NFL kickoff rule: 49ers-Kyle Shanahan not surprised about too many touchbacks

One of the most interesting things about the 2024 National Football League season was the new kickoff rule and how teams would implement it. How the 49ers apply it is, of course, a follow-up question. If you've been reading the program late, this post explains many of the nuances of the rule as it was presented to the competition committee.

Well, after two games, we haven't seen much. In fact, it's gotten worse. Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area aptly pointed out that through two games, 19 of 24 kickoffs have been touchbacks.

It looks like there are more touchbacks. And that's the opposite of what the league wanted to achieve.

The whole idea was to get teams to pass the ball more often while reducing the risk of injury. Kickoffs have seen massive player collisions and safety is key in the league (or so we're told). We'll have to wait and see on the latter when we have a larger sample size after Sunday, but the first two games have not been a great start.

What can we expect from the 49ers? Who knows. They won't talk about the plan before the game. During the preseason, Kyle Shanahan figured out how he could do it himself.

And on Saturday, he didn't seem very confident about the team's performance against the New York Jets. He was asked what he thought about the team's surplus of touchbacks in the first two games.

“I think we kind of expected that,” Shanahan said. “I think you expected that too. It's looked like that so far, and I'd probably be surprised if that changed.”

We will see how the 49ers deal with this new rule on Monday evening.