- 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.
First thing we asked was "What problem are we solving for?"
Kickoffs are 6% of plays but make up 18% of injuries, you're 3x more likely to get hurt on this play than any other play.
Normal thinking tells you to have less kickoffs (increase touchbacks) or no kickoffs. Not us
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
We wanted to see what was causing the injuries. What about the kickoff is so dangerous that you're 3x more likely to get hurt?
Opposing players start 10 yards apart, sprint for 35 yards, then make a head on collision, something we called High Velocity Impact Plays (HVIP).
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
The hypothesis was to look at plays when the ball is caught and see where the coverage and return team ended up.
We watched hundreds of kickoffs and 95% of the time the players were all 3-7 yards apart at the 30 and 35 yard line, facing each other. Let's start the play there!
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
So why do we start 10 yards apart to sprint 35 yards to create a collision? Because of the onside kicks. Onside kicks account for 1% of all kicks.
BUT most onside kicks (99% of OS kicks) the coverage and return teams are lined up completely different than normal.
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
For 1% of 1% of kicks we line up 10 yards apart and sprint 35 yards to create the High Velocity Impact.
We removed the surprise onside from the game and let teams elect to kick it deep or to onside kick (We did not do the 4th and 15 try, don't like it..thats a different thread)
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
From this concept we pitched it to health and safety partners, coaches, players, TV execs.
We created KPIs:
Injuries: As safe or safer than scrimmage plays
Returns: 90% Returns (NFL <50% Returns)
Avg Field Position: >-28, <-40
Fan Feedback: 85% approval— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
And then we tested it over 400 times between 5 different testing sessions. We tweaked it enough to make it fit all our goals.
I did a roadshow and met with every coaching staff and then every team with their coaches to go over the rule.
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
As a start-up league we needed to have buy in from everyone to make the play work.
We ended up with0 injuries on ~100 kickoffs
93% return rate.
-30 Avg Field position, 2 TD returns
95% approval rating from fans— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
Making the game safer is not easy. It's not throwing things on the wall and hoping they stick, or is it old guys in a smoke filled room kvetching it out.
Its understanding problems, success metrics, and executing a plan to get a result most people can be happy with.
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) February 8, 2022
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.