Pete Carroll Says Seahawks Disappointed by Field-Goal Leaping Ban

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said on Wednesday he was disappointed that the NFL eliminated jumping over the line of scrimmage to block field goals or extra points. 

Carroll said the footage the league showed while proposing the rule change only illustrated the downside of the maneuver, per Sheil Kapadia of ESPN.com:

"

Well, the examples that they showed us were the really bad examples. They didn't show the examples of how pretty it is when a guy leaps over with great body control and makes the play and all. Guys were landing on their head and falling all over each other. It was a mess when we looked at it, so I couldn't vote against it the way it was going because they really did have examples that looked dangerous.

It didn't look like what we looked like at all. I was kind of disappointed they didn't show our clips, but I understand why they didn't. It wouldn't have sent the kind of message they were trying to get done.

"

Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor was annoyed with the rule change: 

Ditto for linebacker Bobby Wagner:

"

We are creative. We will find another way pic.twitter.com/p04yNBzDk5

— Bobby Wagner (@Bwagz54) March 28, 2017"

All 32 teams voted to make jumping over the line of scrimmage illegal, however.

And Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL competition committee, said many players also didn't like how the play had evolved in recent years:

"

Early on, teams didn't know how to block it. The guard didn't get up in the air. The center wasn't getting up. Nobody was chipping on the player. The player was getting a free run. All of a sudden, the player wasn't getting a free run, and now the player was coming down at a really bad angle.

When we met with the players' association, to a person, they were quick to say, 'We don't like this play. And we really don't like the fact that somebody on Monday gets selected to have to do that play and be that person.' So that absolutely always plays a part in our decision.

"

The Seahawks weren't among those players to feel that way, apparently. Carroll felt that his team had learned how to safely and effectively employ the technique.

"We were really good at it," he noted. "We were the good example of it, and unfortunately we're not going to be able to utilize that. It was really just an opportunity to accentuate some of the special qualities of some of our guys, and Kam and Bobby were phenomenal at it."

According to NFL Research (h/t Geoffrey C. Arnold of The Oregonian), three of the 41 blocked field-goal attempts and point after touchdowns in 2016 came from players jumping over the line of scrimmage. So while the rule change will affect the approach that athletic players like Chancellor and Wagner employ, it shouldn't dramatically alter field goals and extra-point attempts in general.