The NFL is considering the adoption of an XFL rule.
As the NFL continues to explore ways to increase player safety during games, the league is looking into potentially implementing the kickoff rules used by the XFL, according to The Washington Post’s Mark Maske.
Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs, and policy, stated the league has “spent a fair amount of time” studying the kickoff.
“We have analyzed the XFL rule, which you know is a bit of a departure from ours. … We’ve analyzed that rule to see whether or not there’s things that we can learn from there,” Miller said.
Currently, NFL teams kick off from their own 35-yard line, and kicking-team players can begin running from that line only after the ball has been kicked.
Under the XFL model, the kicker lines up at his own 30-yard line, and the other 10 members of the kickoff team line up at the opponent’s 35-yard line—five yards away from the returning team’s blockers.
Only the kicker and one returner are the only players allowed to move before the ball is touched.
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The XFL kickoff rule was adopted when the league relaunched in 2020.
The NFL did make a change to the kickoff rules for this season. Players could signal for a fair catch on a kick inside the 25-yard line and it would be treated like a touchback with the ball being placed at the 25-yard line. It was done so to cut down on kickoffs being run back.
Jeff Miller told Maske the fair-catch rule is “neither safer nor more dangerous.”
The fair-catch rule was approved for one year, so it’s unclear if it will return for the 2024 season.
