NEW YORK — In March, Dave Toub was in Orlando to take part in the NFL’s Career Development Symposium, a few days before the annual league meeting in which rule changes are discussed. Over breakfast with Troy Vincent, the NFL’s EVP of football operations, Toub, the Chiefs’ special teams coach, was told that the kickoff was an endangered play.
“He said, ‘You know the kickoff is going to disappear,’” recalls Toub. “He just stated it like that. I said, ‘Well, wait. What about the steps? Let’s make some adjustments.’”
Over the last month or so, Toub and a core group of nine special teams coaches around the league put together a proposal for a modified kickoff, an effort to keep the play as part of the game by making it safer.