Silver And Black Pride
The dynamic kickoff is here to stay.
After seeing the new form of the free kick in 2024, NFL owners approved to make the change permanent in 2025. But with an interesting wrinkle: The dead ball spot after a touchback is now the 35-yard line.
This is all to promote more returns this coming season an beyond.
Giving the opposing offense the ball at the 35-yard line by either blasting the kickoff out of the end zone or missing the landing zone — on paper — looks like quite the deterrent for the kicking team. Nary a squad is going to put their defense behind the eight ball from the jump … right?
Las Vegas Raiders special teams coordinator Tom McMahon is certainly of that notion.
“Personally, I think you’re going to cover probably all of them when you go into the season,” McMahon began when asked how many more kickoff returns we’ll see this season. “It’s hard to give up the 35-yard line on a touchback when last year the average drive start was the 30. So, it’s hard to walk in and say, ‘Hey we’re just going to give five yards.‘ I can’t tell you exactly how many, but I would say pretty much most of them guys are going to try to cover.”
McMahon, who enters his fourth season as the Silver & Black special teams boss, is a very big fan of the rule change and making the dynamic kickoff permanent. In his mind, it allows several Raiders to get in on the action as special teams work encompasses all the fundamentals of the game from blocking and tackling.
“I love the rule. And the big thing is, our special teams players now, they’ve got to work every single play,” McMahon explained. “There is going to be a tackle, you’ve got to block somebody every single play. So, at the end of the season, you’re going to have guys with 20 tackles on kickoff. And last year, we covered I think like 27,28. You get that up near the 70s and your special teams players’ value skyrockets, and they want to play. They’re football players, they want to make plays.
“Same thing on kickoff returns, they want to block. And your returner value skyrockets. Last year you’ve got 20 returns, this year that player has 70. I don’t know in the league who gets 70 touches before the season starts. That kick returner is guaranteed more touches, other than your half backs.”
In 2024, Las Vegas ranked fifth overall with a healthy 29.6 yards per return average on kickoffs, according to Pro Football Reference. Which is merits attention as the Raiders only had 23 return attempts last season which is the 26th least out of the 32 squads.
Flip it over to kickoff return coverage, and McMahon’s group ranked tops in the league limiting opponents to an average of 23.8 yards per return (25 total returns for 596 yards, good for 10th...
