NFL may try to entice even more kickoff returns in 2025

In the 2024 NFL season, the league saw a kickoff return rate of ~33% up from ~22% in 2023. This increase was due to the complicated changes in kickoff rules involving the all-important “landing zone” as well as some tweaks to where the ball was spotted.

It looks like this season the NFL is not content with what they saw in 2024. The competition committee will be looking at one more slight tweak to put the spot of a touchback at the 35-yard line instead of the 30.

The thinking here will incentivize more teams to kick returnable kicks into the landing zone instead of kicking so many touchbacks. On the flip side, more teams may also take a touchback for kicks going into the end zone instead of…