NFL owners OK kickoff, replay, OT rule changes

PALM BEACH, Fla. — NFL owners approved a significant change to the league’s kickoff structure while also authorizing an expansion of the replay assist program during their final session of their league meeting Tuesday morning.

The touchback on kickoffs will be marked at the 35-yard line for the 2025 season, a move that league officials and special teams coaches said will prompt a significant increase in the return rate. The new language reflects the original intent of the massive revamp the NFL instituted in 2024, when final negotiations resulted in a touchback spotted at the 30.

That left many coaches comfortable kicking touchbacks in 2024, and the league produced a return rate of 32.8%. Denver Broncos special teams coach Darren Rizzi, one of the primary architects of the revamp, projected a 2025 return rate between 70% and 75%.

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The concussion rate on kickoffs last season dropped 43% from 2023.

“The space and the speed of the play were much more down from what we’re all used to,” Rizzi said. “And so the play was a tremendous success, and that’s why we felt the time was now to move the touchback back to the 35 to go back to the original formation that we had proposed.”

Owners decided to table a part of the kickoff proposal that would have addressed low recovery rates of onside kicks. According to Rizzi, some teams have additional ideas, and that part of the proposal will likely be rewritten, with different rules for how the kickoff team can line up, and put before owners in May.

Meanwhile, owners approved a competition committee proposal to add responsibilities to its replay assist program. The on-site replay official will now be permitted to reverse flags that are thrown for hits to defenseless players, along with fouls for face mask, horse collar, tripping and running into/roughing the kicker.

Those replay officials, however, will not be allowed to add a flag when an obvious foul has gone uncalled.

In other news, owners on Tuesday:

• Approved a proposal from the

  Endorsed the competition committee’s request to add additional specifics on prohibited actions that would violate the league’s unsportsmanlike rules, including: a throat slash gesture, simulating firing or brandishing a gun, or displaying the “nose wipe” gesture.

• Approved a proposal from the Pittsburgh Steelers to have one video or phone call with no more than five prospective free agents during the negotiation period before the formal opening of free agency. Previously, teams could speak only with the agent of the player during that period.

• Approved a request from multiple teams to allow team staff members to prepare K-balls, footballs used only on special teams, before game day.

• Approved proposals by the competition committee allowing two players to be designated to return from injured reserve if they are placed on IR when rosters are reduced to 53, granting playoff teams two more return-from-IR spots in the postseason and designating point differential as the third tiebreaker on waiver claims.

• Tabled for further discussion the Detroit Lions’ proposal to make playoff seeding based on regular-season records as the guiding principle, rather than division championships.

• Did not approve Detroit’s proposal to eliminate an automatic first down as a penalty imposed for defensive holding and illegal contact.

• Announced the use of Sony’s Hawk-Eye technology to measure first downs in 2025.