Dolphins navigating NFL’s new kickoff rules and how to best take advantage of them come Week 1

MIAMI GARDENS — The Miami Dolphins, like all teams across the NFL, are experimenting with ways to be best prepared for the league’s new kickoff rules that go into effect this season, as voted and approved in the late March annual meeting.

The adjusted procedures make it so the kickoffs at the start of a half or following a score create more action, instead of the constant touchbacks, which had become the norm in recent years.

The football is still kicked off from a team’s 35-yard line, but the rest of the kicking team’s players line up at the receiving team’s 40-yard line.

In front of them is a “setup zone,” in which at least nine players from the receiving team line up between their 35- and 30-yard lines. The receiving team can have up to two players positioned in the “landing zone,” where the ball is designed to be kicked into. The kicking team’s players don’t move until the ball hits the ground, a receiving team’s player or the end zone.

As the Dolphins’ offseason program wraps up this week with the conclusion of mandatory minicamp, preparation for the new kickoffs has been a focal point before training camp in late July.

“It’s been fun,” Dolphins special teams coordinator Danny Crossman said about brainstorming sessions this offseason to best take advantage of the new rules. “There’s so many different avenues and aspects you look at and some things you think you’re really going to like, and then by the time you get out on the field and start looking at them, you’re like, ‘What was I ever thinking?’

“And then there’s things that maybe you didn’t like and then, once you’re out there, you’re executing and you’re seeing it live, you’re like, ‘Maybe that’s something we want to build on.’”

The best approach may be just to simplify matters as much as possible for something that will be so unique.

Crossman highlights two things: It’s a play that starts unlike any other play because it’s not initiated by a snap or a kick; the action starts upon the contact of the ball. Secondly, the spatial aspect is totally new.

“However, once all that stuff — you take all that out — you’re still doing the same thing,” Crossman said. “You’re still blocking, getting off the blocks and tackling, however that space differential may enable you to use and maybe look at some different players.”

The special teams coach said there may be an immense element of surprise come Week 1 of the regular season, with a theory that teams won’t show their true kickoff strategy in preseason exhibition season.

“You could see four or five completely different approaches both on the kickoff and the return based on what game you’re watching,” Crossman said. “If you sit there Sunday and you watch a 1 p.m., a 4:30 p.m. and an 8 o’clock Sunday night game, you could see a whole lot of different things.”

One of the key elements is deciding how to align your players in the landing zone. Do you keep one returner back there and use your traditional 10 blockers for him? Do you utilize two speedy returners? Or do you go with a traditional, speedy return man deep with a combo-type player short around the 20-yard line?

“I know what I’m thinking,” Crossman said, “and it’s really based on where the advantages come from and trying to defend those advantages. I’m talking about the advantages of the kickoff team and how we want to try and help ourselves.”

Some teams might be experimenting with a non-kicker handling the kickoff so as to not expose the kicker to a touchdown-saving tackle scenario. The Kansas City Chiefs are doing that to not put Harrison Butker in that position.

The Dolphins, though, will still indeed send out one of the players who’s paid to strike the ball with his foot, between kicker Jason Sanders or punter Jake Bailey.

“We’re looking at a lot of different things, but to me, I still think that the advantage for the kickoff team is to have a kicker,” Crossman said. “Because the advantage is the ball on the ground before it’s touched by the returner which enables the cover team to go, and non-kickers are going to have a little bit more difficulty trying to hit that ball consistently.”

Crossman said there aren’t many players being eliminated at this point from the kickoff units. He wants a number of players that both possess athleticism and can block.