It’s one of the most anticipated moments in sports. Cameras go off, towels swing around heads and teams’ chances to win are dead even.
If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m describing the opening kickoff of a football game.
Kickoffs, kickers and kick returners alike will always be a part of NFL football.
New York Giants co-owner John Mara begs to differ. He believes in a future where kickoffs will no longer be a part of the NFL.
“There’s no consensus on it right now,” Mara told Giants.com. “But I could see the day in the future where that play could be taken out of the game. You see it evolving toward that.”
No, Mr. Mara, I don’t.
It scares me that a member of the NFL Competition Committee has such a terrible view on one of the most exciting aspects of football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his campaign to make the league safer at all costs is slowly turning the most physical sport into a game of two-hand touch. Last year, NFL owners voted to move kickoffs up from the 30-yard-line to the 35.
Five yards has changed so much.
The increase in touchbacks and decrease in concussions during the 2011 season has Goodell and his cronies smiling from ear to ear. But what the rule has really done is steadily take away the most exciting play in the game of football.
Kickoffs are the biggest chance for a team to swing the momentum in their favor. Nothing gets fans on their feet like the sight of Chicago’s Devin Hester or Minnesota’s Percy Harvin returning a kick to the house.
Onside kicks are some of the gutsiest playcalls a coach can make, and they’re big momentum changers if executed properly.
Flash back a few years ago to the New Orleans Saints’ 31-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. With the Saints trailing the Colts, 10-6, at halftime, New Orleans coach Sean Payton rolled out one of the biggest risks in Super Bowl history by surprising Indianapolis with an onside kick.
When the Saints recovered the ball, Mr. Momentum moseyed over to the New Orleans sideline for the rest of the game.
There’s just something about special teams plays that are, well, special.
Not only would Mara’s idiotic vision of an NFL without kickoffs eliminate excitement and strategy from the game, it would also put a lot of current NFL players out of work. Countless numbers of NFL starters got the chance to prove to coaches they could play because of kickoffs.
If Goodell gets rid of them, he might as well cut the mandatory roster size from 55 to 50.
With no kickoffs, the NFL could even cut the draft down from seven to five rounds. Former LSU kick returner extraordinaire Trindon Holliday was a sixth round draft pick of the Houston Texans in the 2010 NFL Draft.
There’s no way any of the 32 NFL teams take a chance on a 5-foot-5 wide receiver like Holliday if he can’t return kickoffs. We would never have gotten the chance to watch the phenoms of the kick return such as Hester, Dante Hall or Josh Cribbs.
Moving the kickoffs up five yards has done enough for me, safety-wise. Coaches are now trying to add big-leg kickers not to kick field goals, but to boom balls out of the end zone.
Eliminating kickoffs would be a bonehead move. But hey, Goodell has made plenty of those before.
Mara needs to be quiet, relax in his New York City penthouse and enjoy the Super Bowl his team just won.
Micah Bedard is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Houma. Follow him on Twitter @DardDog.
 
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Contact Micah Bedard at [email protected]