New NFL rules ‘devaluing’ kicker position says Broncos’ McManus

Denver Broncos kicker Brandon McManus joked on Wednesday that the NFL wants to shove out kickers.

“They’re trying to get rid of us,” McManus said through a laugh when joining “Pritchard and Cecil” this week.

But, it’s no joke the league has been actively looking to make things a little bit more difficult for kickers, moving extra point attempts back to the 15-yard line ahead of the 2015 season and recently making it a 15-yard penalty for grounds crews to clear snow from the field for a kick.

“We’re the only position in the NFL where we’re continuing to get better and better and they’re making us pay for it by making things more difficult,” McManus said. “Quarterbacks are getting better and better every year. Their completion percentage, they’re throwing for more yards.

“I used to say, sooner or later they’re going to have to make them throw underhand to the receiver 50 yards down the field, see if they could do that because they’re making things that much more difficult for us.”

The real beef for McManus regarding new rules, however, comes from the NFL’s recent restrictions on kickoffs.

With the hope of eliminating bone-jarring hits on kickoff plays, the league has created new rules over the past few years that include moving touchbacks to the 25-yard line and, most recently, eliminating running starts for kicking teams.

Two changes to the @NFL kickoff rules include:

-No running start from the kicking team
-No wedge blocks from the receiving team

See all changes in the graphic below. pic.twitter.com/p7CeMmoaq6

— NFL Football Operations (@NFLFootballOps) July 7, 2018

“What they’re trying to do is get more touchbacks, but I really don’t understand,” McManus said. “I do know who’s in these meetings, but they need some more active players and people who understand the special teams play and what special teams coordinators are trying to get out of the kickoffs.”

The issue for McManus is that there’s little incentive for kickoff teams to go for the touchback because the ball is placed five yards further down the field than in the past. And until that’s addressed, measures like the running start won’t truly affect player safety, McManus said.

“The new rules are fine, I think. If you want to do the one-yard start so you don’t have as big of collisions …,” McManus said. “But with the kickoff, the touchback has to be at the 20-yard line to me because you have to incentivize the kickoff team to kick touchbacks.”

At least for now, however, the NFL isn’t getting rid of kickoffs altogether, thus eliminating a major chunk of McManus’ role, because what would they call the start of the game, or for that matter the lead into the season?

“It’d be so difficult to start an NFL game without some sort of set play to get the excitement (going),” McManus said. “Every season the NFL builds it up, the kickoff to the season — NFL kickoff weekend. What are you going to do? Are you going to keep saying kickoff if there’s no actual kickoff?

How much the league might scale back the importance of the kicker role, however, remains to be seen.

Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @JohnnyHart7.