Trump Doesn’t Know Ball, the NFL’s New Kickoff Rule Is Great

Kickoffs in the NFL have long been an issue, because guys in pads and helmets getting a 40-yard head start running at full speed towards each other creates some of the most violent collisions in the sport among the most replaceable players in the NFL. If you are playing special teams, you are very likely not playing a significant role on offense or defense, and this horrific churn of players scarred for life going in and out of the league thanks to a largely meaningless play violated the sensibilities of even the cynical NFL. They have been trying to fix it for the last few years, looking for a sweet spot between safety and not rendering what can be one of the most exciting plays in football completely pointless, and the general agreement I’ve seen among football fans through two weeks of the NFL season is by golly they did it.

Last year, the NFL changed to a “dynamic kickoff” where the kicking team now lines up on the opponent’s side of the field, and no one can move until the ball hits the ground or is touched by the returner. This year they added a stipulation that touchbacks, balls kicked into the endzone, had the ensuing possession moved from the 30-yard-line to the 35-yard-line, which has led to a huge uptick in kicks short of the endzone, as teams are incentivized to try to stop the other team before reaching the 35-yard line. Last year they were just booming kicks into the stands and taking the 30-yard line start given to them by the NFL rulebook. This has led to 77 percent of kickoffs being returned, a dramatic increase from last year’s figure of 33 percent, and much higher than the 30 to 50 percent baseline the NFL has spent the last 14 years in. Trump wants to return to a time where by far the most common outcome of a kickoff was a touchback.

The NFL also published data in February finding that there was a “Decrease in concussions to a historic low, including a 17 percent reduction compared to the 2023 season, including all practices and games in both the preseason and regular season.” The dynamic kickoff rules are designed to slow players down, and the NFL found that “The new rule slowed the average player speeds, as intended, which led to a lower concussion rate (down 43 percent vs. 2021-2023) and the fewest lower extremity strains on the play since at least 2018.”

This sweet spot has led to kickoffs turning back into a real play where special teamers have the opportunity to make a name for themselves without killing each other. I grew up on the legend of Terrell Davis beginning on special teams in Japan in 1995, where he obliterated some poor San Francisco 49er with a totally clean hit that got him on the Broncos coaches’ radar, paving the way for his 2,000-yard season, Super Bowl MVP and Hall of Fame career en route to becoming the sports icon in Denver during my childhood. Special teams plays should matter if we really do want sports to be the lone meritocracy this country has.

And now kickoffs matter again without creating needless injuries while still very much being the violent form of football Americans know and love, so of course Trump hates it. Our sales guy at Paste pointed out how this is full-blown Caligula stuff, as Wikipedia notes that “Among Caligula’s first acts as emperor was the provision of public games on a grand scale.” He wanted to set the rules of the games himself, and he loved the bloodsport in them. The Caligula parallels with Trump certainly don’t stop there.

Trump doesn’t know ball. He has proven this time and time and time again, and the notion that he is some peak form of machismo can only be believed by other people like Mick Mulvaney who do not know ball either. “I feel sorry for the poor guy who is going to buy the Dallas Cowboys,” Trump said to the New York Times in 1984. “It’s a no-win situation for him, because if he wins, well, so what, they’ve won through the years, and if he loses, which seems likely because they’re having troubles, he’ll be known to the world as a loser.” He also said “I could have bought an NFL club for $40 million or $50 million, but it’s established and you would just see it move laterally. Not enough to create there.”

Eight years later, the Cowboys would win their first of three championships in the next four years, and the team is currently worth $13 billion per Forbes.

Trump. Does. Not. Know. Ball. And. Never. Has.

Now, it should be noted that the source cited in Trump missing out on purchasing the Dallas Cowboys is Donald Trump, and I actually may have stumbled upon some evidence that famed quote is actually hot air. One of the first interviews I did for Paste Magazine when I was hired in 2016 was with Charlie Ebersol, the son of legendary NBC Sports producer Dick Ebersol, about his 30 for 30 documentary on the XFL. I asked him if he saw any influence in the XFL from the USFL, a league in which Donald Trump owned a team. “The USFL was very closely examined, in particular, by my dad as to what not to do. The USFL was basically just a cheap knockoff of the NFL,” Ebersol told me. “They were a handful of billionaires who wanted to be in the NFL, but the NFL wouldn’t let them in—people like Donald Trump.” I never asked him directly about Trump, just indirectly through the USFL, he volunteered that name.

It’s eminently believable that Trump tried to buy the Dallas Cowboys and then Baltimore Colts, was told to go pound sand by the cool kid’s club yet again, and then did his drama queen bit of pretending like it was actually he who rejected the NFL. Ebersol closed his missive against Trump by providing a window into what the NBC Sports dynasty thinks of him, telling me that “it’s why no one really remembers the USFL because really nothing that interesting happened—other than a bunch of guys who when it folded, went to the NFL and had huge careers.”

Times are tough, and fascism is here in a very aggressive way, but football will still be on this weekend, both a comforting and disquieting fact that life still does go on in many fascist countries around the globe each and every day. We need to take small victories when we can, and so every time this weekend some unknown special teamer makes a name for themselves in the NFL’s newest and most exciting innovation in a long time, take solace knowing that it’s making America’s whiniest people mad, providing them with an opportunity to show the whole manosphere they peacock towards how they do not know ball.