The last two NFL seasons have seen teams get the ball on their own 25-yard-line after touchbacks on kickoffs, but the league has only adopted the change on a year-to-year basis to this point.
That could change at next week’s league meetings. Albert Breer of SI.com reports that the league will vote on making the change to touchbacks a permanent part of the game.
The shift has led to a slight drop in the number of kickoff returns over the course of a season.
With the initial impetus for the rule change coming from the league’s desire to see fewer injuries on kickoffs, it seems unlikely that there is going to be a shift in the other direction even if the first year under the rule didn’t see a significant change on that front.
