What did they change the onside kick too? It used to be it has to go 10 yards and if they received it it stayed where they landed, and if you failed to make 10 yards it was a penalty and the other tram recieved the ball. Out of bounds kicks start at the 40? If I remember. Haven’t watched much this season. I liked the old kickoffs as I didn’t think big returns were all that rare, but game changing. That said, I clearly understand why they would want them changed as it is an extremely dangerous situation the players are put in.

They need to say that if you score, you get the ball, but it’s fourth and 25 from your own 25. Get it to midfield, you keep it, but 99% of the time you’re better off punting. Special teams in general are these weird relics that have (d)evolved into minigames that exist mostly to tweak play-balance for the “real” football.

Shoot, you could get rid of kicking altogether if you really wanted to. Have an incomplete pass on fourth down be treated like a punt, and replace the goalposts with some sort of skills-competition target that QBs can hit at roughly the same percentage that kickers make field goals.