The new kickoff formation has made it even harder to recover onside kicks. Which makes it even harder for a team trailing by multiple scores to close the gap.
Which is going to renew discussions about a potential alternative to the onside kick.
Per multiple sources, the possibility of replacing the onside kick with a fourth-and-13 play will be addressed again this offseason. That concept first emerged more than 13 years ago, in the Time magazine cover story regarding Commissioner Roger Goodell. The idea came from then (and now) Rutgers coach Greg Schiano, after a devastating neck injury suffered by former Rutgers player Eric LeGrand during a kickoff return.
Since then, the NFL made various tweaks to the kickoff rule before the massive overhaul adopted in 2024. The goal was to eliminate high-speed collisions, which carry the potential for serious head/neck trauma to the players involved in them.
The recent changes to the kickoff have taken what was a dead play and made the onside kick largely irrelevant. The surprise onside kick was sacrificed when the new formation was adopted. With fewer than eight percent of onside kicks recovered in the last two years, it’s a largely pointless exercise.
That doesn’t mean there will be an appetite for fourth-and-13. In discussions with various decision-makers and persons of influence within league circles, the reaction was lukewarm, at best. The approach gives an advantage to teams with franchise quarterbacks.
As one source put it, the better approach may be to try to make changes to the onside kick rule, in order to increase the success rate. Still, the idea of a fourth-and-13 (or 15 or even 20) play lingers.
Asked which of the two — onside or fourth-and-13 — he prefers, one head coach said this: “Is it possible to say I absolutely hate both?”
