Report: NFL asks special teams coaches about future kickoff rule changes

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The NFL may be moving closer and closer to eliminating the kickoff, but the league recently made a move to reach out for input from coaches who are hoping to keep the play around.

According to Tom Pelissero of USA Today, NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino recently held a conference call with all 32 special teams coordinators from around the league to assess "the viability of further rules changes on kickoffs."

Though no rules changes discussed on the call would take effect this season, the NFL could experiement with some of the suggestions during preseason play. 

Some of the ideas kicked around on the call, according to Pelissero, included starting kickoff coverage players at the 35-yard line as opposed to giving them a five-yard running start from the 30-yard line, outlawing wedges, treating balls that hit the ground beyond the return team's 40-yard line like punts that can be downed, and eliminating the "K" ball. 

The kickoff is generally viewed as one of the most dangerous plays in football, and because of its high-impact collisions many believe it is a play that contributes significantly to the number of brain injuries recorded during a given NFL season. In Pelissero's piece, he writes that of the 445 concussions the NFL says has been reported in the last three years, there is video evidence that 41 were deemed to have occurred on kickoffs during preseason, regular-season and postseason play. 

Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater provided a passionate defense for the kickoff's place in the game earlier this month, saying that it is not "a hazard that we need to think about getting rid of."

Perhaps in the future, with input from special teams coaches, the league can find a compromise between making the play safer but not doing away with the play -- and thereby eliminating jobs, as Slater argued -- altogether. 

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