FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — When it comes to the new kickoff rule, what the NFL seems to have is a failure to communicate.
The impact on kickoff returns from the offseason decision to move the ball up to the 35-yard line from the 30-yard line already is a hot topic just one week into the exhibition season, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick added a conspiracy theory to the mix yesterday.
An unhappy Belichick claimed the eventual goal of the NFL’s competition committee is to eliminate kickoffs completely in hopes of making the game safer.
Asked at his daily news conference if the league’s intention was to all but phase out kickoff returns, Belichick cut off his questioner.
“That’s what they told us,” he said. “I’m not speaking for anybody else. That’s what they told us, that they want to eliminate the play.”
The change certainly had an impact in the first week of the exhibition schedule. The number of kickoffs downed in the end zone for touchbacks in Week 1 nearly doubled from the same slate last year, rising to 44 in 140 kickoffs (31 percent) from just 26 in 150 kickoffs (17 percent) in 2010.
Coincidentally, at almost the same time Belichick — who got his start in the NFL coaching ranks on special teams in the 1970s — was accusing the league of a conspiracy to rob the game of kickoff excitement, the head of the competition committee was telling the Washington Post the exact opposite.
“It’s not for the elimination of kickoff returns,” Falcons president Rich McKay told the newspaper. “That’s for certain. It’s not to take kickoff returns out of the game. That’s for certain. But this was not a quality-of-the-game rule change. This was a safety rule change.”
McKay can say whatever he wants about the switch, which was approved in a vote by the owners, but that won’t change Belichick’s opinion of what he considers the NFL’s ultimate goal.
“As it was explained to me, what the league and the competition committee were trying to do was eliminate the kickoff returns,” Belichick said. “Which I think they’ll do.”