The Chiefs want to ‘stay aggressive’ after this NFL rule change. Why that’s a mistake

The best quarterback in the world was throwing footballs in Kansas City on Thursday, the No. 15 across the chest of his Chiefs practice jersey. A Super Bowl logo, symbolic of the best team in the world, was draped in the backdrop.

Best quarterback. Best team.

And we’re here to talk about kickoffs.

Well, kickoff returns. But still.

The NFL started this discussion. Rule change by rule change, the league is all but begging teams to make kickoff returns a thing of their past.

But one coach in Kansas City just will not cave. Special teams coordinator Dave Toub said he won’t change much with his kick return philosophy after the league implemented a rule that will allow returning teams to fair catch a kickoff and receive the ball at the 25-yard line.

“It’s not something that we’re going to do a lot — I’ll tell you that,” Toub said of fair catching a kickoff. “If they kick the ball to us, we’re returning it. You guys know that.

“We want everybody on the same page.”

And that page?

“We’re going to be aggressive.”

The league is attempting to close down the park, and while the Chiefs are far from the only team irked about it, they are one of the few refusing to exit the ride.

It is apparent the Chiefs will opt for the risk-reward of a kickoff return rather than the know-what-you’re-getting option of a touchback. It is not apparent why.

If Zach Wilson is your quarterback, by all means, jump at the chance for risk-reward plays in other phases of the game. But when you have Patrick Mahomes, you ought to leave the risk-reward plays to the quarterback — unless, of course, the scale is so greatly tipped toward the reward.

It is not.

Sure, there is anecdotal evidence of the benefits of kickoff returns. The Chiefs might not have that Super Bowl logo on the outside of their practice facility without a couple of punt returns in the postseason, one in the AFC Championship Game and another in the Super Bowl. But while it is perhaps not apples-to-oranges, there is overwhelming statistical evidence of the drawbacks of attempting to make kickoff returns some added boom-or-bust plays.

Like, their own statistical evidence.

From just one year ago.

The recent rule change — the permission of a fair catch — would logically seem to affect the kickoffs that are just outside the goal line more than any other. That will become preferred fair-catch territory. After all, anything in the end zone could already be knelt for a touchback, so there’s no change in effect there. And anything farther in the field in play is going to offer the returner a better chance of surpassing the 25-yard line.

So I cycled through play-by-play data from NFL Index to find each instance in which the Chiefs fielded a kickoff inside their own 5-yard line or deeper during the 2022 season. There were 25 of them. On 19 of the 25, NFL Index graded the outcome as a negative play for the Chiefs in terms of expected points added. That left only six (or 24%) as worth the return. (A touchback, for reference, is 0.00 on the scale.)

Furthermore, eight such returns — from inside their own 5-yard line — robbed the Chiefs of at least one-third of an expected point. Only two added that margin.

The pendulum swings toward busts more frequently. And it can swing that direction more forcefully.

But, hey, they had no choice a year ago. They were required to return anything that fell shy of the goal line.

Now they do have an alternative. As the anticipation is that most teams will pull the escape hatch, the Chiefs are plowing full steam ahead.

Which means they could become the most adversely affected team by the rule change. Voluntarily.

Why?

“How are you going to score a touchdown if you don’t return?” he replied. “If they’re kicking the ball to you, and everybody gets their blocks and you have the ball kicked to you, you return it. You block it up and you go. There will be times, (but) it will be a special play, when we (fair) catch it. But you’ll be able to tell we’re doing that.

“... We’re going to stay aggressive.”

This isn’t meant to be cute, because Toub is referencing strictly his return game, but how else will they score a touchdown? The answer to that is the precise reason they shouldn’t participate in this dance:

They tend to score touchdowns at a pretty high rate.

The Chiefs led the NFL in yards per drive (40.2), points per drive (2.76) and series success rate a year ago, per data on Football Outsiders, and the primary reason for that will be on the roster again this fall. When they face a 1st-and-10, 78% of the time they convert it into a new set of downs or a touchdown.

The Chiefs, in other words, are in less need of the splash plays than literally any team in football. They should be more risk-adverse on special teams returns than literally any team in football.

But let’s get into the boom plays, because that’s the argument for forging on, right? They could break one. Except the Chiefs haven’t scored a touchdown on a kickoff since Week 7 of 2020. There were only six kickoffs run back for touchdowns in the entire NFL last season, among 1,013 tries. That’s a 0.6% hit rate.

Not just that, though. The Chiefs returned one kickoff past midfield. One. And Isiah Pacheco traveled all of two yards past the 50-yard line.

So, the inverse? The busts? They happen. More often, too.

Three times last season, the Chiefs committed a penalty on a kickoff return that forced them to start a drive inside their own 10-yard line. The result of those ensuing offensive drives: Punt, touchdown, punt. Those kickoffs were all positioned inside the Chiefs’ own 5-yard line, by the way. All within what most teams will consider new fair-catch territory. On another return, the Chiefs fumbled and turned it over. (If you’re thinking the turnover number was higher than that, you’re thinking of the four fumbled punts, which is another story.)

So in our four most glaring bust examples, the Chiefs compiled seven points, or an average of 1.75 per drive, which basically means the Chiefs transformed into a small sample size of the Pittsburgh Steelers offense.

Look, Toub is a highly-regarded special teams coach. His units in Kansas City ranked in the top five in special teams DVOA in five of six seasons before a falloff last year to 20th — a falloff that could be attributed to an overhaul in personnel that left first-year players with significant snaps. The aforementioned impact returns in the playoffs can be attributed, at least in part, to individual growth under Toub’s coaching.

This is not an indictment of his entire operation. But it is a miscalculation within it. It’s possible these decisions won’t sway the outcome of a single game in 2023, but it’s possible one will, and if one does, the data points toward an adverse effect, not a favorable one. The aggressive philosophy too evidently ignores that a touchback guarantees Mahomes the football, and what better special teams objective than that?

Hand the ball to Mahomes.

The league is offering the Chiefs an easier path than ever to reach that objective.

Raise a hand and take it.