The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The kickers strike back

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Sixty-yard field goals! Landing zones! The K ball! The kicking game seemingly has never played a bigger role in the NFL than it is this season. The Athletic national NFL writers Jourdan Rodrigue and Mike Sando join Robert Mays to dive into The Year of the Kicker in the NFL, how we got to this point, and the effects the rule changes are having on the league on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)4:30 The evolution in kickoff rules29:36 The K ball38:53 How much does this all matter?48:27 The effects on offenses and defensesHost: Robert MaysWith: Jourdan Rodrigue and Mike SandoExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Jourdan on Bluesky: @jourdanrodrigue.bsky.socialFollow Mike on Bluesky: @sandonfl.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Jourdan on X: @JourdanRodrigueFollow Mike on X: @SandoNFLTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. You guys might have picked up over the last few years that special teams is not my favorite part of football. You've got to twist my arm to talk about kicking and the like on this show. And I understand that's a personal blind spot. I don't think that's a good thing. This year, the NFL has just shoved me toward having to care about it. We have reached the pinnacle of how important kicking is in the NFL coming from a couple different directions.

The new kickoff rule, changing the first. touchback to the 30 to the 35 has more than doubled the return rate from the 2024 season. It has made the dynamic kickoff rule truly dynamic, and it has made kickoffs a live play in the NFL again, and it has changed strategy, how teams have to approach it. It's a fun thing. And so we wanted to dig into that, but also talk about the change in the K-ball rule coming into this season, which if you haven't heard about this, the NFL allowed kickers this year to start working up the kicking balls throughout the entire week, the same way you could

for a quarterback or any other position when it used to be a scenario where you had about a half hour before the game to work those balls up. And there are some people, coaches around the NFL, Vic Fangio included, who's been talking about how this is materially changed what kickers are capable of. And this rule has quietly been very impactful. And so from two different directions, we have kicking being more important than the NFL than it's ever been. We have kickoffs now dictating how games are going to go.

If you miss the landing zone late in the game, you're giving the team the ball at the 40-yard line. and on the other side of it, now if you're banging kickoffs from 65 yards, you've got to go about 12 yards in order to get yourself into field goal range. So this is happening. Can't ignore it. And so today we're going to take some time to dig into the biggest year in special teams in the NFL and as long as I can remember covering this league. To have this discussion with me, welcome both Jordan Rodriguez and Mike Sando from the athletic.

Both of them have written extensively about this. Jordan did a great story a couple weeks ago about the K-balls and what the rule changes looked like. And Sando has been on the changes in return percentage, scoring, all of these things that have come from the new kickoff rule. So really enjoyed chatting with both of them about what this has looked like over the first seven weeks of the season. Let's get to that conversation right now. Very excited to celebrate kicking day on the athletic football show, which as I explained in the intro is a surprising holiday, considering how little we talk about special teams on this show. It's absolutely been a blind spot of mine. Two people who have done a

fantastic job of hitting this, though, and covering it all season and explaining the impact of it to our wonderful NFL writers at the athletic. First off, it is the man himself, Mike Sando. Mike, so good to chat with you today. Appreciate you being here. Hey, thanks for having me and even better to have Jordan Roderig. Thrilled for Jordan to also be here. Jordan wrote a story about the K-ball change earlier this year. Absolutely wanted to get her involved. Jordan, thanks for doing this. Thanks, guys. The Slack channel on this topic was popping on. off. So if that's any sign for how fun this conversation is going to be, I am so here for it. We're going to get into some of the layers of this, but some of the questions, like the theoretical

questions that Sando was asking about the implications of the change in the kickoff rule, it was the most distilled version of Mike Sando that I think I've ever experienced. And I mean that in the warmest way possible. So we're going to talk about just how kicking, the prominence of kicking has changed in the NFL this year because it's coming from two different directions. And I think that's it makes this so notable, right? So we have two rule changes that have made kicking more important to the NFL than, Jordan, I think at any time since I started doing this. I mean, there was a point, and I explained this in the intro, but when you were watching

film, when I was over the last few years, I would literally just download sides of the ball, offense, defense, and I found myself never watching kicking because so much of it were dead plays. Like kickoffs didn't matter. And so now the fact that the kickoff is as live as it's ever been because of the rule changes and the K-ball changes have made field goals more impactful and more exciting than they've ever been. From multiple different directions, we are having a kicking renaissance in the NFL that has made it impossible for me to ignore it as much as I wanted to. And you'll never get that time back, Robert.

No, it's funny. It's the meme of accidentally became important at work and it's ruining my life. It's so true. But the thing is, and we'll talk about this, Sando, it wasn't accidental. Like I actually, in talking to a bunch of coaches for this, and I talked to some defensive coordinators, special teams coordinators, just people who have been impacted by this, one of the defensive coordinators I was talking to is joking. He's like, special teams coordinators have legislated themselves back to relevance in the NFL

by all these rule changes. Like credit to them for doing that. It's actually very impressive. Like, it's bureaucracy at work in a positive way for them. It is. And like, to me, I agree with you that sometimes special teams, the special teams have just become such a bore. You know, the kickoff was just a letdown.

Remember, it used to be like, oh, the opening kickoff, the whole stadium standing, and it's like, oh, we're going to get a big play here or a big collision. And obviously they don't want the huge collisions for good reasons on some of those plays. It's always the, you know, being a parent whose kids played football, the kickoff was always the most nerve-wracking thing because people just go run from long distances and blow each other up. But now we've at least found a way, and we will talk about this, too, the strategy laid in the game. if you screw up and don't kick it to the landing zone, I mean, that's a play. That's a, we're interviewing the kicker after the game. So, Sandel, let's just walk through, like, the material changes in the kickoff rule just to, like, set it up for people.

Like, what is different this year compared to the first version of the dynamic kickoff from last year? Yeah. So the touchback for years used to be to the 20-yard line. And then they wanted to move it to the 35, but chickened out last year and moved it to the 30. And the changes were subtle. I mean, it didn't have, I think, the effect that a lot of people wanted it to have. Because, remember, they're looking for ways to get scoring up, too. And so shorter fields, in theory, you can get scoring up in an era when maybe defenses have caught up a little bit, right?

So this year, they made the touchback be more punitive, bringing it out to the 35, and we have some movement there. Now, on the kick-offs with the landing zone, where you have to kick the ball, you know, past the 20-yard line, but not into the goal line, Now that is coming out to the 40 instead of the 35. So you get the ball at the 40. You just know this as a fan, just how you feel about things. You get the ball at the 40, you're like, we're going to get in field goal range in two plays at this point, right? Yeah, absolutely. And we've seen it happen in late game situations, Jordan.

The Cardinals, Seahawks game is the one that sticks out to me, where you have that late kickoff that falls short of the landing zone. And now on a potential drive, a game-winning drive, you're lining up to. At the 40, you need two completions for a game-winning field goal. And so it really has changed some of these super high-leverged situations in the NFL. Yeah, and it is interesting. You are watching a lot of coaches learn about it and troubleshoot it in real time. Several weeks ago, even a late game situational decision by Ben Johnson, who I would say is probably one of the better situational coaches and has been on one of the better situational,

especially special teams, staffs when he was with the Lions, wasn't quite sure whether they were going to be able to kick the ball just like dribble it off the T and maybe incur the penalty in order to help kill a little bit more clock or whether they could purposefully incur the penalty by kicking the ball out of the end zone when he admitted later on it should have just gone out of bounds special teams ended up making an error it ended up costing them so i think that this is something it's very interesting because it's not only become a reason to watch for the productivity that it's bringing and i think we'll see the numbers over time um translate to that, but also because you are watching these very high-level people troubleshoot and

workshop the situational stakes of all of this in real time. And it's totally, I remember Robert, when the rule change first happened, oh, my gosh, everyone says all the right things at the league meetings. It's going to be for safety and we're happy about it and we're on board and all this stuff. No, when they go into their practices and all these kickers have to work on all these funky kicks and all these special teams coaches are actually taking up meeting time. Like this is, so, this was so annoying for some of these coaches, especially offensive head coaches who really just wanted to dedicate all of that time to what they normally do. Now you have to have real strategy to it, which I think overall is good for the game. And it depends on your kicker too. All these guys are

different, right? So, and who you're facing their kicker, how they're going to employ them, how aggressive teams are. You mentioned the Arizona game, which I think gave Sam Darnel possession for Seattle with 28 seconds left and they got the tying field goal. Also, week two, I believe, New England, Miami. You know, New England was leading 3327. They kick off. These are the two times in the final two minutes that the landing zone was missed. And so Miami got the ball down six at their own 40. They weren't able to get the touchdown. But man, that's a nice head start on one for sure to get it that far out. So I'm interested to see that type of thing happening in a big moment in a Super Bowl, you know, or in a playoff game. Your kickers maybe banged up.

or, right, you have a make a personnel decision. And you have a, suddenly the ball's out of the 40. And Patrick Mahomes has, has 18 seconds left from the 40. And you're like panicking, you know? And if you look at the numbers and one of the special teams coordinators I talked to last week mentioned that the first thing they looked at was just scoring rates based on where you are on the field, right? Which obviously, that makes sense. That's the first thing you would take a look at.

So I just looked at the numbers very quickly before we started recording today. From inside the 20, so from the 20 yard line and since 2000, percentage of drives the result in a score was 24%. Inside the 30, it only goes to 27.5%. It's not that much of a difference between the 20 and the 30, and you saw that in the strategy last year. Well, if you push it to the 35, to the 35 yard line exactly, it goes to 34.5% since 2000.

So now we're looking at scoring drives on a third of plays, if you're just banging touchbacks. And so that's what it took. It took going from like 27.5% to 35.8%. 34.8%. And coaches were like, you know what? We're doing this. And Walt Anderson, in a story that Kevin Seaford wrote earlier this year

about the kickoff change rule, he essentially said, mission accomplished. We got what we wanted to. The return rate is now double what it was in 2025. And so by changing it those five yards, you flip the math just enough where the coaches were like, I don't want to think about this, unfortunately now I have to.

Yeah, and just to simplify it, the drive scoring rate of any kind of score after a kickoff is 41% this year. And that's up from the mid-30s before. So that's just any drive that starts after a kickoff, whether it's returned or touchback or whatever, that's a pretty good percentage. I will say, too, that the league, this is a very rare example. And I think part of it is because it was coach-driven. A lot of these types of things were special teams, either current or former.

coach and consultant driven to create really what this was and model it off of previous rules that existed, even in other leagues. And so that's a big part of why this has been effective because you actually got the people who are doing the job to go in and talk about how they could make this better. But it's a very rare example of the league also giving themselves basically a PR cushion too in a rule change because they're also, at least, League meetings this week citing and crediting decrease in injuries on the kickoff itself. And so if they have the player safety element, you can't, if you're a grumpy coach over time about this, because you are seeing this have an effect. If you are a grumpy coach or you're a grumpy member of

the competition committee or what have you, you can't say anything because then you're against player safety. And so this is like, it's kind of this perfect storm of things that the league is able to, like, and I say it's a rarity where they can check both boxes, where they not only have something that's effective, that's coach driven, that's, that's employee driven, essentially, but on stakeholder driven because they do have such a stake in this rule, but also that you can't really argue against for any other reason because you already have the safety benefits that are showing up in the data, too. One thing I would also just caution as somebody who looks at numbers a lot is we only have,

We only have, seven weeks is not a great sample size. Sure. And one of the things I've noticed late in these games, and Ryan Rusilla mentioned it to me when we had a conversation on his podcast a while back was, he's like, the ball seems to just be moving faster late in these games anyway, meaning it's easier to move the ball down the field. And so one of the things I looked at was, okay, if we take possession after a kickoff with, let's just say the drive starts with between one minute and 15 seconds left, one minute down

to 15 seconds, right? And you're down three or tied. You need a field goal, right? So there's been eight of those drives this year and five of them scored. The previous five years combined, there were five scores and 33 drives. Okay. So my initial thought is, wow, that's a huge change that has to do with the kickoff rule. But the average starting field position on those drives was like the same or worse this year. So all the scoring was up. So it's so interesting. Those percentages are up. But now those five field goal ending drives this year, they were, there was a 33-yarder, a 39, but also a 52, a 53, and a 64. So it's a little bit of a mix of some of these long field goals that maybe weren't quite as comfortable making before.

And the short ones. The other thing is, there's 11 teams in the league this year that haven't even attempted a kick longer than 55 yards. So there's a concentration of teams, and I think it depends on who you have. I've talked to some teams are like, hey, this doesn't mean crap for us. Like, we don't have that guy, you know? Caros Santos is still the Bears kicker. He's not going to be banging 65-yarders anytime soon. But so then there becomes a personnel component of this too.

And kickers, it's notoriously hard to find, right? I mean, the 49ers use the third-round pick on Jake Moody. He doesn't do well for them. They stumble into Eddie Panero and he doesn't miss. And then Moody's on TV for the Bears, you know, hit and walk-off. So no one really knows how to find a great kicker anyway. but it'll be interesting to see just kind of how this all plays out over time instead of just seven weeks. Let's get into the field goals in a second.

The last thing I wanted to mention about the kickoffs because this is not something I had thought about. But in talking to a special team's coordinator last week, he was discussing why there have been more explosive returns independent, and just better for starting field position, independent of the percentage of kicks being returned. So just stick with me for a second. Because the touchbacks are now so punitive, you're also catching the ball further away from the goal line because teams are worried about kicking the ball into the end zone. So the returns themselves are going to be more dangerous, which I hadn't really thought about, but it makes total sense.

And the analogy that he used, it's like last year, you were essentially having guys hit an island green every single time if you wanted to pin them inside the five. So just think about that. Like, your kickers on 17 at TPC sawgrass every single time, that's a tough place to be. Now, if you're going to be kicking the ball, and I think the numbers bear this out, and looking at them today and saying, oh, you're a true media wizard. I'm like just an amateur.

I think that what I saw was that the average distance away from the goal line, the teams are catching kickoffs this year, has gone from like the two and a half yard line to like the five and a half six yard line. And that may seem small, but over time, that's one of those things that really starts to add up. So there are just so many different layers as to why this play is feeling the way that it feels compared to it being a dead play two years ago that it's hard not to get excited about it. I totally like it.

Like to me, this isn't an overly gimmicky thing. I like the changes to it. So I'm not going to see more. You feel the same way, Jordan. You like it? Yeah, I mean, I love it. I love, you know, crazy chaos football potential, you know? And I think this play offers some of it.

And I like the strategy that we're starting to see unfold. You're seeing kickers with trick shots now, which actually, I think over time negatively impacts the kicker. We don't have enough data yet to play out on that. But we'll get to that when we talk about field goals. Is that Josh Cardi like pet theory that you're starting to develop? Passive aggressively mentioning, but not really mentioning this Josh Cardi situation with the L.A. Rams.

No, but there's really interesting ways that we've seen it with punting forever. We've seen, you know, watermelon balls and banana balls and all of these types of things that punters are able to do to make it really difficult for the punt returner to catch the ball and then to navigate through traffic. We're seeing a lot of basically taking run game schemes and run designs and like widening them out the width of the field and trying to access the same types of contours you would. If like let's say you're running some type of mid zone run, for example, or some type of wide zone, depending on which part of the field you're attacking. I like all of it. I think it's good for the rostered guys who are especially gifted at it.

But it is interesting because as it stands right now, it seems like a nearly perfect rule, which means the NFL is going to mess with it again, which means something else is coming, whether it's the fourth down, or excuse me, whether it's the onside kick or something else is going to happen. I would bet on it. I don't bet, but I would definitely bet on it because it is the NFL and they can't help but to keep fiddling and keep tinkering with things. The strategy of knuckleball kickoffs is fascinating, right? And we've seen the Panthers and the Rams deploy this in ways that have been effective. And it's still very early and we'll have more data about as it goes.

But even, like you said, Jordan, the strategy the teams are using to return kicks, you have some teams where it's lined up all the way. Everyone's on the same exact level, 11 different guys. There are some teams where we have two guys that are offset. We have some teams where it's three guys are offset. And then you're watching different teams decide, who are we going to leave unblocked in some of those things? Washington has been the best kickoff team in the end, best kickoff return team in the NFL so far this year.

And they're one of those teams that has two guys offset about five yards behind the ball. It creates certain angles. And coaches are now saying that instead of having like one or two kick return designs coming into a game, now we need four or five. But it's still so early that I don't think we can really pin down any like trends or conclusions that we can reach from this. I just think that now it becomes something that Sandel, we're really going to have to keep an eye on as the season goes along because by the time we get to the end of the year, we're

probably going to have enough film and enough data to, like, actually start digging into what all of this means. Yeah, something you said, Jordan really struck me that it's guaranteed they'll think her with it. And I always see two things. There's always the reaction to some unexpected play, right? We see that with rules all the time. You know, the Saints are screwed on a PI call, so then suddenly PI becomes reviewable for a year, right, because Sean Payton gets mad. Or you get a situation, I think, at the league office level where Troy Vincent and those guys, they want to have one thing they do every year that shows they care about player safety or something. I'm not saying they don't care.

But you know what I mean? It's like, what are we doing this year? And so sometimes these changes get put in almost for not the purest football reasons. And so that could be frustrating. I'm fine. If their issue is with the onside kick and the fact that there's only been four and a half percent essentially of onside kicks recover, it's been one out of the 21 and they've been attempted when this data was pulled.

I think that sources with the league per CBS story said that it should be about 12%. That's what we want. I'm fine if in Jordan, you and I talked about this last week in another setting. I'm fine if we go to something akin to the rule that the Eagles proposed for onside kicks where we're doing fourth and 10 from the minus 35 yard line or whatever it is. If that's what you feel you're losing, you're taking away something from kickers in that moment, but we've given so much to kickers and special teams because of these other rule changes that I actually think it comes out in the wash in a positive way for the league

because it makes that a live play again. Yeah, I would say it is interesting now that that's being discussed at league meetings the potential of fiddling around with it, you are starting to hear more from specialists. I want to bring up, because I was talking with him about it yesterday, J.J. Janssen, who is the longest, one of the longest tenured players in the NFL long snapper for the Carolina Panthers, has survived multiple presidencies in doing so. and he and multiple ownerships, I guess, over there too. He said, say, I thought you meant United States presidencies.

I was like, yeah, he has been there for a really long time. He's like a six-term guy. He really, he's been there for like six terms. Okay, so he said, save the onside kick, reduce the distance the ball needs to travel to five yards. The shorter distance would increase the rate of the kicking team recovery. And then players closer together increases safety of the play. See, this guy gets it.

He's getting the PR spin, ready to go. I like that. I like that. I like it. Because I love the onside kick. And you know, for me to say that, you guys know how much I love office. Like, but for me to say that, that how, like, I want to preserve this play that is one of the most fun, unique plays in all of sports. But I think there's a way to do it without being too dramatic about the change. Like, I think you need to test different things. And I don't think you need to make, can make a sweeping change immediately. I do like your idea, Robert, on, on what it would be. the Eagles proposal to change it. But I also think that fiddling with the parameters of the kick itself might actually be the next step here because I do think that the league will in source into the buildings around the NFL to see what kickers think. It's probably a more reasonable halfway solution. Find a better version of it.

Yeah. Find a better version of the on-side kick. I was actually thinking like after that Rogers Hail Mary attempted and what if you got a Hail Mary, you know, instead. If I don't side kick. Again, this is my built-in... Similar percentage of probability. Yeah.

This is my built-in anti-special teams bias showing. Like, I'm sure I'm in the wrong as I present it this way. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to come back and talk about the other rule change that has been impacting the NFL on the kicking side this year. So, Jordan, I think a lot of people are aware of the kickoff change. You see it. Like, the game looks different from where the ball is starting, from the amount of kickoff returns, everything else.

The other kicking rule that we... was changed coming into this year was much quieter. It was something that wasn't talked about in the moment. There weren't think pieces written about it. We weren't having discussions about it. I think a lot of people only heard about it because Vic Fangio brought it up unprompted at a press conference a couple years ago. So you wrote a story about this on The Athletic. You and I have talked about this a little bit already. Just walk me through what that change was and why I think, why you started digging on it and why you thought it was interesting. Well, first of all, when Vic Fangio says something, especially voluntarily says something. I definitely am going to listen to it.

And Mike Sando had a little note in it in his pick six column because he was starting to hear some league chatter as well about this rule change and some buzz starting to formulate. Like, why is, you know, the old, like, why is nobody talking about it? Suddenly we're all talking about it, right? And so the K-ball and listeners, dear listeners, definitely Google K-ball long enough to go read my story. don't Google it long enough to go down on the rabbit holes of what K-ball is. Okay, so it's a change to the tools or an improvement to the tools, so specialists think, that they are able to use because it is giving them the opportunity to use and work with and basically break in the specific balls that they get to kick with and choose the ones they use for the game.

They can pick up to three. the league sends them an assortment of 60. So enough for three per game through the regular season, plus a couple of backups, just in case something happens to one of the ones that you like. And you can use any one K ball for up to three weeks before you have to, quote, unquote, retire it, right? And so this is a change because kickers and special teams players

and equipment managers are able to work with the ball under the same rules that have always existed about messing with footballs, in the week leading up to the game and essentially make the ball as friendly as they possibly can and as acquainted with as they possibly can to the kicker's foot. Previously, they were allowed to work with the ball for, you know, between 20 and 45 minutes pregame. And they also got up to three to four balls, with which they could work or try to break in. but there just wasn't enough time to get to all of them, so they would usually pick one or two. Now you have three, you are working with three all week, and you are picking the ones of the assortment

that you're deciding to try to break in. You're picking the ones that you like the best and using those in the game after an inspection by the officials. So the rule has changed a couple different times over the last like 25 years, right? And so there was a time where you could have access to the balls. That was my favorite part of this entire Discord. is learning that way back and day.

I'm sure, Sandra, you're aware of this. Like, I was covering it then. So you're covering the league at this point. So just walk me through some of this because my favorite part of this is that there are guys like hitting footballs with baseball bats all week. They're putting them in like actual commercial dryers after dumping them in water. Like that's the reason that the league took the balls away. It's like you've lost your K ball privileges.

So absolutely, I was looking for what I'd written back then, but I found a great story about Ernest Hooper of the St. Pete Times. Okay, St. Petersburg Times from the late 90s. So before 99, players could do whatever they wanted with the football, right? So they were covering the ball with evaporated milk, you know, putting it in the dryer, taking it with them to bed, going to a sauna, a whirlpool, a jacuzzi, right? Rich McKay, who was on the competition committee then and still is, said there's nothing they hadn't tried, okay, right?

So they were trying to rein this in, all right? And so the kickers got totally defensive. Gary Anderson was a long-time kicker, you know, back then. He's like, the big brass of the league, they're out to get us all the time. They want to move the, they want to make the goalpost narrower. They want us to kick off from further away. A great, I don't know if people might remember Michael Houston had was a kicker a long time ago. And there's a great quote in here.

He said, some of the out-of-town ballboys were being instructed to set aside the broken in balls for the home team and then give like crappy balls to the visiting team at the game, right? So there was all this stuff. Tony Dungey, great story. Tony Dungey said after it, when he was on the Vikings as probably a decoordinator, they lost or the other team made a 55-yard field goal, which is a big deal then. They actually got the ball, like out of suspiciousness. They got the ball, sent it to the league office.

And the league was like, there's no way this ball is game ready. And it had so many things had been done to defile this football. And think of the suspicion. Think of the suspicion. To take the ball, we got it. We're taking this to the league office. Put this thing under forensic testing. There was rumors they were putting helium in the ball.

Okay. So like anything went, there were these great cartoons back then in newspapers of like the kickers sitting outside of a laundry room while his football is going around. You know, it was just, it was really fun and kind of charming. But it was getting out of hand. And so then they league overcorrects, right? And so there was a time, Jordan, where you couldn't touch the ball. The ball came out of the bag and that's what you got to kick with in an NFL game.

And so everyone was like, all right, this is ridiculous. Like, if you've ever felt a new football, it's impossible to kick this thing. It's hard as a rock. It's slick. And then we get to the previous solution where you get 20 to 40, like 30 to 45 minutes before the game. And the stories on that are just as funny. Like the ball boys, you can have a dry towel. a brush. Those are essentially the tools you were allowed to work on the football before the game.

So Shane Graham told us a story last week where guys are walking out there was soaking wet t-shirts, acting like they were all sweaty. Pretending they just run stadium stairs. Some of them actually running stadium stairs to really sell it. Just sell the ruse. And so you come out there as a ballboy with a soaking wet shirt, you wipe down the ball to get it wet. And then you use the brush, the back side of the brush to literally whittle down the ball as much as you can before using the front side of the brush to then dry it back up. And I, when he was walking me through this, my original thought was, how much could you really do in half an hour to the football? You could do a lot to it. And so it did help, but still not in the same stratosphere as what you can do if you're working on it throughout the

entire week. Yeah. And it's interesting because, and you said it, but I really want the listeners and viewers to think about this, if you've never had, like, you can go to a store and buy a football, right? It is nothing like the one that they use that come from Wilson that are signed by the NFL commissioner. Stamp with the logo, which I didn't know. Yeah, stamp with the logo. Now they have the letter K and then like a little tag with the number on it, of which K ball it is.

But it is more, it is like a rock covered in wax. That is exactly what it is. And you hold it, there's no grip. It is not malleable. It's not pliable. If you have an impact on it, so like with the foot, for example, it almost like pings back your foot. It's not like how when you look at catchers mitts or baseball gloves, it morphs with your hand, really good broken in k-balls, morph with the foot and they give to the foot and they sort of almost like hug it as you kick the ball. But these, not the case.

And they were slick and they were terrible. And quarterbacks were still able to, you know, work with whatever footballs and put them in the shape they wanted. And in 2008, and again, I heard about that. By the way, some famous stories about that one. Yeah. Don't know if you guys were following the news of the last 20 years. Yeah. And so in 2008 and 2020, again, they tweaked the rule again to give these equipment,

managers more time with the footballs. And to their credit and kickers, you talk to any kicker in the league, that's the first thing they'll say is ours were already great because of our equipment. That's like an unwritten rule or an unspoken rule. Yes, you're going to compliment and really hype up the person who's working so furiously before the game in an impossible situation to get one, maybe two footballs, the way that you like them as a kicker to give you the best chance. to be successful with that work tool as possible.

And so, you know, they all have like their favorite guys. They tip them out at the holidays. Like it's just, it's a very cool like underlayer of lore to all of this, that they were kind of being put in these semi-impossible to impossible situations just to get the tools of the trade even close to how they wanted them to be. So this now becomes my next set of questions. How much does this actually matter? how much is this spike in kicking quality distance accuracy actually being done with the footballs?

Because it's very easy to say if you're Vic Fangio or some other people in the league, you're watching guys bang 65-yard field goals make it look easy. Oh, the balls are juiced. The balls are juiced. Like there's no way. This is a problem. But this is a rule-based problem. I want to try to extricate how much of this increase in quality and accuracy is because of the football, Sandow, and how much of it is because of other factors that we're not thinking enough about. So you've looked at the numbers on this over the first seven weeks.

Have we seen a material difference in kicking quality after the change in the K-ball rule? Or is this us just noticing some of the longer, crazier kicks that we've seen? I think it's maybe a little bit more of noticing the longer crazier kicks because what I've noticed is, you know, there was a big increase in attempts and accuracy on the longer kicks starting last year. Yeah. And so the way I've looked at this, if you just go back like the last year, like the last year. last six years. So 24 and 25, there's this big jump from, and I'm looking at like 51 to 55, 56 longer. But this year's up from last year. It is up some. But this year and last year are kind of in one band. And then 23 and 22 are kind of in a middle band. And 21 and 20 are real low.

Like they're not trying a bunch of them. So there's definitely been something going on independent of this rule. And then it has jumped some this year. And I think that we can't discredit. discount the idea that the juice ball, you know, isn't a factor because we saw a 70-yarder made in the preseason, right? And we've seen some of these. It is impacting it. It's just a question of how much. Yeah.

Yeah. And for who? And so the way I kind of feel about it is you made the golf analogy, which is a good one. Like, I remember when, like, John Daly was, like, the only guy hitting at $3.50 or whatever, you know? And I feel like there's more John Daly's now, right? And so maybe there's more guys who can get more out of the football. But it's definitely not a league-wide thing. It seems like it's concentrated.

Like I said, there's a certain number of teams. I think nine teams have hit at least two field goals longer than 55 this year, okay? It was five teams at this point last year. The year before that, it was one. The year before that, it was five. Before a year before that, it was zero. So those nine teams account for 70% of the kicks that are made. from 50 longer than 55, okay? But 11 teams haven't tried one. So to try to say that this is affecting

the whole league equally to me isn't true, but it's definitely affecting some of the league. And I think that's the part that there's a little nuance and hard to really put your finger on, but it's there. So here are my thoughts on this, which I, through a lot of talking to a lot of special teams guys and kickers, who, by the way, if you talk to kickers on the record about this topic, they'll tell you it's not really a big deal. it's okay, I guess, because they don't want it to change. They want to keep these tools that every other skill position has the opportunity to do leading up to the game, but kickers just never were allowed to.

They would like to have the same opportunity to craft their tool of the trade the same way that every other player on every roster gets to do, but kickers and punters and long snappers had not been able to. it's more of an even terrible joke, but even footing for everybody, right? And so I feel like that's part of it. It's the principle of it that I think brings not necessarily statistically yet a pure advantage, but it brings equality to a area of focus that really had not been treated equally to other places on the roster.

And so I think that's important. The other thing is kickers are bigger and stronger and look like linebackers. We have Bryce and DeShambo kickers now. Like, if we continue in the golf thing, like, we have those guys. We have these, like, juiced up guys who are hyper-focused on distance in ways that they weren't 10, 15 years ago. Like, that's happening. Absolutely. And that is across the board, something that you're seeing trend up over the last five years as kicking, as kicks have gotten longer, which they statistically have over the last five years.

And attempts can vary depending on the team. There's a bunch of factors that vary, including better process on fourth down. those types of things that have now integrated into the league more so as well. But this is a fact that kickers are more specialized in their craft. They are better trained in the offseason. They have more science and more biomechanical information about how to swing their leg and what they're doing. And yes, now their tool has improved as well. So I think all of those things can be true at the same time. And I think there is a psychological element to it as well. Because I think that if you are used to hitting and kickers are the most type A meticulous people on the planet. And if you are

used to hitting the K ball that you have hit 70 times that week in practice, and that is the K ball that you see arriving on the T into the holder's hands, that is the case. It's this ease of routine and this ease of process, which is why I brought up the funky kicks before when we were talking about the kickoff, because nothing is jolting up this entire process. I think this part of the reason why you're seeing misses or weird angles on some of these kicks because you're also seeing kickers have to disrupt their previously known and adhered to routine of swinging their leg, the exact same angle, the exact same speed, the exact same height off the ground, and kicking the ball the same way 70 times, 70 plus times through the week.

Oh, but now you're trying to hit like a sidewinder shot to the third punt returner or the third kickoff returner who's angled over onto the right side of the field. So all of this is super interesting to me, but at the bottom line of it is I do think that the K ball has an effect on what we're seeing now. I believe that truly, not just because it evens the ability for kickers and punters and long snappers to use the same type of process for their tools of the trade that every other position gets. But also, I think there's a psychological factor to it. And the ball is just friendlier. It's just friendlier to the foot overall, and it's not as gnarly coming off the foot. We all know too, Robert, like if you, you go to the gym or you're going to go shoot

baskets, like it matters to you, even as an amateur basketball player, like the ball, right? You get one of those nice kind of sticky orange ones that cost a bunch of money and they don't let you use it until the game. That's awesome. I feel like I could spin that thing. It's great. You get one of those, like, plastic void ones, you know? Remember those?

They're like a little bit bigger size. Like, you can't even. Voight catches. even shoot it. You know, and so when Rory McHorway's on the first T, he doesn't say, hey, you got a ball and then someone throws him a top flight ex-all. That doesn't happen. You know, like he can tell the difference. So these guys are, these guys, that stuff I think matters and the psychological component of it is huge in kicking. That's why these kickers, when they go off the rails and they get cut, they don't get fixed, right? Nobody even knows

how to coach them. It's so mental the component of it. So I think that anything that gives those guys comfort is probably good for them. All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we're going to talk about some of the wider ranging potential implications of all of this. All right, so let's talk about how this affects offense and defense in the NFL Jordan, because that was one of my biggest questions coming into this. And I was asking some coaches last week, namely defensive coordinators. I probably texted five or six guys, but all right, walk me through this, right?

So if you're in a situation where all of these possessions are starting on the 35, and we got guys banging 65-yard field goals, let's do the math on that. That means you need to gain like 18 yards to get yourself into field goal range. That is a material difference in the sport. And all of them to a man were like, absolutely it's on my mind. Because now we're at a place where your two completions from giving up a score. And so you are a little bit more aggressive when you're in minus territory than you would have been before.

You're playing a little bit less soft zone. Maybe we see a little bit more pressure. The numbers don't totally bear that out yet league-wide. But it's absolutely something that at least is consciously on the minds of the people calling defensive plays. So when other people, I'm sure you've talked to tons of people about this already, beyond the kicking implications of it, as we look at play calling strategy on offense and defense in the NFL, how is this impacting things already based on the conversations you've had? Well, it's twofold, one on the offensive side, one on the defensive side, you know,

removing the fact that kickers are doing this and they're all aliens now and all of this, right? for defensive coordinators, it truncates the menu of calls that you have, and especially down and distance. It almost like cuts in half. That's dramatic. But it certainly reduces the number of different types of calls that you have per scenario and per situation. If you are already a defensive coordinator or a defensive assistant coach who is more prone

to taking risks with your calls in late game situations, you're probably not feeling this as much as if you are a late game situation coach who likes to play prevent a lot, or you automatically run one of these deeper shell zoning defenses, the sort of Tampa 2 hybrids, less so the match zones, but ones that stay pretty deep and cover landmarks of zones versus match over the top of routes, you are probably really thinking about the way that this kicking game does affect, especially your late-down scenarios. it also changes your pressure calls. How many guys are you going to send to potentially try to move the quarterback backwards

or to potentially create a splash play in that scenario versus if it's already a foregone conclusion that Brandon Aubrey's on the other side of the ball and can hit a 60 yard or no problem? Are you basically saying that's a sunk cost? We're going to try to create a negative play on the quarterback. So it changes a lot of the way that you think about your scheme in late game scenarios or in got to have it, got to have a stop. scenarios. It also on the offensive side, you know, I am so thrilled by the amount of information

and the amount of data we have now that coaches and situational management people are using as it pertains to fourth down calls. I think that it makes them more comfortable. This kicking, having kickers being able to do what they're doing now could actually lend to making them be more comfortable in being conservative, which drives us crazy sometimes when you're sitting there and you're watching some of these coaches that have this high power explosive offense and they're settling for a 33-yard or a 30-yard field goal on a fourth and two that's an automatic go-call regardless of the situation. And so I think that that it could allow certain coaches to lean back into their worst habits, I think. And that's where I worry about it

because it's like it's got to be both. It's my biggest concern. Exactly. And it's like it's got to be both, doesn't it? I'm so fascinated by the push and the pull of this end up because we have reached a point where I think as a collective like football watching community, when we see those moments, when it's a fourth and two and you're kicking a 37-yard field goal, all of us are collectively like shaking our fists at the TV. And so I think overall there is conventional wisdom that has developed. But so I wonder that push of we need to be more aggressive on fort down,

and now this pull of field goals are easier, where between those two forces do we land? Like that becomes the most interesting part of this to me. Absolutely. And I would love to be able to hear what they're saying in that situation because sometimes the offensive play caller doesn't like his call on the fourth down at that point. Sometimes the special teams coach, you know, Calli doesn't really want to advise the kick if he doesn't want to be responsible if they miss it, right? So there's always a fallout of the small sample size result, also bringing heat upon the coaches or decision making. Another component of this to me, too, is, you know, if we feel like the other team is going, to be able to make a long field goal, we really have to regulate even better how much time we're leaving them left after we score. And so, you know, that's a big part of the game that I think is being talked about a little bit more anyway.

People are noticing. They should have noticed Monday night when Houston, you know, kicked the ball and allowed it to be returned so that Seattle could take the ball under two minutes. And, you know, they lost a play right there, you know what I mean? Even think about the Broncos Giants game. Jackson Dart scores that touchdown. I mean, there would have been so many moments over the last decade where that would happen. You'd been like, you wouldn't have thought twice about it.

And now he scores that touchdown with 35 seconds left. It's like, oh, they might have left him too much time. Yeah, so what's too much time anymore, you know? And that's the thing I was getting about earlier where it's like, hey, even when we adjust for the drive start, it feels like they're scoring these more, you know. And it is the ability, some of that's the long field goal. Like I said, three of those five this year on those super late drives were 52, 53, 60 plus, 64, even. So it's, you know, coaches in general don't want more things they can be criticized about decisions. I relate to that.

Yes. Yes. They want it to be simpler. And this stuff adds some layers to it. It's always funny about all these things and like all the different things you have to juggle. Like, Jordan, my thought was in the London game when Sean decided to go for it in a situation he might not have five years ago. He's only doing that because Josh Carty can't make a field goal right now. And so there are moments where a kicker is actually a good thing for an NFL team.

And now we're going the other way, maybe a little bit too much. But I wanted to end on this question. And Jordan, you mentioned it and kind of alluded to it earlier in the conversation about how you like the fact that it's adding more strategy and it feels more exciting. My first thought, as I was watching this new world start to unfold, is like, we're really going to make kickers more important in how NFL games go. Like, we're really going to do that. That was kind of my first me-jerk reaction.

And now as I actually start thinking about it And I start watching some of the kickoffs And seeing teams do differently I realize that I'm a fucking loser Like I am gonna be interested In what this looks like It is exciting And so I'm getting to a place now

Where the layers of it are intriguing to me And as we figure out more about those layers It'll be fun to study And then Sandow I like the end of game stuff Like I don't mind those situations With a minute or less left playing a little bit more live ammo than they've been in the past. I think it just makes it more exciting in those situations.

And I think I'm into that, even if it means we're putting kickers on a bigger pedestal than we ever have. I totally agree. Yeah, because it affects more, it affects more of the strategy and moving the ball and giving you a chance. I think we all want hope, right? Don't you want hope? And really as a fan, even though you want your team to win every week, it's kind of more exhilarating when they might lose, right? I'm telling you I mean some of those late game field goals

over the first few weeks and what the witching hour looks like with all of these field goal attempts like it does make Sundays more enjoyable and more fun and it just creates more scenarios where you're a little bit more keyed in a little bit more locked in and I think we should all be okay with that and so did I expect to be excited

about the like the rise and the culmination of the special team season in the NFL? No I did not but thankfully that's where we we've landed here. Mike Sando, Jordan Rodriguez, sincerely appreciate the time from both of you. Always great to chat with you. We'll do it again very soon. Thanks, Robert. Thank you. All right, guys, that's all we've got for today. Thank you so much to Mike. Thank you so much to Jordan. Quick bit of news, Tuesday, November 4th, which is a couple weeks from right now, the trade deadline

and the NFL is coming. We're actually going to have a live trade deadline show, 3.30 to 4.30 p.m. Eastern on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel. This is your opportunity to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. We're doing tons of video first content for the channel this week. I have another video coming out this week. Derek's been doing a ton of it. Highly encourage you guys to check that out. That's where you can also catch our Monday and Thursday night recaps.

So be on the lookout for that. Tuesday, November 4th, 330 to 430 on the Athletic Football Show YouTube page, our trade deadline reaction show. For now, that's all we got. I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.