The Super Bowl capped the first year of the NFL’s dynamic kickoff rule. Based on that final-game sample size, the concept hardly lived up to its name but still was viewed as a success.

Then again, the bar was set at ground level in the previous Super Bowl, and the only direction to go was up.

In the 2024 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, all 13 kickoffs resulted in touchbacks. A week ago, with the Chiefs facing the Philadelphia Eagles, the game also featured 13 kickoffs. Four of the 11 traditional kickoffs resulted in returns, and seven were touchbacks. Two others were onside kicks attempted by the Chiefs in the fourth quarter of their 40-22 loss.

Considering the anticlimactic nature of the kickoff from the previous season, the NFL had to be pleased with the results.

“We wanted to bring that play back in the game,” NFL vice president of player health and safety Jeff Miller said after the conference championship games.

Data provided by the league before the Super Bowl supported that the mission was accomplished — with the caveat that changes may still take place before the 2025 season.

The number of kickoffs that were returned in the 2024 season increased 57% over the previous year. Seven kickoffs were returned for touchdowns, the most in the league since 2021. The number of big-play returns — counted as those exceeding 40 yards — totaled 59, the most since 2016.

The NFL also revealed that concussions — one of the reasons for the rules change — decreased by 43% and “lower-extremity strains” were reduced by 48% from the 2023 season. Eight concussions were reported from injuries on kickoffs, the same number as 2023, but the rate was 43% lower because of the spike in returns.

“Although we are gratified, we want to see the numbers go down,” said Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer. “We want to get avoidable head contact out of the game. We’ll still spend a lot of time focusing on that.”

The dynamic kickoff rule was approved by NFL owners on a one-year basis at the 2024 annual meeting in March. It was a radical change from the traditional kickoff that had been used in the pro, college and high school ranks for decades.

Under the new rule, the kicker is the only player stationed on the kicking side of midfield. The other 10 players on the kicking team line up on the opposing 40, and the receiving team has at least seven of its nine blockers line up at the 35 with the other two stationed between the 30 and 35. The final two members of the receiving team — the returners — are stationed inside the 20, which is known as the landing zone.

“The goal was to reduce space and therefore the speed of the play,” Miller said, adding “the concussion rate or injury rate was on par with a run or pass play. That’s terrific news. The number of games missed by players because of injuries on kickoffs also decreased.”

To encourage more returns, owners adopted other significant changes. Touchbacks would be placed at the 30-yard line instead of the 25. Kickoffs that landed short of the landing zone would be placed at the 40.

Results were mixed at midseason. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in October that he wanted to see even more returns and that putting all touchbacks at the 35-yard line in 2025 could be a deterrent from teams kicking the ball deep into — or out of — the end zone.

Steelers kicker Chris Boswell, at the time, was not in favor of any proposed changes, saying on Ben Roethlisberger’s podcast that “they don’t want touchbacks at all. … With this rule, they’re taking the kicking out of kicking.”

Special teams coach Danny Smith met with Goodell before the Steelers’ Monday night game against the New York Giants in October to provide his input.

“I think you’ll see things come up after the season on how we go (forward),” Smith said. “He mentioned some things to me that leads me to believe more discussion is going to happen.”

For all the success the Steelers enjoyed on special teams in 2024 with Boswell’s historic accuracy rate and the number of blocked kicks by the punt and field goal units, they finished in the middle of the pack in defending the kickoff and ranked last in return yardage.

The Steelers were one of four teams that did not have at least one 40-yard return this year, their season-long of 35 yards tying for the worst “long return” in the league. Cordarrelle Patterson, whose nine career kickoff returns for a touchdown are an NFL record, averaged just 21.8 yards on 11 returns. Jaylen Warren averaged 25.2 yards on nine returns.

For the season, the Steelers averaged 23 yards per return, half a yard below their 2023 total. Where the Steelers ranked No. 15 in average return yards the previous season, they finished last in 2024, an indication of how well other teams adapted to getting longer returns. For instance, the Dallas Cowboys led the NFL with 32.1 yards per return last season. The 2023 leader averaged 26.7 yards.

On the flip side, the Steelers’ kickoff coverage unit ranked No. 16 by allowing 28.9 yards per return. They also got the memo about reducing the number of touchbacks. A year after the Steelers gave up just 18 kickoff returns with Boswell having 72.4% of his kickoffs result in touchbacks, Smith’s coverage unit allowed 40 returns, and Boswell had 54.4% of his tries go for a touchback.

Coach Mike Tomlin also seemed to accept the challenge of using the kickoff rule to his advantage.

“Any yard that you get on the opposite side of the 30 is an advantage for us,” he said in November, “and not so when you don’t.”

As a member of the NFL’s competition committee, Tomlin will be part of the discussions this offseason that debate whether further changes to the dynamic kickoff are necessary and whether the rule will be a permanent part of the game.

An alternative to having touchbacks placed at the 35 is having the kickoff spot moved back 5 yards to the 30. Kickoffs started at the 30 in 1994 and remained there for 17 seasons before moving to the 35 in another attempt by the NFL to make the play safer.

“There is more work to be done,” Miller said. “We have to understand injury profiles and how players got hurt. That will take some time. Were they tackling, blocking? Were they noncontact behaviors? Where did they happen on the field? We’ll take all that into consideration.”

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