I don’t understand why so many kickoff returners are willing to bring balls out from the back half of their end zone. It seems like the odds of something going wrong are a lot higher than the odds of anything good happening.
On Saturday we saw Ted Ginn Jr. lose a fumble on his own 8, setting up a Carolina touchdown. He could have just taken a knee, and Arizona would have gotten the ball on the 20. It’s not as if Ginn was lighting it up (the Cardinals ranked last in kickoff return average in the regular season).
In the Steelers-Ravens game later on Saturday, Markus Wheaton was saved from a similar fate when his knee touched the ground just before the ball popped loose.
In the Lions-Cowboys game, Jeremy Ross decided to bring one out of the end zone in the fourth quarter and got tackled on his own 5, putting Detroit in a nasty hole.
I do not, meanwhile, see much upside. In the four playoff games, 18 kickoffs were returned out of the end zone. Only two of those made it to the 25. Ginn got to the 42 on one of his, and Josh Cribbs made it to the 29. But on five kickoffs, the returner was trapped inside the 15. Overall, those returns resulted in a loss of 21 yards (relative to just taking the ball at the 20), and it becomes worse when you factor in that Arizona also lost possession of the kickoff Ginn returned to the 8.
| RETURNS OUT OF THE END ZONE (playoffs) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Team | Returner | Result |
| Ariz. | Ted Ginn Jr. | 42 |
| Ariz. | Ted Ginn Jr. | Fumble |
| Balt. | Jacoby Jones | 22 |
| Balt. | Jacoby Jones | 20 |
| Balt. | Jacoby Jones | 20 |
| Balt. | Jacoby Jones | 16 |
| Balt. | Jacoby Jones | 16 |
| Car. | Fozzy Whittaker | 20 |
| Cin. | Adam Jones | 23 |
| Cin. | Adam Jones | 17 |
| Cin. | Adam Jones | 13 |
| Dall. | Dwayne Harris | 20 |
| Det. | Jeremy Ross | 5 |
| Ind. | Josh Cribbs | 29 |
| Ind. | Josh Cribbs | 24 |
| Ind. | Zurlon Tipton | 9 |
| Pitt. | Markus Wheaton | 21 |
| Pitt. | Markus Wheaton | 14 |
In defense of Jacoby Jones, Adam Jones and Josh Cribbs, at least those teams ranked ranked in the top 4 in kickoff returns in the regular season.
Overall, though, the way the field is slanted in favor of the kicking teams, it seems like more guys should be simply taking a knee. You eliminate the potential of fumbles and injuries, and there really isn’t a good chance of success anyway.
I don’t have league-wide numbers for returns out of the end zone, but by the overall stats, I can see that only 6 touchdowns were scored on kickoff returns in the regular season. That’s all 32 teams playing in 256 regular-season games. So probability of a team scoring on a kickoff return is about 1.2 percent. At the same time, there were 22 fumbles (about a 4.3 percent chance). And if you lose a fumble on a kickoff return, you’re giving up points – a field goal for sure, and maybe a touchdown.
In the regular season, there were 72 kickoff returns of 40-plus yards. So there’s some value there, I suppose (though if you field a kickoff 7 yards deep and return it to the 33, that’s only 13 yards ahead of a touchback). And if you want to play for those returns to the 35- and 45-yard line, there were also be plenty where you get trapped inside your own 15.
It just doesn’t look like a wise decision.
—Ian Allan