NFL Revises Rules, Shifts Emphasis From Field Goal Specialists to Punters

In an effort to eliminate field goal kickers' domination of the sport, the National Football League instituted two rule revisions Thursday which will render the field goal virtually obsolete.

Pressure on the league to de-emphasize the field goal mounted last year when kicking specialists split the uprights a record 543 times and averaged five field goal tries per game.

Beginning next season, the NFL will move the goal posts ten yards back from the goal line to the end line as in the college game.

The change appears to make a pro kicker's task as difficult as a collegiate booter's, but the width of pro goal posts will remain 18. ft., 6 in., while college goal posts measure nearly five feet wider at 23 ft., 4 in.

The NFL has also made pro coaches' lives more difficult by ruling that after a missed field goal, the ball must be returned to the line of scrimmage or to the 20-yard line, whichever is further out.

Three Points No More

Hand-in-hand, the two changes threaten to annihilate the field goal. Attempts from beyond the 40-yard line will be impractical because of the increased distance. Coaches will be reluctant to try field goals from beyond the 30-yard line for fear of giving up good field position after a missed attempt.

The hallowed ground between the 30 and 40-yard lines from which kickers booted a majority of their field goals last year will become a pit for trench warfare next season. Outside the 30-yard line, in third-and-short and fourth down situations, the interior line will fight it out not only for the first-down yardage, but also for every foot to reduce field goal distance. The three-pointer, in its virtual obsolescence, may become as precious as a touchdown.

Coffin Corner Blues

The alternative in fourth-down situations will be a return to the art of the coffin corner kick, which pins opponents deep in their own territory by sailing the punt out of bounds as close to the goal line as possible. Trapped inside their own ten, a team will not risk an interception by throwing the ball, and will be reduced to grinding yardage out on the ground. Ideally, the defense could then swarm all over the bottled-up offense and force another punt.

Overall, the NFL has toppled the field goal kicker as the offensive ruler of the game only to enthrown the punter as defensive field marshall.

As compensation, the NFL approved another rule change which states that members of a team kicking from scrimmage, either when punting or kicking a field goal, cannot cross the line of scrimmage until the ball is kicked. The rule change is designed to encourage punt returns, which averaged less than eight yards and produced only ten touchdowns in the last two seasons.

Again, however, the NFL proved itself myopic, for once across the fifty, pro punters should be able to boot the ball into the end zone or send it out of bounds near the ten. Undoubtedly, with the new prominence of the punting game, coaches will demand that their punters specialize in angling their kicks out of bounds.

The little offensive excitement the new rules have brought to the NFL game is the likelihood of more long punt returns when a team punts from deep in its own territory. More often than not, however, the punting team will have been trapped there by a previous coffin corner kick. Punt, punt, punt.