How NFL Rule Changes Are Shaping The Game This Season

Although fans of the Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans might beg to differ, scoring is largely up in the NFL in 2025. Through Week 6, teams are averaging 23.1 points per game, which is the highest mark since the 2020 campaign. That would be the fifth-highest scoring average in NFL history if it holds for the entire season.

Two major rule changes deserve some of the credit for that.

This past offseason, most of the national attention about rule changes revolved around the Green Bay Packers’ attempt to get the Philadelphia Eagles’ vaunted Tush Push banned. After impassioned speeches from Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and former Eagles center Jason Kelce, the proposal failed by two votes. However, given the Eagles’ ongoing struggles on offense, the Tush Push isn’t the reason why scoring is up.

Instead, two changes involving the kicking game are flipping the field-position equation.

1. The “Dynamic Kickoff” Revived Kick Returns

In 2023, an NFL-record 73.0% of kickoffs went for touchbacks, which automatically brought the ball out to the 25-yard line. To revive the kick-return game, the league introduced the “Dynamic Kickoff” in 2024, which was a dramatic overhaul of the play. It placed players closer to one another on the field to reduce injury risk on kickoffs, and touchbacks moved out to the 30-yard line rather than the 25-yard line.

The new rule resulted in 332 more kickoff returns in 2024 than there were in 2023, which caused NFL owners to take it one step further this offseason. They permanently implemented the new kickoff structure and changed touchbacks to come out to the 35-yard line rather than the 30-yard line.

If a kickoff falls in the “landing zone”—between the opposing team’s goal line and its 20-yard line—and stays there, it must be returned. For any kickoff that originally lands in the landing zone and then rolls into the end zone, the touchback only comes out to the 20-yard line. Any kickoff that lands in the end zone comes out to the 35-yard line, and any kickoff that lands short of the landing zone or goes out of bounds comes out to the 40-yard line.

The result has been nothing short of game-changing for special teams units. Through Week 6, only 15.2% of kickoffs have resulted in touchbacks, which is the lowest rate since the 2008 campaign. Through Week 5, the average field position after a kickoff was 29.4, which was a marked increase over the 25.1 from the 2023 campaign.

That improved average field position has also led to an increase in overall scoring. Teams went from averaging 1.78 points per drive and scoring on only 33.2% of drives after kickoffs in 2023 to 2.12 points per drive and scoring on 39.9% of drives through Week 5 of this season. There was a notable uptick in touchdown drives—going from 19.7% in 2023 to 23.3% in 2025—after kickoffs as well.

Granted, the kickoffs aren’t the only thing fueling an increase in scoring. New rules for field-goal kickers have also helped juice offenses.

2. New K-Ball Rules Have Changed Field-Goal Math

Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Cam Little drilled a 70-yard field goal during the preseason, which would have shattered the NFL record for the longest field goal. Former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker currently holds that honor with a game-winning 66-yarder that he nailed against the Detroit Lions in 2021.

As it turns out, Little’s bomb was a harbinger of what was to come this season. Three of the 20 longest field goals in NFL history have already happened in the first six weeks.

In Week 2, Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey hit a last-second, game-tying 64-yard field goal against the New York Giants to send the game to overtime. The following week, Minnesota Vikings kicker Will Reichard nailed a 62-yarder in a blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals. And in Week 4, Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Chase McLaughlin booted a 65-yarder—tied for the second-longest in NFL history—and a 58-yarder against the Philadelphia Eagles.

After that game, Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio highlighted what’s fueling the rise in these long field goals.

“You know what you guys have missed?” Fangio told reporters during his weekly press conference. “Not just you, but everybody is. We gave up a 65-yard field goal and a 58-yard field goal [against the Buccaneers]. These kicking balls that they changed this year have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular. So it’s almost like they need an asterisk here. It was the live ball era or the asterisk for those home runs [Barry] Bonds and [Sammy] Sosa and [Mark] McGwire were hitting. The way they’ve changed the ball. The NFL, the kicking ball has drastically changed the field goals.”

To Fangio’s point, the NFL did change how kicking balls are being handled this year. Prior to this season, teams received their kicking balls (“K-balls”) shortly before the game began. From there, “ball boys frantically went to work on the leather to make the football friendlier to kick and grip for the specialists,” according to Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic.

This year, the NFL sent each team 60 K-balls over the summer, which they’ve been allowed to break in ever since. Kickers also get to spend all week practicing with the ball that they’ll be using in the game.

“Think about like a baseball player and their glove,” Carolina Panthers long snapper J.J. Jansen told Rodrigue. “Those guys get to use their glove on a daily basis. They form it up exactly the way they like. They can use their glove on their hand, it becomes kind of part of their hand. The same thing with a good football and (a kicker’s) foot, it kind of conforms to the foot well.”

One special teams coordinator recently told Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that the new rules have added roughly 5-7 yards to a kicker’s range. Cincinnati Bengals kicker Evan McPherson nearly proved that this past Sunday, as he drilled a would-be-record 67-yard field goal against the Green Bay Packers, only to have it wiped out by a Packers timeout.

Given the increase in average field position and increase in field-goal kickers’ range, it’s no wonder why scoring is on the rise this year. For kickoffs that get returned for touchbacks, it now only takes 20-25 yards to get within realistic field-goal range.

When the weather begins to drop as we get further into the fall and winter, kickers might not maintain quite as much distance as they have in more hot and humid weather. But if the start of the 2025 campaign is any indication, it’s only a matter of time before Tucker’s record falls.