The NFL had recently changed the kickoff rule and new regulations have been included. With this, all the teams in the league are researching ways to gain an advantage, especially considering the upcoming 2024 NFL season.
According to Pro Football Talk, head coach Kevin Stefanski of the Cleveland Browns recently shared that he, Bubba Ventrone who is the special teams coordinator and Stephen Bravo-Brown, the special teams assistant, have all spent significant amounts of time analyzing the play, along with Mike Vrabel, who is the team’s consultant.
The head coach shared as per Cleveland.com, “We’ve spent a lot of time on that Chris (Easterling), Bubba (Ventrone), myself, Steven Bravo-Brown, coach (Mike) Vrabel has helped in this as well because we’re all trying to understand this hybrid kickoff. It’s new for everybody. So, we look at that as a great opportunity in this league to add an exciting play for this game, and it’s another touch for an offensive player.”
“It’s another opportunity to get a tackle for a defensive player or an offensive player on special teams. We’re excited about what it is, but we’re working through it, I don’t think anybody in the league can tell you exactly how it’s going to look, but that’s an opportunity for us so we’ve spent a lot of time on the board with it. Bubba’s been in the indoor, literally with a helmet on, taking drops, which is true. So we want to be as prepared as we can be. But I don’t know that there’s any club that knows exactly how it’s going to look.”
He further continued regarding the impact it will have on the lineup, “Potentially. It’s another good question. Potentially, I don’t know, because without knowing exactly how the play looks, you have some ideas, and you try to think about what player and what bodytype may make more sense for that play now that it’s the hybrid kickoff. But I really don’t know if anybody knows for sure.”
The head coach, Stefanski, further added that he is “in a favour of an exciting play” considering the supporters and is confident that the players will understand as nobody knows for sure what the play would be keeping in mind the new kick off rules and regulations.
