This week, the NFL announced a controversial rule change to its kickoff procedures, allowing teams to call a fair catch and take the ball at the 25-yard line for a touchback. The rule was made in response to the league’s belief that kickoffs are responsible for more concussions than most plays, but there might not actually be evidence to prove that.
According to a report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the league made these changes in large part because the NFL claims that 19 concussions occurred on kick returns during the 2022 season. However, a deeper look into this statistic casts a little bit more doubt on the validity of this number.
“Per a league source with knowledge of the situation, only eight of the concussions could be actually spotted with the human eye,” Florio wrote for Pro Football Talk on Thursday. “For the other 11, there was no evidence on film that a concussion happened during a kick return. It could have happened during the week. It could have happened at other times during the game.”
So it appears that the NFL made a massive decision that changes the game in a large way based on a statistic that might not actually be completely true.
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