Saints open preseason in “a whole new frontier of special-teams football”

Photo Provided By: CCS

Da Boot Sports
8/8/2024
Article Courtesy of: Crescent City Sports
By: Les East


   The New Orleans Saints’ preseason opener at Arizona on Saturday night will be the team’s first venture into the brave new world of NFL kickoffs.The NFL has overhauled the parameters within which kickoffs are conducted in the most dramatic special teams rule change in recent memory.
   The league’s goal was to decrease the threat of injury on the play while increasing the number of kickoffs that are returned after the percentage reached an all-time low in 2023.
“It’s a completely different game now,” Saints kicker Blake Grupe said.
   Preseason games are largely about player evaluation and this year’s three games present opportunities for special teams coordinators such as New Orleans’ Darren Rizzi, one of the drafters of the new rule, to evaluate which players are best suited to the new circumstances for kickoff returns and kickoff coverage.
  “I think more than ever before, these preseason games are going to be really fun to watch, especially from a special teams standpoint,” Rizzi said. “Everybody – the fans, the coaches, the players – is going to have their eyes on it because it really is a first.
   “We can simulate as much as we want in practice but until we get to those games we’re not really going to have a full idea of what the whole play (entails). We’re going into a whole new frontier of special-teams football.”
   

   The new rule reduces the space and speed within which kickoffs unfold and thereby the severity of collisions – and it also promotes more returns.
   Kickoffs will still take place from the 35-yard line (and safety kicks from the 20), but all the players on the kicking team except the kicker will line up with one foot on the receiving team’s 40-yard line. The non-kickers cannot move and the kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line until the ball hits the ground or a player in the “landing zone” (between the 20-yard line and the goal line) or the end zone.
   As for the receiving team, at least nine players must line up in the “setup zone” (between the 35 and the 30) with at least seven having a foot on the 35 (the restraining line). They cannot move until the kick has hit the ground or a player in the landing zone or the end zone. The players not on the 35 must be lined up in the setup zone inside the hashes. A maximum of two returners may line up in the landing zone and can move at any time prior to or during the kick.
   Rizzi said he has spoken with “a bunch of guys who have coached in the XFL,” whose kickoff rules were the genesis of the NFL rule, and that he and Saints head coach Dennis Allen have “watched every single XFL kickoff.”
   He and assistant special teams coach Phil Gagliano spent much of the off-season working on the “little intricacies” of “blocking technique (and) complete schemes” and “educating every single guy on the team on every aspect of the rule.”


   “Phil and I have a lot of fun with it,” Rizzi said, “but a little bit of angst.”
   Rizzi said at the end of mini-camp in June that he and Galiano already had “tried some things.” The reactions have ranged from “there’s no way we’re doing that” to “this looks really good.”
   The adjustments prior to the kick are just part of the overhaul. Once the ball leaves the kicker’s foot, other changes kick in.
   All kickoffs that hit in the landing zone must be returned.
   “There’s no more, maybe they bring it out (of the end zone),” Grupe said.
   Any kick that hits in the landing zone and then goes into the end zone – must be returned or downed by receiving team. If it is downed then the possession will begin at the 20-yard line.
   If the kickoff hits in end zone and stays inbounds it must be returned or downed and if it is downed the ball will be placed at the 30.
   “By no means is it bombing (the kick) out the back (of the end zone),” Grupe said.
   Rizzi said kickoff and kickoff return lineups might be more fluid than before because “some teams may go bigger, some may go smaller,” likening it to shifting lineups in basketball and line shifts in hockey.
   “Your whole roster is available to you,” he said. “It might be a situational thing.”


   The new rule has triggered a lot of what Rizzi called “guesstimates” about potential unconventional approaches, including having a non-kicker handle the kickoffs because distance and hang time no longer matter.
   “It sounds great in theory,” Rizzi said, “and I’ve heard a lot of coaches talk about some alternative kicks, some line drives, maybe some knuckleball kicks. We’re like everybody else. We’re taking a look at all that stuff. It’s a risk-reward thing.
   “I understand the theory. The issues arise because the placement of the kick with the new rules is at a premium. If you have a position player that can really place the ball then absolutely that could be a benefit for you. The problem is the risk-reward of getting a bad kick because the penalty for getting a bad kick is really, really high.”
   Rizzi said “landing (the ball) in premium locations might end up being one of the more important aspects of this new play.”
   Any kick that hits short of the landing zone will be treated like a kickoff that goes out of bounds and the ball will be spotted at the 40.
   “If a position player miss-hits the ball and say it lands on the 21-yard line the drive’s going to start at the 40,” Rizzi said. “If you have a regular touchback – ball in the air, lands in the end zone – the ball’s coming out to the 30. The ball hits the ground, skips in, touchback, the ball’s going to the 20. To run the risk of a team starting at the 40-yard line, I think that’s something that maybe is going to be tried out in the preseason.”


   If the Saints were to consider trusting kickoffs to someone other than Grupe – or Charlie Smyth, a former Irish soccer goalkeeper who’s competing as a kicker in training camp – a potential candidate would be special teams standout/jack-of-all-trades Taysom Hill, who was a kicker in high school.
   Rizzi called Hill, who has been the Saints’ emergency kicker, “the backup to everything here,” adding that he’s “listed on the depth chart at like 15 different spots.”
   The coordinator added that the Saints might “move around” someone such as special teams captain J.T. Gray, a former Pro Bowler, to try and counteract added attention he might receive from blockers.
   The anticipated higher rate of returns (as well as the perceived lower risk of injury) could lead teams to utilize impact players more on kickoffs, especially a dynamic returner such as Saints running back Alvin Kamara.
   “We might not use (Kamara) 100 percent,” Rizzi said, “but he’s probably going to be back there at some point.”
   Other personnel changes could include using “two or three defensive starters” t cover a last-second kickoff in a one-score game.
   “If there are two seconds left you can’t just kick a dribbler and end the game,” Rizzi said. “High-profile guys are going to show up a little more.”
   
   Rizzi said that “one of the under-the-radar things” is how to handle a similar final-seconds kickoff at the end of the first half.
   “You can’t squib and run out the clock,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
   That’s a question the Saints and everyone else in the NFL is trying to answer this preseason about the how to handle the new rule.
   “We’ll be watching the other 31 teams’ preseason games,” Rizzi said. “The quicker coaches and players figure this out it’s going to be a major advantage.”