A year after resuscitating the kickoff, the NFL wants to breathe new life into the onside kick. And sources believe it could look fairly similar to the old onside kick.
The NFL's football operations team and competition committee plan to convene this offseason to discuss changes to the onside kick that will increase the odds of a recovery. This season, only three of the 41 onside kick attempts have been recovered by the kicking team.
"We need to look at that. That's a dead play," NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent said this week at league meetings. "That is a ceremonial play. Very low recovery rate. When we look at the kickoff and maybe where the touchback area should be during the offseason, we need to revisit the onside kick."
The NFL spent the majority of its offseason kicking energy last year on the so-called dynamic kickoff, opting against pursuing any real changes to the onside that would help recovery rates. In fact, the dynamic kickoff likely hurt the onside kick because it forced teams to both declare the kick -- eliminating the surprise onside kick -- and allowing it only in the fourth quarter.
Vincent said all options are on the table where it concerns the play. The league has flirted with alternatives like the fourth-and-long model, but it has never gotten any legs.
Years ago the Broncos proposed a fourth-and-15 alternative. Last year, the Eagles proposed a fourth-and-20 alternative that was similar to Denver's proposal. The idea is to get an offensive play that has a similar success rate to the old onside recovery rate.
Another noted the potential for a defensive pass interference within the fourth-and-long alternative ultimately giving a team possession. DPI is already the biggest penalty on the league's books, and through 14 weeks the NFL has seen 240 DPI penalties accepted. It's the second-most at this point of the season in the last decade. Only 2020, which was a historic season for offensive output, had more at 249.
These ideas have never gained steam among enough NFL team owners, perhaps because they could be seen as gimmicky. And while the league wants to stay open to all ideas, sources are dubious a fourth-and-long play will wind up replacing the onside kick.
"They're not taking the foot out of the game," one source said.
The onside as we once knew it began to disappear ahead of the 2018 season. That offseason, the NFL banned running starts on kickoffs, which was a crucial element to an onside recovery.
In the decade before the rule change, the onside recovery rate was 16.4%. Since the rule change it has been cut nearly in half to 8.6%. There haven't been more than three recoveries in a season since 2021.
The running start was eliminated in part due to health and safety reasons, and the league has seen a reduction in injury and concussion rates on the kickoff compared to past years. But because there are so few examples of the onside kick, there may not be a large enough sample size to determine if a 5-yard running start (or an unbalanced side) would be any more or less dangerous than a fourth-and-long play. Additionally, it could only be about 60 plays per season in an NFL that sees upwards of 30,000 plays per year.
The league knew it had a problem with the kick ahead of this season, but it decided to focus its efforts on bringing the kickoff back to life. After a record-low return rate and a Super Bowl with 13 kickoffs with zero returns, making that play worthwhile became the top priority where it related to booting the football.
The kickoff return rate went from about 21% last year to nearly 32% this season. The league has seen 41 returns of 40 or more yards and six touchdowns. But there's still work to be done.
Sources say the league will continue to tinker with the kickoff in the offseason. The league wants to encourage even more returns, as 64% of the kicks have either gone out of the back of the end zone or into the end zone with no return. Making a touchback come out to the 35-yard line instead of the 30 will be discussed.
Another option available to the league is moving the kickers back 5 yards. Most NFL kickers will still be able to make it to the end zone, but fewer would go out of the back of the end zone. The strength of a kicker's leg will be more important as well, especially in the colder months on teams with outdoor stadiums.
If anything changes with the kickoff, it will likely be in that 5-yard window, and the league will have a full year of data to work with.
But what the league knows is that the onside doesn't work anymore, and change of some sort must take place in the offseason.
