Welcome to the TLP Football School. You ask, we answer. Today's question: what is a kickoff?
A kickoff is how a football game starts. One team puts the ball down and kicks it far down the field. The other team catches it, and tries to run it back as far as they can before somebody tackles them. Wherever that player gets tackled, that's the spot where his team starts.
You'll see a kickoff at the start of the game, at the start of the second half, and every single time a team scores. And it matters, because the further your team gets the ball down the field, the less ground they have to cover to score.
Now, for a long time this was the most dangerous play in football. Both teams ran at each other from forty yards apart, at full speed, and collided. Players were getting hurt more on this one play than on anything else.
So in twenty twenty-four, the NFL threw the whole thing out and rebuilt it. They call it the dynamic kickoff. And they've kept adjusting it every season since.
Today the kicker stands back by himself and kicks it. Everybody else is already lined up close together down the field, and none of them are allowed to move until the ball comes down. The only players allowed to move early are the ones waiting to catch it. Less running. Less speed. Fewer injuries.
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Now, where the ball comes down changes what happens next. If it lands on the field, the player who comes up with it has a choice. He can try to run it back. Or he can just go down right where he is, and the ball gets placed on that spot. He does not have to run it.
But if the kick is long and the ball flies all the way into the end zone, the player who catches it can just kneel down. That's called a touchback. Nobody runs. Nobody gets hit. The officials pick the ball up, carry it out, and set it down on the thirty-five yard line. That's where his team starts.
So the kicking team has a choice to make. Kick it as far as you can, and the other team gets the ball placed on the thirty-five yard line without doing anything. Or kick it shorter, make the other team deal with it on the field, and try to stop them before they reach the thirty-five.
Now, college football does this differently. In college, on that same touchback, the ball gets set down on the twenty-five yard line. Not the thirty-five. Ten yards further back.
And college gives the player catching the kick one more choice. While the ball is still in the air, he can raise one hand straight up over his head and wave it. That's called a fair catch.
That raised hand is him telling everybody: I am not going to run with this. I'm going to catch it and stand right here. So don't hit me. And once he raises that hand, nobody is allowed to touch him.
The ball gets set down on the exact spot where he caught it, and that's where his team starts. If he caught it inside his own twenty-five yard line, they move the ball up and place it on the twenty-five for him.
Now listen close, because this is the part people argue about online, and most of them are working off old rules.
The NFL used to have the fair catch on kickoffs. And in May of twenty twenty-three, the owners voted to make it even better — fair catch it inside your own twenty-five, and you got the ball on the twenty-five. Same as college.
That lasted one season. On March twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-four, the owners voted again. Twenty-nine to three. They threw the entire kickoff out and built the dynamic kickoff — and they took the fair catch off the kickoff completely. Any ball caught on the field now has to be returned. Ninety-two fair catches happened the season before. All of them, gone.
Then in twenty twenty-five they made it permanent, and moved the touchback from the thirty to the thirty-five. And in twenty twenty-six they adjusted it again.
So here it is plain. If somebody tells you an NFL returner can fair catch a kickoff — that has not been true since twenty twenty-four. College football still has it. The NFL does not.
And you will still see the fair catch in the NFL — on punts. That's a different kick, a different play, and it's got its own lesson coming.
Same play. Two different sets of rules. And that's a kickoff.
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