I think some of yall missed the part where it was a FAIR CATCH that triggers the touch back... In other words it is still completely up to the return guy to trigger a fair catch. Most seem to be acting like the rule would make any kick inside the 25 automatically a touch back! This is not such a big change... just makes it more like punts where a guy can signal fair catch anywhere on the field.
Also, the goal of having fewer returns is not just about injuries, they are trying to find ways to speed the game up and eliminating kickoffs altogether has been proposed... Think about it- what a Waste of fn time!! Team scores, kick the extra point, go to commercial... come back from commercial, show more replays of the score... then they run a generally meaningless play that about 65% or more of the time results in a touchback, and after a max oh 30 seconds or so of action, we get yet another commercial break... Even for non-tv games the aligning for the kickoff, cycling players on and back off the field, then back on again to play offense and defense... is a huge waste of time!
Sure, there is the occasional exciting kickoff return, Deebo’s From this past season being the examples, right? And what did that get us? Beyond a couple scores and highlights, it lead to two empty statistical possessions for the offense! Now, “stats don’t mean a damn thing”, or “the only stat that matters is the W/L record”... I get that... except STATS DO MATTER! To everyone! How many of you were on here all year calling for our OC’s head, despite the fact WE WERE WINNING GAMES!?!.... How many times did you hear national pundits rating our early season wins as flukes because the other team had rung up more offensive yardage than us? Yeah... So STATS MATTER. Just ask Roper.... he is looking for a job after an overachieving 9 win season because the damn stats didn’t look good on offense! So, removing that STs yardage, if it had been applied to our offense instead 150-200 or more yards from those two TD runs alone, not to mention all the other run backs we had that went past the 20 on drives that we scored on)... would have helped those stats look better... Not saying he keeps his job/ or that he should have, but maybe he does. Maybe we wind up more nationally prominent/ nationally ranked... Point being if SO MUCH is going to be taken from stats- coaches being fired, rankings of teams potentially impacted... Why are we allowing this anomaly - that nobody takes the time to account for- to persist? Toss in the high rate of injuries on these plays because guys are running FULL SPEED in opposite directions before crashing into each other (vs normal plays where there is max a few yards between players and limited opposing speed/force on most impacts), and... Yeah, STs plays in general -beyond extra points or field goals- are probably not going to exist much longer.