The kickers strike back

0:03Robert Mays: Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. You guys might've picked up over the last few years that special teams is not my favorite part of football. You got to twist my arm to talk about kicking and the like on this show. And I understand that's a personal blind spot. I don't think that's a good thing. This year, the NFL has just shoved me toward having to care about it. We have reached the pinnacle of how important kicking is in the NFL coming from a couple different directions. The new kickoff rule, changing the touchback to the 30 to the 35, has more than doubled the return rate from the 2024 season.

0:37Robert Mays: It has made the dynamic kickoff rule truly dynamic, and it has made kickoffs a live play in the NFL again, and it has changed strategy, how teams have to approach it. It's a fun thing. And so we wanted to dig into that, but also talk about the change in the K-ball rule coming into this season, which if you haven't heard about this, The NFL allowed kickers this year to start working up the kicking balls throughout the entire week the same way you could for a quarterback or any other position when it used to be a scenario where you had about a half hour before the game to work those balls up. And there are some people, coaches around the NFL, Vic Fangio included, who's been talking about how this has materially changed what kickers are capable of, and this rule has quietly been very impactful.

1:18Robert Mays: And so from two different directions, we have kicking being more important in the NFL than it's ever been. We have kickoffs now dictating how games are going to go. If you miss the landing zone late in the game, you're giving the team the ball at the 40 yard line. And on the other side of it, now if you're banging kickoffs from 65 yards, you got to go about 12 yards in order to get yourself into field goal range. So this is happening. Can't ignore it. And so today we're going to take some time to dig into the biggest year in special teams in the NFL. And as long as I can remember covering this league to have this discussion with me.

1:51Robert Mays: welcome both Jordan Rodrigue and Mike Sando from The Athletic. Both of them have written extensively about this. Jordan did a great story a couple of weeks ago about the K-balls and what the rule changes looked like. And Sando has been on the changes in return percentage, scorings, all of these things that have come from the new kickoff rule. So really enjoyed chatting with both of them about what this has looked like over the first seven weeks of the season. Let's get to that conversation right now.

2:23Robert Mays: Very excited to celebrate kicking day on the athletic football show, which as I explained in the intro is a surprising holiday considering how little we talk about special teams on this show. It's absolutely been a blind spot of mine to people who have done a fantastic job of hitting this though and covering it all season and explaining the impact of it to our wonderful NFL writers, the athletic first off, it is the man himself, Mike Sando. Mike, so good to chat with you today. Appreciate you being here. Hey, thanks for having me and even better to have Jordan Rodrigue. Thrilled for Jordan to also be here.

2:56Robert Mays: Jordan wrote a story about the K-ball change earlier this year. Absolutely wanted to get her involved. Jordan, thanks for doing this.

3:03Jourdan Rodrigue: Thanks guys. We, the Slack channel on this topic was popping off. So if that's any sign for how fun this conversation is going to be, I am so here for it.

3:12Robert Mays: We're going to get into some of the layers of this, but some of the questions, like the theoretical questions that Sando is asking about the implications of the change in the kickoff rule. It was the most distilled version of Mike Sandoz that I think I've ever experienced. And I mean that in the warmest way possible. So we're going to talk about just how kicking the prominence of kicking has changed in the NFL this year, because it's coming from two different directions. And I think that's what makes this so notable, right? So we have two rule changes that have made kicking more important to the NFL than Jordan.

3:43Robert Mays: I think at any time, since I started doing this, I mean, there was a point and I explain this in the intro, but when you were watching film, when I was over the last few years, I would literally just download sides of the ball, offense, defense. And I found myself never watching kicking because so much of it were dead plays. Like kickoffs didn't matter. And so now the fact that the kickoff is as live as it's ever been because of the rule changes and the cable changes have made field goals more impactful and more exciting than they've ever been from multiple different directions. We are having a kicking renaissance in the NFL that has made it impossible for me to ignore it as much as I wanted to.

4:19Jourdan Rodrigue: And you'll never get that time back, Robert. No, it's funny. It's the meme of accidentally became important at work and it's ruining my life.

4:28Robert Mays: It's so true. But the thing is, and we'll talk about this, Sando, it wasn't accidental. Like I actually, in talking to a bunch of coaches for this, and I talked to some defensive coordinators, special teams coordinators, just people who've been impacted by this. One of the defensive coordinators I was talking to is joking. He's like, special teams coordinators have legislated themselves back to relevance in the NFL by all these rule changes. Like credit to them for doing that. It's actually very impressive. Like it's bureaucracy at work in a positive way for them.

4:56Mike Sando: It is. And like to me, I agree with you that sometimes special teams, the special teams have just become such a bore. You know, the kickoff was just a letdown. Remember, it used to be like, oh, the opening kickoff of the whole stadium standing. And it's like, oh, we're going to get a big play here or a big collision. And obviously they don't want the huge collisions for good reasons on some of those plays. It's always the, you know, being a parent whose kids played football, the kickoff was always the most nerve wracking thing because people just go run from long distances and blow each other up.

5:27Mike Sando: But now we've at least found a way and we will talk about this, too. The strategy late in the game, if you screw up and don't kick it to the landing zone, I mean, that's a play. That's we're interviewing the kicker after the game.

5:37Robert Mays: So, Sando, let's just walk through the material changes in the kickoff rule just to set it up for people. What is different this year compared to the first version of the dynamic kickoff from last year?

5:49Mike Sando: Yeah, so the touchback for years used to be to the 20-yard line. And then they wanted to move it to the 35, but chickened out last year and moved it to the 30. And the changes were subtle. I mean, it didn't have, I think, the effect that a lot of people wanted it to have. Because remember, they're looking for ways to get scoring up too. And so shorter fields, in theory, you can get scoring up in an era when maybe defenses have caught up a little bit, right? So this year they made the touchback be more punitive, bringing it out to the 35. And we have some movement there. Now on the kickoffs with the landing zone where you have to kick the ball past the 20-yard line but not into the goal line, now that is coming out to the 40 instead of the 35.

6:36Mike Sando: So you get the ball at the 40. You just know this as a fan, just how you feel about things. You get the ball at the 40. You're like, we're going to get in field goal range in two plays at this point, right?

6:48Robert Mays: Yeah, absolutely. And we've seen it happen in late game situations, Jordan. The Cardinals Seahawks game is the one that sticks out to me, where you have that late kickoff that falls short of the landing zone. And now on a potential game winning drive, you're lining up at the 40. You need two completions for a game winning field goal. And so it really has changed some of these like super high leverage situations in the NFL. Yeah.

7:10Jourdan Rodrigue: And it is interesting. You are watching a lot of coaches learn about it and troubleshoot it in real time. Several weeks ago, even a late game situational decision by Ben Johnson, who I would say is probably one of the better situational coaches and has been on one of the better situational, especially special teams staffs when he was with the Lions. wasn't quite sure whether they were going to be able to kick the ball, just like dribble it off the tee and maybe incur the penalty in order to help kill a little bit more clock, or whether they could purposefully incur the penalty by kicking the ball out of the end zone.

7:44Jourdan Rodrigue: When he admitted later on, it should have just gone out of bounds. Special teams ended up making an error. It ended up costing them. So I think that this is something, it's very interesting because it's not only become a reason to watch for the productivity that it's bringing back, And I think we'll see the numbers over time translate to that. But also because you are watching these very high level people troubleshoot and workshop the situational stakes of all of this in real time. And it's totally I remember, Robert, when this first when the rule change first happened. Oh, my gosh. Everyone says all the right things at the league meetings.

8:19Jourdan Rodrigue: It's going to be for safety and we're happy about it and we're on board and all this stuff. No, when they go into their practices and all these kickers have to work on all these funky kicks and all these special teams coaches are actually taking up meeting time. Like this is so this was so annoying for some of these coaches, especially offensive head coaches who really just wanted to dedicate all of that time to what they normally do. Now you have to have real strategy, too, which I think overall is good for the game.

8:44Mike Sando: And it depends on your kicker, too. All these guys are different. Right. So and who you're facing their kicker, how they're going to employ them, how aggressive teams are. You mentioned the Arizona game, which I think gave Sam Darnold possession for Seattle with 28 seconds left, and they got the tying field goal. Also, week two, I believe, New England-Miami. New England was leading 33-27. They kick off. These are the two times in the final two minutes that the landing zone was missed. And so Miami got the ball down six at their own 40. They weren't able to get the touchdown, but, man, that's a nice head start on one for sure to get it that far out.

9:21Mike Sando: So I managed to see that type of thing happening in a big moment in a Super Bowl, you know, or in a playoff game. Your kickers may be banged up or right. You have to make a personnel decision and you have suddenly the ball's out of the 40. And Patrick Mahomes has has 18 seconds left from the 40. And you're like panicking, you know.

9:46Robert Mays: and if you look at the numbers and one of the special teams coordinators I talked to last week mentioned that the first thing they looked at was just scoring rates based on where you are on the field right which obviously that makes sense that's the first thing you would take a look at so I just looked at the numbers very quickly before we started recording today from inside the 20 so from the 20 yard line and in since 2000 percentage of drives the result in a score was 24 34%. Inside the 30, it only goes to 27 and a half percent. It's not that much of a difference between the 20 and the 30. And you saw that in the strategy last year.

10:18Robert Mays: Well, if you push it to the 35 to the 35 yard line, exactly. It goes to 34 and a half percent since 2000. So now we're looking at scoring drives on a third of plays if you're just banging touchbacks. And so that's what it took. It took going from like 27 and a half percent to 35.8%, 34.8%. And coaches were like, you know what, we're doing this. And Walt Anderson, in a story that Kevin Seifert wrote earlier this year about the kickoff change rule, he essentially said, mission accomplished. We got what we wanted to. The return rate is now double what it was in 2025. And so by changing it those five yards, you flip the math just enough where the coaches were like, I don't want to think about this, but unfortunately now I have to.

11:01Mike Sando: Yeah. And just to simplify it, the drive scoring rate of any kind of score after a kickoff is 41 % this year. And that's up from the mid-30s before. So that's just any drive that starts after a kickoff, whether it's returned or touchbacked or whatever, that's a pretty good percentage.

11:17Jourdan Rodrigue: I will say too that the league, this is a very rare example. And I think part of it is because it was coach-driven. A lot of these types of things was special teams, either current or former coach and consultant-driven to create really what this was and model it off of previous rules that existed even in other leagues. And so that's a big part of why this has been effective, because you actually got the people who are doing the job to go in and talk about how they could make this better. But it's a very rare example of the league also giving themselves basically a PR cushion, too, in a rule change, because they're also at league meetings this week citing and crediting a decrease in injuries on the kickoff itself.

12:04Jourdan Rodrigue: And so if they have the player safety element, you can't if you're a grumpy coach over time about this because you are seeing this have an effect. If you are a grumpy coach or you're a grumpy member of the competition committee or what have you, you can't say anything because then you're against player safety. And so this is like it's kind of this perfect storm of things that the league is able to like. And I say it's a rarity where they can check both boxes where they not only have something that's effective, that's coach driven, that's that's employee driven, essentially. But and stakeholder driven because they do have such a stake in this rule, but also that you can't really argue against for any other reason because you already have the safety benefits that are showing up in the data, too.

12:50Mike Sando: One thing I would also just caution as somebody who looks at numbers a lot is that seven weeks is not a great sample size. And one of the things I've noticed late in these games, and Ryan Russilla mentioned it to me when we had a conversation on his podcast a while back, was he's like, the ball seems to just be moving faster late in these games anyway, meaning it's easier to move the ball down the field. And so one of the things I looked at was, okay, if we take possession after a kickoff with, let's just say the drive starts with between one minute and 15 seconds left, one minute down to 15 seconds, right?

13:27Mike Sando: And you're down three or tied. You need a field goal, right? So there's been eight of those drives this year and five of them scored, okay? The previous five years combined, there were five scores in 33 drives. Okay. So I got my initial thought is, wow, that's a huge change that has to do with the kickoff rule. But the average starting field position on those drives was like the same or worse this year. So all the scoring was up. That's so interesting. Those percentages were up. But now those five field goal ending drives this year, there was a 33-yarder, a 39, but also a 52, a 53, and a 64. So it's a little bit of a mix of some of these long field goals that maybe weren't quite as comfortable making before and the short ones.

14:12Mike Sando: The other thing is there's 11 teams in the league this year that haven't even attempted a kick longer than 55 yards. So there's a concentration of teams. And I think it depends on who you have. I've talked to some teams who are like, hey, this doesn't mean crap for us. Like we don't have that guy, you know. And Kyro Santos is still the Bears kicker. He's not going to be banging 65 yarders anytime soon. But so, so then there becomes a personnel component of this too. And kickers, it's notoriously hard to find, right? I mean, the 49ers use the third round pick on Jake Moody. He doesn't do well for them.

14:42Mike Sando: They stumble into Eddie Pinero and he doesn't miss. And then Moody's on TV for the bears, you know, hitting walk-offs. So no one really knows how to find a great kicker anyway, but it'll be interesting to see just kind of how this all plays out over time instead of just seven weeks.

14:57Robert Mays: Let's get into the field goals in a second. The last thing I want to mention about the kickoffs because this is not something I had thought about. But in talking to a special teams coordinator last week, he was discussing why there have been more explosive returns independent and just better for starting field position, independent of the percentage of kicks being returned. So just stick with me for a second. Because the touchbacks are now so punitive, you're also catching the ball further away from the goal line because teams are worried about kicking the ball into the end zone. So the returns themselves are going to be more dangerous, which I hadn't really thought about, but it makes total sense.

15:29Robert Mays: And the analogy that he used, it's like last year, you were essentially having guys hit an island green every single time if you wanted to pin them inside the five. So just think about that. Like your kickers on 17 at TPC Sawgrass every single time. That's a tough place to be. Now, if you're going to be kicking the ball, and I think the numbers bear this out and looking at them today and saying, oh, you're a true media wizard. I'm like just an amateur. I think that what I saw was that the average distance away from the goal line, The teams are catching kickoffs this year has gone from like the two and a half yard line to like the five and a half, six yard line.

16:03Robert Mays: And that may seem small, but over time, that's one of those things that really starts to add up. So there are just so many different layers as to why this play is feeling the way that it feels compared to it being a dead play two years ago that it's hard not to get excited about it.

16:20Mike Sando: I totally like it. Like to me, this isn't an overly gimmicky thing. I like the changes to it. So I'm anxious to see more. You feel the same way, Jordan? You like it?

16:28Jourdan Rodrigue: Yeah. I mean, I love it. I love, you know, crazy chaos football potential, you know, and I think this play offers some of it. And I like the strategy that we're starting to see unfold. You're seeing kickers with trick shots now, which actually I think over time negatively impacts the kicker. We don't have enough data yet to play out on that, but we'll get to that when we talk about field goals.

16:49Robert Mays: Is this a Josh Cardi like pet theory that you're starting to develop?

16:51Jourdan Rodrigue: Passive aggressively mentioning, but not really mentioning this Josh Cardy situation with the LA Rams. No, but there's really interesting ways that that we've seen it with punting forever. We've seen, you know, watermelon balls and banana balls and all of these types of things that punters are able to do to make it really difficult for the punt returner to catch the ball and then to navigate through traffic. We're seeing a lot of basically taking run game schemes and run designs and widening them out the width of the field and trying to access the same types of contours you would if, let's say, you're running some type of mid-zone run, for example, or some type of wide zone, depending on which part of the field you're attacking.

17:37Jourdan Rodrigue: I like all of it. I think it's good for the rostered guys who are especially gifted at it. But it is interesting because it's it as it stands right now, it seems like a nearly perfect rule, which means the NFL is going to mess with it again, which means something else is coming, whether it's the fourth down or excuse me, whether it's the onside kick or something. something else is going to happen. I would bet on it. I don't bet, but I would definitely bet on it because it is the NFL and they can't help but to keep fiddling and keep tinkering with things.

18:13Robert Mays: The strategy of knuckleball kickoffs is fascinating, right? And we've seen the Panthers and the Rams deploy this in ways that have been effective. And it's still very early and we'll have more data about as it goes. But even like you said, Jordan, the strategy the teams are using to return kicks, you have some teams where it's lined up all the way. Everyone's on the same exact level, 11 different guys. There are some teams where we have two guys that are offset. We have some teams where it's three guys are offset. And then you're watching different teams decide who are we going to leave unblocked in some of those things.

18:40Robert Mays: Washington has been the best kickoff team in the best kickoff return team in the NFL so far this year. And they're one of those teams that has two guys offset about five yards behind the ball. It creates certain angles and coaches are now saying that instead of having like one or two kick return designs coming into a game, Now we need four or five, but it's still so early that I don't think we can really pin down any like trends or conclusions that we can reach from this. I just think that now it becomes something that, Sando, we're really going to have to keep an eye on as the season goes along, because by the time we get to the end of the year, we're probably going to have enough film and enough data to like actually start digging into what all of this means.

19:18Mike Sando: Yeah, something you said, Jordan, really struck me that it's guaranteed they'll tinker with it. And I always see two things. There's always the reaction to some unexpected play, right? We see that with rules all the time. You know, the Saints are screwed on a PI call, so then suddenly PI becomes reviewable for a year, right? Because Sean Payton gets mad. Or you get a situation, I think, at the league office level where Troy Vincent and those guys, they want to have one thing they do every year that shows they care about player safety or something. I'm not saying they don't care, but you know what I mean?

19:46Mike Sando: It's like, what are we doing this year? And so sometimes these changes get put in almost for not the purest football reasons. And so that can be frustrating.

19:57Robert Mays: Yeah, I'm fine if their issue is with the onside kick and the fact that there's only been four and a half percent essentially of onside kicks recovered. It's been one out of the 21 that have been attempted when this data was pulled. I think that sources with the league per CBS story said that it should be about 12 percent. That's what we want. I'm fine if when Jordan, you and I talked about this last week in another setting, I'm fine if we go to something akin to the rule that the Eagles propose for onside kicks where we're doing fourth and 10 from the minus 35 yard line or whatever it is. If that's what you feel you're losing, you're taking away something from kickers in that moment.

20:32Robert Mays: But we've given so much to kickers and special teams because of these other rule changes that I actually think it comes out in the wash in a positive way for the league because it makes that a live play again.

20:43Jourdan Rodrigue: Yeah, I would say it is interesting now that that's being discussed at league meetings and the potential of fiddling around with it. You are starting to hear more from specialists. I want to bring up because I was talking with him about it yesterday. J.J. Jansen, who is the longest one of the longest tenured players in the NFL, long snapper for the Carolina Panthers, has survived multiple presidencies in doing so. And he and multiple ownerships, I guess, over there, too. Um, he said, say, I thought you meant United States presidencies.

21:14Robert Mays: I was like, yeah, he has been there for a really long time.

21:16Jourdan Rodrigue: He's like a six term guy. He really, he's been there for like six terms. Um, okay. So he said, save the onside kick, reduce the distance. The ball needs to travel to five yards. The shorter distance would increase the rate of the kicking team recovery. And then players closest, closer together increases safety of the play. See, this guy gets it. He's getting the PR spin ready to go.

21:37Robert Mays: I like that. I like it.

21:38Jourdan Rodrigue: Because I love the onside kick. And you know, for me to say that, you guys know how much I love offense. But for me to say that, I want to preserve this play that is one of the most fun, unique plays in all of sports. But I think there's a way to do it without being too dramatic about the change. I think you need to test different things. And I don't think you can make a sweeping change immediately. I do like your idea, Robert, on what it would be and the Eagles proposal to change it. But I also think that fiddling with the parameters of the kick itself might actually be the next step here, because I do think that the league will insource into the buildings around the NFL to see what kickers think.

22:23Mike Sando: It's probably a more reasonable halfway solution. Find a better version of it. Yeah. Find a better version of the onside kick is great. I was actually thinking like after that Rogers Hail Mary attempted, what if you got a Hail Mary, you know, instead of an onside kick?

22:38Jourdan Rodrigue: Again, this is my built in anti-special teams bias showing.

22:44Robert Mays: Like, I'm sure I'm in the wrong as I present it this way. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk about the other rule change that has been impacting the NFL on the kicking side this year.

22:58Robert Mays: so Jordan I think a lot of people are aware of the kickoff change right like you see it like the game looks different from where the ball was starting from the amount of kickoff returns everything else the other kicking rule that was changed coming into this year was much quieter it was something that wasn't talked about in the moment there weren't think pieces written about it we weren't having discussions about it I think a lot of people only heard about it because Vic Fangio brought it up unprompted as a press at a press conference a couple of years ago. So you wrote a story about this on The Athletic.

23:27Robert Mays: You and I have talked about this a little bit already. Just walk me through what that change was and why I think why you started digging on it and why you thought it was interesting.

23:38Jourdan Rodrigue: Well, first of all, when Vic Fangio says something, especially voluntarily says something, I definitely am going to listen to it. And Mike Sando had a little note in it, in his pick six column, because he was starting to hear some leak chatter as well about this rule change and some buzz starting to formulate, like, why is what, you know, the old, like, why is nobody talking about it? Suddenly we're all talking about it. Right. And so the cable and listeners, dear listeners, definitely Google cable long enough to go read my story. Don't Google it long enough to go down on the rabbit holes of what K-ball is.

24:15Jourdan Rodrigue: Okay. So it's, it's a change to the tools or an improvement to the tools. So, so special specialists think that they are able to use because it is giving them the opportunity to use and work with and basically break in the specific balls that they get to kick with and choose the ones they use for the game. They can pick up to three. The league sends them an assortment of 60. So enough for three per game through the regular season, plus a couple of backups just in case something happens to one of the ones that you like. And you can use any one K-ball for up to three weeks before you have to quote unquote retire it, right?

24:55Jourdan Rodrigue: And so this is a change because kickers and special teams players and equipment managers are able to work with the ball under the same rules that have always existed about messing with footballs in the week leading up to the game and essentially make the ball as friendly as they possibly can and as acquainted with as they possibly can to the kicker's foot. Previously, they were allowed to work with the ball for between 20 and 45 minutes pregame. And they also got up to three to four balls, which with which they could work or try to break in. But there just wasn't enough time to get to all of them.

25:36Jourdan Rodrigue: So they would usually pick one or two. Now you have three, you are working with three all week. And you are picking the ones of the assortment that you deciding to try to break in. You're picking the ones that you like the best and using those in the game after an inspection by the officials.

25:53Robert Mays: So the rule has changed a couple of different times over the last like 25 years. Right. And so there was a time where you could have access to the balls. And that was my favorite part of this entire discourse is learning that way back in the day. I'm sure, Sandra, you're aware of this. Like I, this was covering it then. So you're covering the league at this point. So just walk me through some of this, because my favorite part of this is that there are guys like hitting footballs with baseball bats all week. They're putting them in like actual commercial dryers after dumping them in water. Like that's the reason that the league took the balls away.

26:25Robert Mays: It's like, you've lost your cable privileges.

26:28Mike Sando: So absolutely. I was looking for what I'd written back then, but I found a great story by Ernest Hooper of the St. Pete times. Okay. St. Petersburg Times from the late 90s. So before 99, players could do whatever they wanted with the football, right? So they were covering the ball with evaporated milk, you know, putting it in the dryer, taking it with them to bed, going to a sauna, a whirlpool, a jacuzzi, right? Rich McKay, who was on the competition committee then and still is, said there's nothing they hadn't tried, right? So they were trying to rein this in, all right? And so the kickers got totally defensive.

27:04Mike Sando: Gary Anderson was a longtime kicker, you know, back then. He's like the big brass of the league. They're out to get us all the time. They want to move the they want to make the goalpost narrower. They want us to kick off from further away. A great I don't know if people might remember. Michael Husted was a kicker a long time ago. And there's a great quote in here. He said some of the out of town ball boys were being instructed to set aside the broken in balls for the home team and then give like crappy balls to the visiting team at the game. Right. So there was all this stuff. Tony Dungy, great, great story.

27:37Mike Sando: Tony Dungy said after, when he was on the Vikings as probably a D coordinator, they lost, or the other team made a 55-yard field goal, which is a big deal then. They actually got the ball out of suspiciousness. They got the ball, sent it to the league office, and the league was like, there's no way this ball is game ready. So many things had been done to defile this football. And think of the suspicion. Think of the suspicion. To take the ball. We got it. We're taking this to the league office. What put this thing under forensic testing? There was rumors they were putting helium in the ball. OK, so like anything, there were these great cartoons back then in in newspapers of like the the kicker sitting outside of a laundry room while his football is going around.

28:22Mike Sando: You know, it was just it was really fun and kind of charming, but it was getting out of hand.

28:27Robert Mays: and so then they league over corrects right and so there was a time jordan where you couldn't touch the ball the ball came out of the bag and that's what you got to kick with in an nfl game and so that everyone was like all right this is ridiculous like have you ever felt a new football it's impossible to kick this thing it's hard as a rock it's slick and then we get to the previous solution where you get 20 to 4 like 30 to 45 minutes before the game and the stories on that are just as funny. Like the ball boys, you can have a dry towel and a brush. Those are essentially the tools you were allowed to work on the football before the game.

29:00Robert Mays: So Shane Graham told us a story last week where the guys are walking out there with soaking wet t-shirts, acting like they were

29:07Jourdan Rodrigue: all sweaty, pretending they just run stadium stairs. Some of them actually running stadium stairs to really sell it, just sell the ruse.

29:15Robert Mays: And so you come out there as a ball boy with a soaking wet shirt, you wipe down the ball to get it wet, and then use the brush, the backside of the brush to literally whittle down the ball as much as you can before using the front side of the brush to then dry it back up. And I, when he was walking me through this, my original thought was how much could you really do in half an hour to the football? You could do a lot to it. And so it did help, but still not in the same stratosphere as what you can do if you're working on it throughout the entire week. Yeah.

29:46Jourdan Rodrigue: And it's, it's interesting because, um, and you said it, but I really want to the listeners and viewers to think about this. If you've never had, like you can go to a store and buy a football, right? It is nothing like the one that they use that come from Wilson that are signed by the NFL commissioner that have the logo, which I didn't know. Yeah. Stamp with the logo. Now they have the letter K and then like a little tag with the number on it, um, of which K ball it is. Um, but it's, it is, it is more, it is like a rock covered in wax. That is exactly what it is. And you, you hold it. There's no grip.

30:23Jourdan Rodrigue: Um, it is not malleable. It's not pliable. If you, uh, have an impact on it. So like with the foot, for example, it almost, it almost like, uh, pings back your foot. It's not like how, when you look at catcher's mitts or baseball gloves, it morphs with your hand, um, really good broken in cables morph with the foot and they give to the foot and they sort of almost like hug it as you kick the ball, but these not the case. And they were slick and they were terrible. And quarterbacks were still able to, um, you know, work with whatever footballs and put them in the shape they wanted. And in 2008, you don't say I heard about that, by the way, some famous stories about that one.

31:07Jourdan Rodrigue: Yeah. Don't know if you guys were following the news of the last 20 years. Yeah. And so in 2008 and 2020, again, they tweaked the rule again to give these equipment managers more time with the footballs. But and to their credit and kickers, you talk to any kicker in the league. That's the first thing they'll say is ours. Ours were already great because of our equipment. That's like an unwritten rule or an unspoken rule. Yes, you're going to compliment and really hype up the person who's working so furiously before the game in an impossible situation to get one, maybe two footballs the way that you like them as a kicker to give you the best chance to be successful with that work tool as possible.

31:51Jourdan Rodrigue: And so they all have their favorite guys. They tip them out at the holidays. It's a very cool underlayer of lore to all of this that they were kind of being put in these semi-impossible to impossible situations just to get the tools of the trade even close to how they wanted them to be.

32:13Robert Mays: So this now becomes my next set of questions. How much does this actually matter? how much is this spike in kicking quality distance accuracy actually being done with the footballs? Because it's very easy to say if you're Vic Fangio or some other people in the league, you're watching guys bang 65 yard field goals, make it look easy. Oh, the balls are juiced. Like the balls are juiced. Like there's no way this is a problem, but this is a rule-based problem. I want to try to extricate how much of this increase in quality and accuracy is because of the football, Sando, and how much of it is because of other factors that we're not thinking enough about.

32:48Robert Mays: So you've looked at the numbers on this over the first seven weeks. Have we seen a material difference in kicking quality after the change in the cable rule? Or is this us just noticing some of the longer, crazier kicks that we've seen?

33:02Mike Sando: I think it's maybe a little bit more of noticing the longer, crazier kicks, because what I've noticed is, you know, there was a big increase in attempts and accuracy on the longer kicks starting last year. And so the way I've looked at this, if you just go back like the last six years, so to 24 and 25, there's this big jump from, and I'm looking at like 51 to 55, 56 longer, but this year's up from last year. It is up some, but the last, this year and last year are kind of in one band and then 23 and 22 are kind of in a middle band and 21 and 20 are real low. Like there's not, they're not trying a bunch of them.

33:39Mike Sando: So there's definitely been something going on independent of this rule. And then it has jumped some this year. And I think that we can't discount the idea that the juice ball isn't a factor because we saw a 70-yarder made in the preseason, right? And we've seen some of these - It is impacting it. It's just a question of how much.

33:59Jourdan Rodrigue: Yeah.

34:00Mike Sando: And for who. And so the way I kind of feel about it is you made the golf analogy, which is a good one. I remember when John Daly was the only guy hitting at 350 or whatever. And I feel like there's more John Daly's now. And so maybe there's more guys who can get more out of the football. But it's definitely not a league-wide thing. It seems like it's concentrated. Like I said, there's a certain number of teams. I think nine teams have hit at least two field goals longer than 55 this year, okay? It was five teams at this point last year. The year before that, it was one. The year before that, it was five.

34:41Mike Sando: The year before that, it was zero. So those nine teams account for 70 % of the kicks that are made from longer than 55, okay? But 11 teams haven't tried one. So to try to say that this is affecting the whole league equally, to me, isn't true, but it's definitely affecting some of the league. And I think that's the part There's a little nuance and hard to really put your finger on, but it's there.

35:04Jourdan Rodrigue: So here are my thoughts on this, which I, through a lot of talking to a lot of special teams guys and kickers, who, by the way, if you talk to kickers on the record about this topic, they'll tell you it's not really a big deal. It's okay, I guess, because they don't want it to change. They want to keep these tools that every other skill position has the opportunity to do leading up to the game. but kickers just never were allowed to. They would like to have the same opportunity to craft their tool of the trade the same way that every other player on every roster gets to do, but kickers and punters and long snappers had not been able to.

35:47Jourdan Rodrigue: It's more of an even, terrible joke, but even footing for everybody, right? And so I feel like that's part of it. It's the principle of it that I think brings not necessarily statistically yet a pure advantage, but it brings equality to a area of focus that really had not been treated equally to other places on the roster. And so I think that's important. The other thing is kickers are bigger and stronger and look like linebackers.

36:16Robert Mays: And we have Bryson DeChambeau kickers now. Like if we could see the golf thing, like we have those guys. We have these like juiced up guys who are hyper focused on distance in ways that they weren't 10, 15 years ago. Like that's happening.

36:28Jourdan Rodrigue: Absolutely. And that is across the board, something that you're seeing trend up over the last five years as kicking as kicks have gotten longer, which they statistically have over the last five years. And attempts can vary depending on the team. There's a bunch of factors that vary, including better process on fourth down and those types of things that have now integrated into the league more so as well. But this is a fact that kickers are more specialized in their craft. They are better trained in the off season. They have more science and more biomechanical information about how to swing their leg and what they're doing.

37:03Jourdan Rodrigue: And yes, now their tool has improved as well. So I think all of those things can be true at the same time. And I think there is a psychological element to it as well. Because I think that if you are used to hitting and kickers are the most type A meticulous people on the planet. And if you are used to hitting the K ball that you have hit 70 times that week in practice, and that is the K ball that you see arriving on the tee into the holder's hands, that is the K, it's, it's this ease of, of routine and this ease of process, which is why I brought up the funky kicks before, when we were talking about the kickoff, because nothing is jolting up this entire process.

37:43Jourdan Rodrigue: I think this part of the reason why you're seeing misses or weird angles on some of these kicks because you're also seeing kickers have to disrupt their previously known and, and, and adhered to routine of swinging their leg, the exact same angle, the exact same speed, the exact same height off the ground and, and kicking the ball the same way 70 times, 70 plus times through the week. Oh, but now you're trying to hit a, like a sidewinder shot to the third punt returner or the third kickoff returner who's angled over onto the right side of the field. So all of this is super interesting to me, but at the bottom line of it is I do think that the cable has an effect on what we're seeing now.

38:23Jourdan Rodrigue: I believe that truly not just because it evens the, the ability to, for kickers to end punters and long snappers to use the same type of process for their tools of the trade that every other position gets. But also I think there's a psychological factor to it. And the ball is just friendlier. It's just friendlier to the foot overall. And it's not as gnarly coming off the foot.

38:45Mike Sando: We all know too, Robert, like if you, if you, you know, if you go to the gym or you're going to shoot baskets, like it matters to you, even as an amateur basketball player, like the ball, right? You get one of those nice kind of sticky orange ones that cost a bunch of money and they're, and they don't let you use it till the game. That's awesome. I feel like I could spin that thing. It's great. You get one of those like plastic Voight ones, you know, remember those like a little bit bigger size, like can't even, you can't even shoot it.

39:12Jourdan Rodrigue: You know, and so when Rory,

39:13Mike Sando: When Rory McIlwain's on the first tee, he doesn't say, hey, you got a ball, and then someone throws him a top-flight XL. That doesn't happen. You know, like he can tell the difference. So these guys are – these guys, that stuff I think matters, and the psychological component of it is huge in kicking. That's why these kickers, when they go off the rails and they get cut, they don't get fixed, right? Nobody even knows how to coach them. It's so mental, the component of it. So I think that anything that gives those guys comfort is probably good for them.

39:40Robert Mays: All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we're going to talk about some of the wider-ranging potential implications of all of this.

39:50Robert Mays: All right, so let's talk about how this affects offense and defense in the NFL, Jordan, because that was one of my biggest questions coming into this. And I was asking some coaches last week, namely defensive coordinators. I probably texted five or six guys, but all right, walk me through this, right? So if you're in a situation where all of these possessions are starting on the 35, and we got guys banging 65 yard field goals. Let's do the math on that. That means you need to gain like 18 yards to get yourself into field goal range. That is a material difference in the sport. And all of them to a man were like, absolutely, it's on my mind.

40:21Robert Mays: Because now we're at a place where you're two completions from giving up a score. And so you are a little bit more aggressive when you're in minus territory than you would have been before. You're playing a little bit less soft zone. Maybe we see a little bit more pressure. The numbers don't totally bear that out yet. league wide, but it's absolutely something that at least is consciously on the minds of the people calling defensive plays. So when other people, I'm sure you've talked to tons of people about this already beyond the kicking implications of it. As we look at play calling strategy on offense and defense in the NFL, how is this impacting things already based on the conversations you've had?

40:55Jourdan Rodrigue: Well, it's twofold. One on off the offensive side, one on the defensive side, um, you know, removing the fact that kickers are doing this and they're all aliens now and all of this, right. For defensive coordinators, it truncates the, um, the menu of calls that you have. Um, and, and especially down in distance, it almost, um, like cuts in half. That's dramatic, but it certainly, it certainly reduces the, the number of different types of calls that you have per scenario and per situation. If you are already a defensive coordinator or a defensive assistant coach who is more prone to taking risks with your calls in late game situations, you're probably not feeling this as much as if you are a late game situation coach who likes to play prevent a lot, or you automatically run one of these deeper shell zoning defenses, the sort of Tampa two hybrids, less so the match zones, but ones that stay pretty deep and cover landmarks of zones versus match over the top of routes, you are probably really thinking about the way that this kicking game does affect, especially your late down scenarios.

42:06Jourdan Rodrigue: It also changes your pressure calls. How many guys are you going to send to potentially try to move the quarterback backwards or to potentially create a splash play in that scenario versus if you already, if it's already a foregone conclusion that Brandon Aubrey's on the other side of the ball and can hit a 60 yard or no problem, are you basically saying that's a sunk cost? We're going to try to create a negative play on the quarterback. So it changes a lot of the way that you think about your scheme in late game scenarios or in gotta have it, gotta have a stop scenarios. And also on the offensive side, you know, I am so thrilled by the amount of information and the amount of data we have now that coaches and situational management people are using as it pertains to fourth down calls.

42:49Jourdan Rodrigue: I think that it makes them more comfortable. This kicking, having kickers, being able to do what they're doing now could actually lend to making them be more comfortable in being conservative, which drives, drives us crazy. Sometimes when you're sitting there and you're watching some of these coaches that have this high powered explosive offense, and they're settling for a 33 yard or a 30 yard field goal on a fourth and two, that's an automatic go call, regardless of the situation. And so I think that that it, it, it could allow certain coaches to lean back into their worst habits, I think. Um, and that's, that's where I worry about it because it's like, it's my biggest concern.

43:29Jourdan Rodrigue: Exactly. And it's like, it's gotta be both, doesn't it? Yeah.

43:32Robert Mays: I'm so fascinated by the push and the pull of this end up because we have reached a point where I think as a collective, like football watching community, when we see those moments, when it's a fourth and two and you're kicking the 37 yard field goal, all of us are collectively like shaking our fists at the TV. And so I think overall there is a conventional wisdom that has developed, but so I wonder that push of, we need to be more aggressive on fourth down. And now this pull of field goals are easier. Where between those two forces do we land? Like that becomes the most interesting part of this to me.

44:05Mike Sando: Absolutely. And I would love to be able to hear what they're saying in that situation, because sometimes the offensive play caller doesn't like his call on the fourth down at that point. Sometimes the special teams coach, you know, Kyle doesn't really want to advise the kick if he doesn't, he doesn't want to be responsible if they miss it, right? So there's always a fallout of the small sample size result, also bringing heat upon the coaches or decision-making. Another component of this to me too is, you know, if we feel like the other team is going to be able to make a long field goal, we really have to regulate even better how much time we're leaving them left after we score.

44:41Mike Sando: And so, you know, that's a big part of the game that I think is being talked about a little bit more. Anyway, people are noticing they should have noticed Monday night when Houston, you know, kicked the ball and allowed it to be returned so that Seattle could take the ball under two minutes. And, you know, they lost a time. They lost a play right there. You know what I mean? Even think about the Broncos Giants game.

45:03Robert Mays: Jackson Dart scores that touchdown. I mean, there would have been so many moments over the last decade where that would happen. You'd been like you wouldn't have thought twice about it. And now he scores that touchdown with 35 seconds left.

45:13Mike Sando: It's like, oh, they might have left him too much time. Yes. So what's too much time anymore? You know, and that's the thing I was getting about earlier where it's like, hey, even when we adjust for the drive start, it feels like they're scoring these more, you know, and it is the ability. Some of that's the long field goal. Like I said, three of those five this year on those late, super late drives were 52, 53, 60 plus, 64 even. So it's, you know, coaches in general don't want more things they can be criticized about decisions. I relate to that. Yes.

45:45Robert Mays: They want it to be simpler. And this stuff adds some layers to it. It's always funny all these things and like all the different things you have to juggle. Like Jordan, my thought was in the London game when Sean decided to go for it in a situation he might not have five years ago. He's only doing that because Josh Carty can't make a field goal right now. And so there are moments where a bad kicker is actually a good thing for an NFL team. And now we're going the other way, maybe a little bit too much. But I wanted to end on this question. And Jordan, you mentioned it and kind of alluded to it earlier in the conversation about how you like the fact that it's adding more strategy and it feels more exciting.

46:19Robert Mays: My first thought as I was watching this new world start to unfold is like, we're really going to make kickers more important in how NFL games go? Like, we're really going to do that? That was kind of my first knee-jerk reaction. and now as I actually start thinking about it and I start watching some of the kickoffs and seeing teams do differently, I realize that I'm a f***ing loser. I am going to be interested in what this looks like. It is exciting. And so I'm getting to a place now where the layers of it are intriguing to me and as we figure out more about those layers, it'll be fun to study.

46:52Robert Mays: And then Sando, I like the end of game stuff. I don't mind those situations with a minute or less left playing a little bit more live ammo than they've been in the past. I think it just makes it more exciting in those situations. And I think I'm into that, even if it means we're putting kickers on a bigger pedestal than we ever have.

47:12Mike Sando: I totally agree. Yeah, because it affects more of the strategy and moving the ball and giving you a chance. I think we all want hope, right? Don't you want hope? And really, as a fan, even though you want your team to win every week, it's kind of more exhilarating when they might lose, right?

47:27Robert Mays: I'm telling you. I mean, some of those late game field goals over the first few weeks and what the witching hour looks like with all of these field goal attempts. It does make Sundays more enjoyable and more fun. And it just creates more scenarios where you're a little bit more keyed in, a little bit more locked in. And I think we should all be OK with that. And so did I expect to be excited about the like the rise and the culmination of the special team season in the NFL? No, I did not. But thankfully, that's where we've landed here. Mike Sando, Jordan Rodrigue, sincerely appreciate the time from both of you.

48:01Robert Mays: Always great to chat with you. We'll do it again very soon.

48:04Jourdan Rodrigue: Thanks, Robert. Thank you.

48:06Robert Mays: All right, guys, that's all we've got for today. Thank you so much to Mike. Thank you so much to Jordan. Quick bit of news. Tuesday, November 4th, which is a couple of weeks from right now, the trade deadline in the NFL is coming. We're actually going to have a live trade deadline show, 3.30 to 4.30 p.m. Eastern on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel. this is your opportunity to subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you haven't already, we're doing tons of video first content for the channel this week. I have another video coming out this week. Derek's been doing a ton of it. Highly encourage you guys to check that out.

48:38Robert Mays: That's where you can also catch our Monday and Thursday night recaps. So be on the lookout for that Tuesday, November 4th, three 30 to four 30 on the athletic football show, YouTube page, our trade deadline reaction show for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.

49:02We'll see you next time.