The most obnoxious aspect of the NFL's decision to move kickoffs from the thirty to the thirty-five yard-line is that, not only is it logically conflicting, but it fails to reach the natural conclusion of that logic.
The Competition Committee enacted this alteration to "improve" player safety. By moving the kicker five yards closer to the opponent's endzone, scintillating touchbacks will increase exponentially. Fewer kickoff returns means fewer returners being targeted for annihilation by coverage teams, who are usually comprised of back-end-of-the-roster types looking to earn their way up the depth chart through dogged pursuit and earth-shaking hits.
Setting aside the issue of whether the reduced risk of injury is worth drastically detracting from the game of football, this move fails to realize its own logic. If you are going to enact a rule that aims to take away kick returns why not do just that and take away kick returns? As it stands now, kickoffs will be pointless plays that will achieve nothing but an inevitable result: the offense starting their drive from the twenty. It's a charade that allows the Shield to continue its obnoxious practice of commercial break, followed by kickoff, followed by commercial break.
This failure to reach a logical endpoint only ends up confounding all logic -- indeed human reason altogether. By removing kickoff returns without removing kickoffs, the coverage team will be made to run down the field for a full-speed collision with the blocking team for no reason.
That's right: a "player safety" rule is going to make players run into other players – an obvious injury risk – only to watch the returner take a knee six or seven yards deep in the endzone. So concerned is the NFL with the physical well-being of its players that it is now asking them to risk injury for no reason whatsoever.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Roger Goddell's NFL.
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