NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday hinted that additional changes to the NFL’s rules governing kickoffs and its overseas schedule were all but imminent.
During an appearance on Good Morning Football, Goodell seemed to indicate that despite the current season not yet being a month old; he has already seen enough data resulting from the league’s new dynamic kickoff rules, that he’s evidently prepared to see the kickoff play executed in a different fashion, again.
“I think we’ll have to make a few changes on the kickoff that will (I think), lead to a lot more kickoff returns,” the Commish said Tuesday while speaking on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football early morning show.
So far this year, teams receiving a kickoff are actually attempting a return at a rate of 29.1% which is an improvement when compared to the record-low of just 22% of kicks were returned during the 2023 season. The League’s head honcho also stated his belief that moving touchbacks up 5 yards to the receiving team’s 35-yard line “would (also) be a game-changer right away.”
Despite his barely veiled desire to continue to tweak the rules as they relate to kickoffs, realistically it’s still extremely unlikely that the league would elect to make such a major rule change at midseason, as any number of competitive imbalances could occur as a result.
“I think that there will be a change,” Goodell stated. “Whether we make it immediately (after the season or not), we’re going to have a competition committee meeting in the next week.”
Goodell also gave a few hints as to the league’s approach to international games going forward, and; what connection -if any- said approach does, or would have to adding an 18th game to each team’s regular-season schedule.
While in the past, Goodell has been anything but bashful about his ambitious designs for the league to increase its regular-season schedule to 18 games, recently Goodell has been increasingly bold in clearly indicating his intention to eventually hold 16 games outside of the borders of the United States.
Now, just ahead of the Aaron Rodgers-led Jets and the resurgent Vikings squaring off in London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. EST—the second of five games outside of the U.S. this fall—Goodell shared that he is confident that the global games will continue to grow.
“I think we’ll end up going to 16 games at some point in time,” the commissioner said, he’s indicating that those two moves (expanding the regular-season schedule, and adding additional international games) may be connected.
The League’s current collective bargaining agreement with the players is valid until March 2030. If not already approved by then, it says here that both an 18-game season and the 16-game international slate alluded to above forecast to be major negotiation points for a new CBA.
Prior to the Eagles’ 34–19 victory over the Green Bay in Sao Paulo, Brazil in Week 1, Goodell said he would prefer a regular season that included 16 games played internationally, as opposed to the creation of an international division. Goodell also ramped up his public push during the NFL Draft this past May, again lobbying quite publicly for an 18-game slate.
“What can we do next, ultimately? And how do we continue to expand this? I do think we can do this,” Goodell said of international games on GMFB. “I think scheduling, we may have to make changes to that in some ways, probably roster sizes and some other things. But I do think it’s something we’ll do more of.”
