouldn’t have a dramatic impact on the offense or defense, it’s not surprising that the 49ers voted against it since it’ll require at least a little more thought from the head coach than kickoffs had previously required both in game and with how the roster will ultimately be constructed.

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Huge changes to NFL kickoff rule for 2024

What do you think of the league’s new rules for kickoff rules?

Last season, the more boring part of any NFL game was the kickoff as only 22 percent of kickoffs were returned. But oh boy, all that is about to change. Maybe. The league has proposed the NFL will change the rules for kickoffs to those used by the XFL in an attempt to bring back some excitement to the kicking game and help keep kickoff returns safe.

Here is a perfect breakdown of the new rule from NBCDFW:

The kicking team will kick off from its own 35-yard line.
10 members of the kicking team will line up on the receiving team’s 40-yard line (25 yards in front of their kicker).
A minimum of nine members of the receiving team will line up between their own 30- and 35-yard lines (five-to-10 yards in front of the 10 members of the kicking team).
The receiving team can have zero, one or two players inside their own 30-yard line to receive the kickoff.
The play begins when the ball is either caught, hits the ground in the landing zone (inside the 20-yard line before the goal line) or is returned from the end zone. That’s when players can begin moving.
Any kick that hits the landing zone must be returned.
Any kick that bounces from the landing zone into the end zone must be returned or kneeled for a touchback (with possession going out to the 20-yard line).
If a kick doesn’t reach the landing zone, the receiving team gets possession at its 40-yard line.
If the ball enters the end zone in the air, the receiving team can return it or kneel it for possession at its 30-yard line.
If the ball is kicked out of bounds, the receiving team gets possession at its 40-yard line.
There are no fair catches.
Onside kicks are only permitted in the fourth quarter and must be declared to officials 

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