How will the Bills capitalize on new NFL kickoff rules? Training camp gives first glimpse

Posted by Admin July 28, 2024 NFL

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Just like there are only 32 head coaches in the NFL, there are only 32 special teams coordinators, so the fraternity is small, tight and generally collaborative.

Typically, men like Matt Smiley of the Buffalo Bills and his contemporaries in the game talk freely about different trends that pop up along the way in their careers and will even share ideas and strategies with each other.

But this past offseason, things were a bit different in those text, phone call, or face-to-face interactions.

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With the NFL making monumental changes to the kickoff play, coordinators like Smiley are in a new world as they try to figure out the best ways to operate on kickoffs, both in the return phase and the coverage phase.

“Guys around the league that I’m close to, we would talk probably in generalities because it is so new,” Smiley said Sunday morning before the Bills returned to training camp after a day off. “If you think you figured something out, you don’t (share), especially if you’re playing that guy (this season).

“There was a lot of collaboration getting to the point of where the rule is now with all 32 special teams coordinators, but as far as, ‘Hey, what do you see and what’s your plan? What are you going to do?’ As you can imagine, there’s a lot less of that.”

NFL’s new kickoff rule

The kickoff play had been irrelevant for several years as the league tried to de-emphasize it for safety reasons, and last year was the nadir as only 22% of all kickoffs were returned. The Bills returned only 17 for 349 yards, far and away the lowest totals in franchise history, while they had to cover just 29 of Tyler Bass’ kickoffs.

So the NFL Competition Committee, which Bills head coach Sean McDermott joined this year, looked for ways to bring the kickoff return back into the game in a safer but also potentially exciting way.

Kickers will still kick from their own 35-yard line, but the other 10 members of the coverage unit will line up at the opposing team’s 40-yard line. The return team will have at least nine blockers lined up in the “set up zone” between the 30- and 35-yard line, with at least seven of those players touching the 35, and no more than two men can be deep to return, positioned anywhere inside the 20.

Only the kicker and one or two returners can move until the ball hits the ground or is touched by a returner inside the 20. Any kick that reaches the end zone in the air can be returned, or the receiving team can opt for a touchback and possession at the 30. Any kick that reaches the end zone in the air and goes out of bounds or out of the end zone also would result in a touchback at the 30.

If a ball hits a returner or the ground before the end zone and goes into the end zone, a touchback would be at the 20 or it could be returned. Any kick received in the field of play must be returned.

What Bills camp has shown so far

As you might imagine, these changes have created long work hours for coaches like Smiley as they figure out which types of athletes should be used in the set up zone – maybe offensive and defensive linemen? – and who would be best suited to return kicks. So far at Bills camp, we’ve seen several men deep such as Daequan Hardy, KJ Hamler, Khalil Shakir, and Andy Isabella, but there will likely be others added to the mix.

“From my side of the table, it is more anxiety than it is excitement just because there is no test track,” Smiley said. “It can’t be, ‘Hey, when I was back at Eastern Illinois in 2009, we did this thing that kind of worked.’ Nobody has ever done anything like it.

“Special teams coaches, just by nature, are always thinking of worst-case scenarios and guys give me a hard time (when I say), ‘Get ready for this thing,’ and guys give me a hard time (saying), ‘Coach, that hasn’t happened in three years.’ Now we’re in uncharted territory so going through your rolodex of, ‘If this, then that,’ right now doesn’t exist other than what you’ve learned in practice.”

Smiley thinks players who are adept at punt returns will probably best to return kickoffs because they generally have a little more wiggle in tighter spaces as opposed to previous kickoff returners who had more of a running start and had time to set things up.

“It’s less high-speed collisions and it’s more potentially lateral movement and finding a hole,” Smiley said. “It potentially looks more like an offense-defense play or a punt return as opposed to (old) kick returns where you’re setting a course, staying on that course, making maybe one move and hit it. There’s potentially more wrinkles with less space with the new rule.”

The preseason will provide a testing ground as teams work out the kinks and try to implement the best strategy and deploy the proper personnel.

“We’ve done a bunch of research, a bunch of brainstorming,” Smiley said. “The spring was very helpful working through some things and incorporating the guys in the room. The players are underestimated a lot of times for how much football they know, how smart and creative they are, so we had times during the spring (when) we said, ‘Hey, what do you guys see here? What do you think?’ (We) experimented in the spring and really tried to learn to see where the issues are and where we can capitalize both ways.”

Buffalo Bills training camp news

Be sure to return to democratandchronicle.com for daily updates throughout the Buffalo Bills training camp. You can also sign up for Bills Blast, Sal Maiorana’s newsletter which will follow the Bills action all season long. Here are stories from camp:

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