• Teams tried three kick return alignments: Some teams didn’t have a primary kick returner, and two teams utilized one clear returner regardless of the kick.
• Teams might just accept touchbacks: Kickoff teams may accept touchbacks to the 30-yard line, which would result in minimal value for kickoff returners in fantasy football.
• Dominate fantasy football season with promo code PFF25: Unlock all of PFF's fantasy content and tools, including full access to the fantasy football mock draft simulator, for 25% off using promo code PFF25.
Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Last season, NFL teams averaged 1.1 kick returns per game — the lowest average in the league’s history. The NFL dramatically changed kick returns in the offseason in an attempt to make the play relevant again while also keeping players relatively safe. You can find a complete rundown of the NFL’s rule change here.
Several fantasy football leagues, including the Scott Fish Bowl, allow points for kick return yards. These rule changes could have a significant impact on fantasy production for returners in those leagues. The rules are intended to reduce touchbacks, as kickoffs that land in the endzone or through the endzone now go to the 30-yard line. Teams may opt to take touchbacks anyway rather than allow for the chance of a long return. This would make the new rules moot for potential kick return fantasy points.
The PFF data collection team charted all 132 kickoffs from the first week of the 2024 NFL preseason, and I also watched them all to help find trends. After one week, here are my observations and thoughts on how this could impact fantasy football this season.
It’s worth noting that this is the preseason and all teams are trying this out for the first time. Kicking teams and kick return teams could completely change what they are doing in the regular season. Therefore, all of this needs to be taken with a much bigger grain of salt than other preseason reactions.
Teams are using two returners
The new kick return rule requires at least nine players from the kickoff return team to line up between the 30- and 35-yard lines, which is called the setup zone. Up to two players can line up in the landing zone, which is from the goal line to the 20-yard line. Every team on every kick used two players in the landing zone in preseason Week 1, which we can expect going forward.
Teams also lined one person up on the left-hand side and one on the right-hand side on every play. This is also something we can expect going forward. If both players lined up on one side, the kicking team would just kick to the other side and put the return team at a disadvantage.
Kick Return Strategy A: No clear returner
There were generally three kinds of alignments the kick return team used for their two players in the landing zone in preseason Week 1. The first was having the two players roughly equally far away from the end zone. In some cases, a player would be one or two yards off from the other, but it seemed generally realistic on those plays that either player would be the returner. There were varying strategies for how far apart the two players were from each other.
On these plays, if the ball was kicked to one side, the player on that side prepared to return it. There were roughly five exceptions where the ball landed between the hashes, and the right kick returner went a few yards to the left to field the return (from the return team's perspective).
If teams use this strategy in the regular season, it would be complicated for fantasy managers. The New Orleans Saints deployed the alignment, and Rashid Shaheed is expected to be one of the Saints' kick returners. If the Saints used this strategy in the regular season, a kicking team could simply kick to the other player if they didn’t want Shaheed to return the kick.
Kick Return Strategy B: Offset returners
The other main strategy was for one player to be at least five yards closer to the endzone than the other — and sometimes more. When this happened, it was the player closer to the endzone who typically returned the kick, regardless of whether the kick went to the left or right.
The majority of kickers ended up kicking the ball to the further-back player, which probably won’t be as common in the regular season. We can expect teams will try to make life harder for the further-back player.
There were two exceptions where it wasn’t the further back player attempting to return it. The first was the Carolina Panthers kicking it within one yard of the returner further from the endzone. In that example, the typical blocker caught it. The other example was a play where the Pittsburgh Steelers had their returners switch expected roles after the kick, presumably to confuse the kicking team. Most teams were using vanilla tactics once the ball was kicked, but this was an exception.
On a somewhat related note, there were several plays where both returners acted like they were going to catch the kick. While this could have been a miscommunication, it seemed like another deception tactic.
Several teams that used this strategy sometimes had their primary returner on the left and other times on the right, but it was the same player who would be closer and the same player further back. There were also a few teams that ran some plays with the first strategy and some with this one.
Kick Return Strategy C: One obvious returner
The Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers deployed the most unique alignment of returners. The Browns lined someone right at the goal line, slightly off center, and another on the 10-yard line close to the numbers. This made it fairly obvious that the player at the endzone was going to return almost anything outside of a very short kickoff to the side.
In the same game, the Packers similarly had someone at the goal line near the middle of the field, with another player between the 15- and 20-yard lines. They were the only team to have someone consistently in that area of the field pre-snap. That also made it clear which player was going to return it, regardless of where the ball was kicked.
A lot can change between now and the season, but the Packers’ Keisean Nixon is my early favorite to lead the league in kick return yards.
Kicking Strategy: Distance
There will be more strategy involved when kicking the ball this year. Teams tried different things in Week 1 of the preseason, and they may try other strategies once the season starts.
Of the 132 kicks, four failed to land in the landing zone, leading to a touchback on the 40-yard line. Obviously, teams will look to avoid this. The Kansas City Chiefs were the only team to accomplish a touchback to the 20-yard line with the ball bouncing in the landing zone, going into the end zone and the return team touching it back.
Forty-one kicks landed in or beyond the endzone. Generally, kicks that were in the back seven yards of the end zone were touchbacks, resulting in the offense getting the ball at the 30-yard line.
Twenty kicks landed in the end zone and were run back. This was a losing strategy because the average field position on these kicks was the 20-yard line, with only three getting returned beyond the 30. These are preseason games where the results don’t matter, so, understandably, teams returned these kicks just to get reps in for their kick return teams. It’s worth remembering when reading the return rates from the first week of the preseason that more of these kicks would have been touchbacks had it been the regular season.
This left 86 kicks that landed in the landing zone and were returned. The average starting field position on these plays was the 29.8-yard line. This provides a lot of credibility to the idea that teams will just accept kickoffs to the 30-yard line if return teams become too good.
Kicking Strategy: Width
If the kick was within five yards of the end zone, the average start was at the 28.9-yard line. From the 6-10 yard lines, the average start was at the 33. Only six kicks landed between the 11-15 yard lines, with an average start of 23.8. It’s possible teams just weren’t prepared for those shorter kicks, or maybe there’s a strategy to it. In general, it seems that if teams can’t consistently kick between the one- and five-yard lines, they are better off taking the touchback.
Kicks that landed outside the numbers were better than those that didn’t, with an average start of the 27.3-yard line outside the numbers and between 29-30 either between the hashes and numbers or just between the hashes. The rates at which kickers kicked to various parts of the field width-wise were very consistent from this preseason to last season, as well as to last preseason.
The other advantage to kicking outside the numbers is the kicking team will dictate which player is returning the kick.
Bottom Line
I fully expect some teams to embrace kicking into the endzone every kickoff and accepting a touchback. I also expect teams that choose to try kicking will do so to the worst of the two returners when possible. Because of this, I don’t expect any kickoff returner to be a fantasy football league-winner.
While it’s probably not worth bumping any player up several rounds if they will be a primary or secondary returner, it can certainly be used as a tiebreaker when deciding which players to draft. The later you get into the draft, the more you should take this into account, although sometimes when a player sees a larger role on offense, they will take on a smaller role on special teams.
I do expect us to know a few weeks into the season which teams kick to returners and which ones accept touchbacks, making things a little easier to predict. I also expect us to know which teams try to avoid certain returners, which ones don’t, and to what extent return teams will go to get the ball in their best returners' hands.
This means kick returners could certainly be in play when making start-sit decisions, even if those players aren’t every week fantasy starters. With all of that in mind, here are the top two kick returners based on teams' unofficial depth charts, the two players who lined up in the landing zone on each team’s first kick return in Week 1 of the preseason, which strategy they used, and which side was the primary returner if they used the second or third strategy.
© 2024 PFF - all rights reserved.