Green Bay is trying something you didn’t see in the Hall of Fame Game.

The NFL’s new kickoff is going to take some time to get used to, visually. Debuted earlier this week in the preseason-opening Hall of Fame Game, we got a glimpse of how the Green Bay Packers  and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia might attack the massive change that is coming to the start of halves and end of scoring drives.


The new set of regulations, tabbed “the dynamic kickoff” by the league, were passed by a 29-3 vote at the owners’ meetings in the spring. The Packers were one of the three teams that didn’t vote yes on the proposal, as president/CEO Mark Murphy claimed that it was the club’s opinion that the league should have tested the kickoff out in the 2024 preseason before implementing the rules (and possibly adjustments) in the 2025 regular season — rather than rolling out the rules fully for the 2024 regular season.


Here’s what you need to know:








While the kickoff specialist is still kicking the ball from the 45-yard line, there are many changes to the alignment of the kickoff. The coverage team will now begin on the returning team’s 40-yard line, just five yards away from what is called the “set up zone.” The “set up zone” is a five-yard range (35-yard line to 30-yard line) where return teams must allocate at least nine players on the kickoff unit. Neither team can move until the ball lands in the “landing zone” or the returner has touched the ball.








What is the “landing zone?” I’m glad you asked. The landing zone is any area inside the 20-yard line up to the goal line. If a ball hits in the landing zone and is either downed by the returner in the end zone or goes out the back of the end zone, the offense’s drive starts at the 20-yard line. If the ball goes into or through the back of the end zone instead of traveling into the landing zone first, it will come out to the 30-yard line. There are no fair catches allowed in this new kickoff.








So how are the Packers going to approach the play? The coverage unit isn’t too interesting, as it’s just 10 players on the line waiting for the returner to touch the ball. The return unit, though, should have a pretty wide variance, based on what we’ve already seen.


Green Bay played a pair of two players on each sideline and three interior blockers at the 35-yard line in each of their kickoff return attempts on Saturday. Five yards behind those players were two more blockers, who split the three interior players and the pair of sideline blockers.


Instead of using split returners, though, the Packers used one deep returner and one returner who was further upfield and used as a lead blocker. Again, that’s different from what we’ve seen deployed so far.






For the first time... the Dynamic Kickoff

: @ProFootballHOF  Game on ESPN/ABC
: Stream on #NFLPlus  pic.twitter.com/wga0LmuvtH 
— NFL (@NFL) August 2, 2024 









In the Hall of Fame Game, both the Chicago Bears  and Houston Texans  had return units that were looking at the returner to get a signal that the play was going to officially begin for them. That wasn’t the case for the Packers, whose return team had fixed eyes on the kickoff coverage team on every rep.






Packers Family Night KOR/KO cc: @schwartzsteins  pic.twitter.com/ZRJw9APdkC 
— Justis Mosqueda (@JuMosq) August 4, 2024 









How are the Packers’ return team blockers getting a queue that the light turned green? Maybe it’s the upfield returner vocally telling the unit to start. However, how that will play on the road in enemy territory has yet to be tested.


The other difference you’ll notice between the Packers’ returns and the Hall of Fame Game returns is that in the Hall of Fame Game the teams were using split returners.


When I talked to sources about the new kickoff , I mostly received two theories on what was going to happen in the regular season:




A lot of direct (non-landing zone) touchbacks, because the play doesn’t penalize them enough relative to where kickoff returns are projected to be brought back to.


A lot of odd knuckleball kicks sent straight into the “landing zone” at a million miles an hour, as teams try to take advantage of the new “hangtime” — which is going to be the time it takes for a returner to field a ball cleanly after a ball lands in the “landing zone.”




If teams were trying to play coy about their intentions to find an edge with this knuckleball style until the regular season, when games count, you’d expect them to do what the Bears and Texans did in the Hall of Fame Game: Practice returns with split returners, but kick the ball softly down the middle so future opponents don’t have tape on the knuckleballs you’re almost certainly going to try in Week 1.


Why then the Packers don’t think they’re going to need a second deep returner, instead allowing just one player to cover 53 and 1/3rd yards sideline to sideline, is a question we just can’t quite solve yet. Based on reports from training camp, Green Bay has been practicing with a single returner throughout the summer. Whether that is an edge on the rest of the league or is going to be something they’ll need to quickly adjust will be one of the early stories of the regular season.




Continue Reading @ Justis Mosqueda 

Justis Mosqueda wrote: