Chiefs: Kickoff Returns – In an excellent article recently by Ransom Hawthorne, he wrote that the Chiefs need to quit attempting to return kickoffs and just take the touchback, starting their drives at the 25 yard line. This was something that I agreed with whole heartedly, but the other evening I was re-watching the Seahawks game form last fall, and it dawned on me that Seattle was kicking short of the goal line, forcing Toub’s KO return team to return the kick. The Seahawks had 7 kickoffs in that game, and only 2 went into the end zone, both for touchbacks. One was a short kickoff by their punter that went out of bounds, and the other four were what I will call medium length kickoffs, forcing a return.
So this got me to thinking, how many kickoffs were the Chiefs forced to return last season.
After a little research, I looked over some statistics from last year and then I decided to place the opponents kickoffs into 5 categories:
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- Touchbacks: where the ball goes into or through the end zone and the Chiefs don’t attempt a return, therefore taking possession at the 25 yard line.
- Onside kicks: when the opponent attempts a short kick in an attempt to regain possession.
- Short kickoff: a kickoff that is fielded outside of the 10 yard line.
- Medium kickoff: a kick that is fielded between the 10 yard line and the goal line.
- Long kickoff: a kickoff that is 65 or more yards and is fielded inside of the end zone, but an attempt to return the kick is made.
I looked at all 18 games last season (playoff games included) and found that the Chiefs opponents kicked off a total of 96 times last year. Of those 96, 46 of them went for touchbacks, and there were 4 onside kick attempts.
Interestingly, of those 46 touchbacks, 19 of them were in the first 4 games of the season. During the week 6 game, versus the New England Patriots (of course), is when these shorter kicks started to appear. Evidently, Belichick mast have seen something of the Chiefs kick return team he thought he could exploit. The Patriots kicked off 9 times in that game, but after one was returned 97 yards to the Patriots 3 yard line, the remaining kickoffs were all touchbacks. Starting in week 8, every opponent except one, attempted kicks that had to be fielded outside of the end zone. The lone exception was the Baltimore Ravens, who kicked off 6 times in that game, and all 6 went for touchbacks. So in only 5 games out of 18, the first 4 games plus the Ravens game, we had over half, 25 of the 46 touchbacks.
The Chiefs returned 46 kickoffs for the season last year.
7 of those were short kicks. One of which I mentioned above, was by the Seattle punter that went out of bounds. One other was a pooch kick to end the first half of a game. 4 of the other 5 gave the Chiefs starting field position from their own 25 to 45 yard line, and the final one was called back due to a penalty and the Chiefs took possession at the 11 yard line.
There were only 14 long kickoffs that the Chiefs returned last season. 5 of the 14 gave the Chiefs starting field position at or outside of their 25 yard line, with 2 of those starting inside opponents territory, including the one at New England, where the Chiefs took possession at the Patriots 3 yard line. That means there were 9 kickoffs that were fielded inside the goal line, that were returned but came up short of the 25. 2 of those 9 were good returns that ended outside of the 25, but were called back because of penalties. One of the remaining, was with just a few seconds remaining until halftime and so there was no downside to an attempted return. 4 of the long returns gave the Chiefs starting field position between the 20 and 25, so the lost yardage was quite minimal. The 2 worst returns, coincidentally, were during the playoffs, one in each game. A return to the 14 yard line against the Colts and a return to the 16 yard line versus the Patriots.
That leaves 25 kickoffs that I am calling medium length kicks. Kicks that were fielded inside the 10 yard line but outside of the end zone. This is the area that special teams coordinator Dave Toub needs to work on, as 10 of these (that’s 40%) came up short of the 25 yard line. Three of the medium length kickoffs were called back due to penalties, but only two of those would have ended outside of the 25 yard line. Also, one of the kickoffs was from the 50 yard line, following a penalty and another was the final play of a game.
In addition, only four of these 25 kickoffs, yielded starting field position at the 35 yard line or beyond, with the farthest to the 37. The other 11 gave the Chiefs offense possession from the 25 to the 32, but that doesn’t seem impressive after a medium length kickoff.
You might be thinking, if the ball lands inside the 10 yard line, why not let it bounce into the end zone for a touchback. That is a possibility, but unlike a punt, a kickoff is a live ball, meaning that whoever gets possession, keeps possession. With the unpredictability of the way a football bounces, that is just too much risk to take. If the ball bounced back into the field of play and the kicking team recovered it, that would be setting the opponent up for an easy score, plus giving away momentum, so not fielding kickoffs that don’t land in the end zone really isn’t an option.
One final stat, just in case you are curious, including the playoffs, Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, kicked off 122 times last season, with 76 of those being touchbacks. In addition, Butker attempted 77 PATs and 29 field goals, so I believe he may have earned that contract extension he got last month.
Paul Pulley — ArrowheadOne
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