Going into the 2024 NFL season, the league’s overhauled kickoff system was the talk of the town. Every preseason broadcast provided fans with a detailed breakdown of the new rules. This carried over into the first few weeks of the regular season.
The goal of the new system was to generate more kick returns. NFL teams averaged 1.1 kick returns per game in the 2023 season, a record low. With the kickoff trending toward extinction, the league wanted to shake things up to bring back the excitement of kick returns.
The revised rules were designed to incentivize kicking the ball short of the end zone to force a return. By moving the traditional touchback up five yards to the 30-yard line, the league believed that teams would prefer taking their chances with a return instead of gifting the opponent a chance to start at their own 30.
Things did not work as planned. The increase in returns was marginal, as the average team returned 1.7 kicks per game in 2024. While this represented a 55% jump compared to 2023, it was still the second-lowest mark in NFL history.
To the naked eye, almost nothing had changed. The kickoff was still a touchback-fest, just with both teams standing still instead of running toward each other.
About midway through the 2024 season, it became clear to fans that all of the hype about the new kickoff system was for nothing. The general public had brushed it off as a useless gimmick.
For that reason, many fans either ignored or never even heard the news of the NFL’s latest rule change to the kickoff – one that could finally allow the revised system to yield the intended results.
New kickoff rule could change everything
In April, the NFL approved a rule change to move the traditional touchback on kickoffs (i.e., any touchback on kickoffs that are caught or land in the end zone) up another five yards, all the way to the 35-yard line. We are now 15 yards out from where the touchback once sat for most of NFL history.
This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Teams were mostly content with handing over the 30-yard line to avoid a potential breakaway return, but these extra five yards may have crossed the imaginary line where teams would prefer to take their chances with a return. Handing over a 65-yard field to the opposing offense is quite risky when most kick returns do not make it to the 35-yard line; last season, the average kick return produced 27.6 yards.
We are already seeing the effects of this rule change in the preseason.
Through Week 2 of the preseason, only 18% of kickoffs around the league have resulted in touchbacks. This is a massive drop from the 2024 league average in the regular season, 64.3%.
To be clear, teams will always kick fewer touchbacks in the preseason. They want to utilize every opportunity to evaluate their roster-bubble players on special teams. For this reason, we may not see a touchback rate as low as 18% in the regular season.
However, even compared to last year’s preseason, this is a significant change. In the 2024 preseason, the touchback rate was 26.4% – and that was with the rules being brand new, which further incentivized teams to stockpile evaluation reps. They wanted to test new schemes as much as they wanted to evaluate their own players.
An 8.4% drop compared to last year’s preseason, despite teams having a year of familiarity with this kickoff system, is startling.
We could use the 8.4% mark as a baseline to project how much the return rate may change in the regular season compared to last year. But when accounting for the fact that the 2024 preseason likely had an inflated return rate due to the system’s newness, it is fair to believe the gap in touchback rate will be even higher than 8.4%.
For the sake of this exercise, let’s say that the touchback rate will drop 15% compared to last year’s regular season. That would take it down to 49.3% from last year’s 64.3% – or, 50-50, for all intents and purposes.
That would result in the revival that the NFL is hoping for.
There were 2,803 kickoffs in the 2024 regular season. If 50% of those were returned, it would yield 1,402 kick returns, an average of 2.6 per game for the average team.
NFL teams have not averaged that many kick returns per game since 2012.
It would still be a far cry from the kick return’s apex in the early 2000s, when teams averaged 4+ kick returns per game in every season from 2000 to 2008 (peaking with an all-time record of 4.3 in 2002). Nonetheless, it would represent a substantial rise compared to the nearly non-existent nature of the kick return in the 2020s.
The kick return is back
Maybe teams will surprise us and happily launch touchbacks for the second straight year. I’m not buying it.
The kick return will be back.
If I were a coach, I would never gift-wrap a start at the 35-yard line unless I had a big lead late in the game. That’s barely over 20 yards out of field goal range in a league where many kickers are more than capable of hitting a 60-yard field goal.
In most situations, I would much rather roll the dice on my return team to stop the opponent well short of the 35-yard line.
It also gets overlooked that a returner is similarly likely to fumble the ball back to you as he is to return it for a touchdown. When you kick a touchback, you also give up the chance to force a turnover.
The exact return rate will be unclear until a few weeks pass in the regular season, but you can count on a significant spike. That means kick returners will see a resurgence in value.
Luckily, the Jets are equipped with a pretty darn good one.
Kene Nwangwu positions Jets to maximize new rule
The surge in kick returns will benefit teams with quality returners, while teams that lack quality returners will suffer.
New York projects to be among the former.
Battling for a roster spot in a crowded Jets running back room, Kene Nwangwu has proven his worth in the preseason. The 27-year-old is responsible for New York’s two best kick returns this preseason, taking his two returns out to the 35 and 42-yard lines, while none of the Jets’ other seven returns surpassed the 25.
It is only the latest surge of kick-return success for the former second-team All-Pro returner. In four NFL seasons, Nwangwu has averaged 28.7 yards per kick return, the second-best mark among 32 players with 30+ returns since 2021.
Even more impressively, Nwangwu has scored an NFL-high four kick return touchdowns in his short career. No other player has scored more than two over that span. In fact, Nwangwu is responsible for 15% of all NFL kick return touchdowns since 2021 (four of 26).
Nwangwu only needed one game to prove his worth to the Jets in 2024. Signed to the team’s practice squad in September, he made his season debut in a December game against the Seahawks, where he took his first kick return 99 yards for a touchdown.
Even his next two returns yielded 30+ yards apiece. To top it off, Nwangwu forced a fumble on a Seattle kickoff, which the Jets recovered. It highlighted his multi-faceted special teams ability, which adds to his appeal as a roster candidate.
Nwangwu did not get another chance to return a kick for the Jets after that game, as a hand injury ended his season. But he’s picked up where he left off in the 2025 preseason, all but cementing his spot on the Jets’ 53-man roster. Not only has Nwangwu ripped off multiple strong returns, but he also made an excellent play in punt coverage and even contributed as a running back.
In 2025, kick returns are expected to be more important in the NFL than they’ve been in over a decade. Nobody is more prepared to take advantage than the Jets, who have the most dangerous returner in the sport on their side.