Big Kickoff Returns a Thing of the Past

One of the most exciting plays in football, the kickoff return for touchdown, could be a thing of the past in the NFL. There is nothing more exciting than seeing your team's player taking a kick and breaking away from the pack, with only the kicker to beat. Then putting on a quick move, making the kicker fall on his back and knowing that your team just instantly put seven points back on the board. This year, Roger Goodell has taken that excitement away.

Roger Goodell decided that the wedge will no longer be a legal football formation. Instead of having four players lined across protecting your return man, opening up holes, teams are now only allowed to use just two.

Teams can run a 2-2-1 blocking formation, where you have two blockers first, then two more five yards behind them, and then the one personal blocker going whichever direction the return man is going. The problem with this formation is the gunners coming from the side can get in very easily and stop any return from forming.

The other formation they can run is two people on the left, two on the right, and a five yard gap in between them to compensate for the no wedge rule. This has an obvious flaw of the one player in the back trying to block the three biggest players coming right up the middle.

Neither of these formations have had any success so far in preseason. I have only seen one return go past the 35 yard line out of many, many returns. Almost every return is shut down before it starts. What's even worse is that the return men are just getting creamed. What Goodell intended to prevent injuries could actually be causing more injuries.

I haven't seen many injuries on kickoffs in the past five years; there was no reason to make the rule to break up the wedge. All it is doing is removing the wall in front of the kick returner and giving the gunners free lanes to hit the return man as hard as they can. Goodell is taking a whole part of the game away, and causing injuries while doing it.

This rule is a big mistake, and it's going to take one of the most exciting plays out of the game for good. These exciting return men like Devin Hester, Joshua Cribbs, Leon Washington, and others, will have all the excitement taken away when none of them have touchdowns this season. Say goodbye to the art of kick returning, it died in 2009.