NFL Kickoff Rule: Examining XFL Data to See Who Could Make a Fantasy Impact

The NFL is changing the kickoff rules with the goal of increasing the importance of the play.

Over the past few seasons, the kicking team has almost always opted to kick the ball through the endzone for a touchback (78% touchbacks). No time comes off the clock; the special teams players get in some cardio; and we move on to First Down from the receiving team’s 25. The kickoff became essentially meaningless.

Gone are those days.

The new format had a whopping 97% return rate in the XFL, and the new kickoff format will debut during the 2024 season. This change is significant for a lot of reasons, and the biggest looming question is whether NFL coaches will lean on their most dynamic players to return the kickoff, or will NFL teams continue to roster a “kickoff specialist” type player?

On paper, giving the team’s most dynamic playmaker more opportunities with the ball in his hand would be logical and opportunistic. Consider if Miami designated Tyreek Hill as their full-time kick returner, which is in consideration. Doing so would give Tyreek potentially 100 more “touches” per year. I mean, why not, right? He’s the fastest player on the team; he’s shifty in space; and the change in kickoff format does not significantly increase his likelihood of injury. It seems like a no-brainer, but let’s not fall for the fallacy of logical coaching.

The answer to the question posed by this article may lie in XFL data. Let’s face it: NFL coaches aren’t particularly clever. They watch film, see something they like, and copy it. Perhaps not all, but most teams, are likely to copy whatever worked most successfully in the XFL – at least to start the season.

So, the goal here is to look at the XFL data, find out who was returning kicks for XFL teams, who most effectively returned kicks, and most importantly, whether any of those successful kickoff returners were high depth chart running backs or wide receivers.

The New Rules

I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the new rules, as many others have described it better than me. The main thing is this: 10 players from the kicking team line up at the 40, and typically, 10 players from the receiving team line up at or near the 35. There are some extra rules, but that’s the basic premise. It will feel more like a rushing play. But like everything in football, it’s better seen than described:

pic.twitter.com/OJuTQSi8Tx

— Even 72 Bracket Triple Clip (@Evn72BrktTrClip) July 9, 2024

The XFL had some fun nuances in how the kickoff “play” was blocked and executed. The article I linked above studied over 400 XFL kickoffs to find all the different gimmicks and variations that the XFL coaching staffs tried. Again, the NFL will probably copy some of the effective tactics put on film by the XFL, but that’s not really all that interesting to us as fantasy players.

Instead, I am more interested in who was returning kicks for XFL teams, and what was, if any, the offensive role of the kick returner.

There really isn’t a better way to present this data than going team-by-team. Luckily, there were only 8 XFL teams, so this isn’t a ton of data to analyze and digest. The below presents total kickoff return yardage per team, what positions each of those players plays on the offense, and how involved in the offense each player, who had an opportunity to return a kick, was in their respective offenses.

If you want to skip to the analysis/conclusions, I don’t blame you. But there is a bit of analysis for each team below each statistic table.

Arlington Renegades

Arlington experimented the most of any XFL team with kickoff returners. They tried 6 different wide receivers and running backs. Leddie Smith was the only significantly involved offensive player who returned kicks, but he was still substantially behind the team’s lead running back.

In general, the Renegades weren’t effective using anybody for kickoffs. Only Orlando had a worse return average. Despite kind of sucking at kickoff returns, the Renegades ended up winning the XFL championship with a losing, regular season record. Go figure.

D.C. Defenders

The Defenders primarily used two return specialists (Ezzard and Williams). Neither player was anything more than a gadget player on offense, and both guys returned punts as well. Brandon Smith was somewhat involved in the offense, but he only caught 10 passes. Neither of the top two wide receivers for the Defenders (Lucky Jackson, Josh Hammond) were ever involved in returning punts. The Defenders played very conventional special teams using kick return specialists.

Houston Roughnecks

The Roughnecks at least tried using their best running back on a few kickoffs, but the team primarily had a main kickoff returner, who wasn’t particularly involved in the base offense. The Roughnecks were the only team not to try a wide receiver when returning kicks.

Orlando Guardians

Orlando tried everything to become more effective, but nothing worked particularly well. Deddrick Thomas and Eli Rogers were both fairly involved in the passing game, Rodgers (Eli) more than Thomas, but the clear #1 WR for the Guardians (Cody Latimer) was not involved in special teams.

San Antonio Brahmas

The Brahmas spread the ball around quite a bit, as no wide receiver on the team had more than 30 catches. Fred Brown wasn’t too far behind with 21. Brown also led the team in receiving touchdowns, so this is perhaps the closest we have seen to a team’s WR1 taking kickoff returns.

Kalen Ballage was the team’s clear RB2, receiving about 24% of the team’s carries. This feels a little bit like the Dolphins using Devon Archane, but again, the data here does not support an XFL team having their “best” offensive weapon taking kickoff returns.

Seattle Sea Dragons

The Sea Dragons, effectively, used only one guy to return kicks, and he was a specialist. McKnight returned both kickoffs and punts for the Sea Dragons and was not involved on offense.

St. Louis Battlehawks

The Battlehawks are the Sea Dragon’s opposite. The Battlehawks kick returner was also their second leading wide receiver, and clearly one of their better offensive weapons. Shepherd finished second in receiving, but not by much. Hakeem Butler had only 80 more yards and 3 more catches than Butler.

Interestingly, Shepherd was one of the most effective returners in the game. His 24.5 average return was second among returners with at least 10 kickoff returns. If you are looking for evidence that the NFL may more commonly utilize top receivers to return kicks, Darrius Shepherd is your beam of hope.

Vegas Vipers

The Vipers two primary returners were both average depth chart players, but they Sweeting was somewhat involved by catching 21 passes and four touchdowns. Sexton had more yards (about 130 more) but no touchdowns.

XFL Analysis

No XFL team used their primary running back or leading WR as a kickoff returner. The closest example was Darrius Shepherd of the St. Louis Battlehawks. That said, Shepherd was one of the best, if not the best, at returning kickoffs, so perhaps the NFL will take notice. Still, this could simply be a skillset thing with Shepherd, and one player is not evidence of a trend. Instead, XFL coaching staffs more commonly opted to go the conventional special teams route using a mid-to-lower depth chart WR or RB, and in some cases, a pure return specialist.

Conclusion

Based on the XFL data, it’s safe to assume that most NFL coaches are most likely to follow the conventional special teams mold and use a middle-to-low depth chart player as the kickoff returner, at least for the first year. The XFL merged  with the USFL giving us one year of data for this kickoff format from the XFL. It’s possible that more XFL teams would have adopted the Battlehawks’ success in using Darrius Shepherd, one of the team’s starting WRs, and followed suit, but without a second year of data, we will never know.

The fact is that NFL coaches are typically quite risk averse. Most of the successful coaches will stick with the old way of doing things “because that’s how we’ve always done it”. Surely some innovative coach or a coach coaching for his life will try using his best playmaker as a kickoff returner, and it will probably work, then the league will take notice and everyone will copycat.

The point is, I think it is very likely that 90% of the NFL teams will continue to use lower depth chart guys as kickoff returners to start the year, meaning very few fantasy relevant players will add value through kickoff return yardage and touchdowns.

Maybe I am wrong, so here are a few higher depth chart guys that I think might have an outside chance of returning kicks include: