Chiefs' Harrison Butker could be taken off of kickoffs with rule change

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs are one of the 32 NFL teams that will have to adjust to the new kickoff rules.

The new rule will see all 10 kicking team players other than the kicker lined up with one foot on the receiving team’s 40-yard line. At least seven receiving players must have a foot on the 35-yard line. Players not on the 35 must be in the setup zone (a five-yard area from the 35 to the 30) outside the hash marks.

To make it simple, each team has a row of players lined up directly in front of each other on the 35 and 40-yard lines.

All players in the setup zone can't move until the kick has hit the ground, a player in the landing zone or the end zone.

A maximum of two returners may line up in the landing zone (from the 20-yard line to the goal line) and can move at any time before, or during, the kick.

A kick that lands in the landing zone must be returned. A downed kick in the endzone and a kick through the back of the endzone is brought up to the 30-yard line.

With the new rules that may force kickers to become tacklers, Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub has been allowing safety Justin Reid and rugby star-turned-running back Louis Rees-Zammit to practice kickoffs. Kicker Harrison Butker is still the number one option but it's something that Toub is heavily considering tinkering with.

"Butker is able to make a tackle but I really don't want him making tackles all year long," he said Thursday. " Toub and his staff watched every XFL kickoff which is where the NFL got the inspiration to change the rule from.

Toub estimated that kickers made plays on the ball around 25-40% of the plays he watched.

"We don't want Butker in that situation, but he will be a kicker, he'll be a guy that we will use in certain situations," he said. "Justin can cover. He could kick, which he can do, and then he can go down here and make tackles. He's an extra guy that they're probably not accounting for. They know that that guy can go down and tackle but a guy like Justin is a guy that they have to worry about. You have to get him blocked, and you have to give up blocking somebody else. So that's the whole thought of that."

As Rees-Zammit learns the game of football, special teams are the likeliest place where he can be a difference maker early. The game of rugby forces all players on the field to run, tackle, and kick, something that LRZ has shown he can do throughout the offseason program.

"He can kick field goals, he can kick off. He could be a kickoff guy for us. He's every bit as good as Justin is moving the football and stuff like that, on kickoffs, and he's really working hard at the returner job. I got him in here as a starter right now, so he gets as many reps as he can. But he's a student of the game, he comes in after practice, he wants to be great, he's a great athlete. He's just got such a long way to go, football mentally-wise."

Hangtime is a key factor for punters for how long the ball can stay in the air for defenders to cover the return. That trait is nonexistent in the NFL's new kickoff era.

Toub still wants his kickers to kick to the corner away from returners but if the ball goes out of bounds, the receiving team gets the ball at the 40. A kick short of the landing zone would also result in a dead ball and the ball placed at the 40.

Toub has taken in all the research from the XFL. Now, the plan is to practice kickoff and kickoff return in every practice to see what works for the Chiefs, "trial and error" style.

"I draw up a play and it looks great on paper and you can't do it. Like you can't get certain blocks you think you get to so you throw it out and it's the next thing," Toub said. "I've been doing this for a long time with the old kickoff return stuff and it's been over a period of years. Now we're putting in this whole new kickoff system in an offseason. Every day you're learning something new.

"The team that figures it out kickoff-wise and kickoff return-wise, is going to really excel early. We want to be that team."

The Chiefs have proven to be avid studiers of football under head coach Andy Reid, always looking to deconstruct themselves in the offseason to construct themselves back into a Super Bowl-winning team by season's end. Toub said practicing kickoffs was the least of his worries because Butker would routinely kick touchbacks.

Butker was fifth in touchbacks in 2023.

With the rule change, the 61-year-old seasoned special teams coordinator is reinvigorated and eager to learn a new element of the game of football.

"For me, it's made me excited about special teams because those two phases were gone," he said. "It's going to create jobs for returners, it's going to be important for everybody to figure that out.

"Last year, there [were] 1,970 touchbacks throughout the league during the 17-game season. Now, we think there's gonna be 1,600 more actual football plays, so that's a lot of football. It's gonna be exciting for the fans and the players, they're excited about it, too."