Kicking off is pretty simple: You hit it as hard as you can in hopes of pinning the returner as deep as possible. Occasionally you are asked to onside or squib kick and less frequently you are asked to kick the ball high and short.
A change in NFL rules may however add a little wrinkle to the kicking game that we haven’t seen before.
This year, teams will get the ball at the 25 on touchbacks. You’d think this would automatically mean fewer chances for returners, with teams taking a more risk-averse approach to deciding when to bring the ball out of the end zone, but there’s a line of thinking that says it could actually mean fewer kicks going into the end zone and therefore more returns.