If we learned one thing about the NFL’s new kickoff rule through the first week of the preseason, it’s that the Kansas City Chiefs might want to study up on it a little bit more this week. And the NFL might want to brush up on the rule with each of its officiating crews, because there was some major confusion during the Chiefs’ game in Jacksonville on Saturday.
The Chiefs were involved in what was easily the most bizarre kickoff play of the weekend. The craziness started after the Jaguars scored a touchdown with just 26 seconds left to play in the first half. After the score, the Jags’ kicked the ball off and that’s when something peculiar happened: The ball landed in the end zone, but then it bounced back into the field of play, coming to a stop at the one-yard line.
At that point, Mecole Hardman stepped into the end zone and touched the ball with the assumption that this would give the Chiefs’ a touchback.
The officiating crew on the field actually ruled the play a touchback, but that soon changed after they reviewed the situation. Under last year’s rule, if a kickoff landed in the end zone on the fly, it immediately became a dead ball, so if this had happened last year, it would have been an automatic touchback. However, under the new kickoff rule, that’s not the case.
“I think it was good for the officials to see it, I think it was good for us to see it,” head coach Andy Reid said of the blunder, via USAToday.com. “We understood the part of it where if it [the ball] goes in, it’s still alive. Again, that’s similar to the sideline where you can be outside and reach back in — that part got clarified; it’s not like that, so that’s a live ball.”
Jaguars coach Doug Pederson was told by his coaching staff that the play should have been ruled a safety, so he had a talk with the officials and that’s when crew decided to review it.
“I’m just glad they went to review,” Pederson said after Jacksonville’s 26-13 win, via PFT. “The ball landed in the end zone, and now by rule that’s still a live ball. Last year that would have been down — it would have been dead and the ball comes out to the 25 last year. Now the ball is live. So the ball was in the end zone, came out to about the half yard line. The returner was in the end zone but pulled the ball back into the end zone when he took a knee, so safety. That’s the rule. Safety.”
As Pederson explained, it was a live ball, which means the Chiefs needed to return it. Grabbing the ball and pulling it back into the end zone wasn’t an option for Hardman at that point. After reviewing the play, the refs ruled that it was, in fact, a safety.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid didn’t even seem to fully understand why the play was a safety, so there’s a good chance that Hardman was simply doing what he had been coached to do in a situation like that.
“Normally when a ball goes in the end zone and you touch it there, then it’s a dead ball, but we’ll get it cleared up and see what they come up with,” Reid said after the game.
As for Hardman, he’s glad that this game didn’t count and that he got to learn a lesson the easy way.
“It’s a rule they’re going to have to figure out,” Hardman said, via the Kansas City Star. “I’m glad it happened in the preseason. A lot of teams can learn from it.”
Every team around the NFL will likely be taking note of what happened to the Chiefs so that it doesn’t happen to them during the season. This is the first bizarre thing that’s happened with the new NFL kickoff rule, but it almost certainly won’t be the last.