Former XFL Rules Maker Dunks On The NFL For Having Way Too Many Special Teams Injuries

Former XFL Rules Maker Dunks On The NFL For Having Tons Of Special Teams Injuries

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  • A new NFL study revealed punts and kickoffs are disproportionately more dangerous than other plays.
  • The former Director of Football Operations for the XFL says there’s an easy way to fix that.
  • Read more news about the NFL here.

According to a new report by ABC News, “the NFL has issued a significant call to action in response to disproportionately high injury rates on special teams.”

On Monday, the NFL hosted a media briefing to share 2021 regular season injury data. Among the many items discussed were tha large number of injuries suffered on special teams plays.

“One thing that does jump out from the data, despite the fact that it was a good overall year, is that we’re looking at about one out of six concussions in the regular season occur on special teams,” said Jeff Miller, NFL Executive Vice President Overseeing Player Health & Safety. “So, between the punt and the kickoff, there’s a disproportionate number of concussions that are occurring on only a couple of plays, which, obviously, are not played as often as plays from scrimmage.

“So that’s something that’s going to be a primary area focus for us on the health and safety side, and in conjunction with our friends in football. We’ll take a look again at kickoff, take a look again at punts, and the injury rates on those plays.”

NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills added, “We feel that special teams has a disproportionate injury rate at the present time. For example, let me give you some statistics: one in every five injuries of all types in the league occurs on special teams. One out of five. Jeff mentioned that one out of six concussions occur on special teams plays, and we saw this year 30% of all ACL injuries occurring on special teams, and 29% of all lower extremity strains.

“Simply put, these special teams plays have a disproportionate rate of injury, compared to how frequently the play occurs. We think that’s something that demands our attention.”

One former XFL rules maker thinks he has the solution

One person who has been paying attention is Sam Schwartzstein, the former XFL Director of Football Operations, Innovation, and Strategy.

Schwartzstein helped create many of the rules of the fledgling football league back in 2020, some of which were later adopted by college football and the NFL.

On Tuesday, he responded to the ABC News report with a series of tweets explaining “how to create new rules that attack the disease and not the symptom.”

“We created a kickoff alternative that had 0 injuries in 400+ live kickoffs and a 90% return rate,” Schwartzstein began.

Two things about current NFL kickoffs are for sure. One, there are too many injuries suffered during those plays. Two, the NFL has been setting records for touchbacks over the past several seasons.

For example, in 2020 the NFL’s touchback percentage was 61.2%. In 2003, it was only 7.3%. And yet, there are still way too many injuries. The NFL could certainly do worse than to implement the XFL’s kickoff rules.

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Before settling down at BroBible, Douglas Charles, a graduate of the University of Iowa (Go Hawks), owned and operated a wide assortment of websites. He is also one of the few White Sox fans out there and thinks Michael Jordan is, hands down, the GOAT.