It"s official. No more surprises in the National Football League (NFL). Teams must now declare an onside kick attempt, marking an end to the element of surprise in the sport.
Surprise onside kick eliminated with new kickoff rule. https://t.co/jpvNQqMhZo
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) March 26, 2024
Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay declared that with the new kickoff rule, there will be no such thing as a surprise onside kick any longer.
Under the new rule, teams have to notify the referee if they intend to kick an onside kick. They are allowed only two attempts per game, and neither can be executed before the fourth quarter.
Furthermore, any kick that lands short of the landing zone is considered a ‘no kick," and the ball will default to the opposing team at the 40-yard line.
"With this formation, there is no such thing as a surprise onside kick, because any kick that lands short of the landing zone is a no kick and the ball goes to the 40," "That ship has sailed. There are certainly great games, and we go back to the Super Bowl [XLIV when the Saints’ surprise] onside kick played a huge part. But we looked at the numbers, and last year, there are two attempts all year. So, it’s not a play that’s really in our game.
"What we did preserve is we got the onside kick in its current format, same lineup, same rules, same everything, and you can use it in the fourth quarter, and you can use it twice. So, if you’re trailing, and you say, ‘I want to just kick a traditional onside kick,’ you have that right under this rule."
An instance of a surprise onside kick was the ‘Ambush," executed by the New Orleans Saints to commence the second half of Super Bowl XLIV.
Trailing the Indianapolis Colts 10-6 at halftime, this move eventually led to the Saints clinching the victory.
While the ‘Ambush" remains etched in NFL history, the success rate of recovering surprise onside kicks has been dismal over the past five years.
Teams have recovered only 2 of the 15 attempts made, indicating a declining trend. This major rule change is expected to have a substantial impact on game strategies.
"There was a little bit of pushback getting rid of that," Saints special teams coach Darren Rizzi said. "Another one was something we use all the time is there is a little bit of strategical part to the kickoff at the end of the half and the end of the game where you may need to eliminate some time off the clock with a squib kick and things like that. That element of the game is gone, too."
With the element of surprise being eliminated, coaches and teams will need to redefine their tactics while considering these new limitations.
Interestingly, an alternative proposition by the Philadelphia Eagles to replace the surprise onside kick also fell flat. Owners voted against the proposal on Monday.
"That might have been just a little bit too much for us to bite off at this point in time," McKay said. "So, we went with the traditional onside kick and a brand-new hybrid kickoff. Do I think some type of change to the onside kick could happen in the future? I do, because I think as soon we took away the runoff on the kickoff . . . it’s become very hard to recover onside kicks."
The response to this landmark rule change has been mixed. While some consider it a positive move towards transparent gameplay, others see it as taking away the unpredictability that added excitement to the game.
