RedState Sports Report: It’s May, So Let’s Look at the NFL

Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken are too busy working on their résumés for San José and Seattle’s currently vacant head coaching positions to contribute anything here. At least that’s their excuse, although every time I check in on them, this is all I see:

So, as usual, I’m doing all the work. Good help is so hard to find these days.

Rather than try to catch up on everything going on in one post guaranteed to break the TL;DR barrier before reaching halfway, I’m going to take it one sport at a time, starting with the one major sport not currently in action on the playing surface but always in play when it comes to hogging the media spotlight. Namely, the NFL.

The 2024 NFL draft was more pass (or passer, if you prefer) happy than a varsity cheerleader taking a pass on chess team members asking her to the prom. The tired, the poor, and the huddled masses of teams yearning to breathe free the rarefied air reserved for postseason contenders took six quarterbacks with the first 12 picks. This, of course, will immediately benefit all involved. An example from recent years is how the San Francisco 49ers rode the jetstream that was 2021 first-round draft pick Trey Lance to the top and … oh, wait, that’s right, he’s currently riding the pine in Dallas while the 49ers’ “Oh, what the heck — maybe he can make the practice squad” 2022 seventh-round pick, also known as Mr. Irrelevant as he was the absolute last player drafted, that was Brock Purdy took them to the Super Bowl last season. Oops.

Not to pick on Lance, but he is a perfect example of how inexact a science the NFL draft is, even for those who have devoted their career to player evaluation. In the 2021 draft, the NFL’s presumably brightest and best talent determiners selected five quarterbacks in the first round, including each of the first three picks. The total number of said quarterbacks still with the team that drafted them? One, namely Trevor Lawrence with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Everyone else has played their way out of town. Nevertheless, the prognosticators and pundits are pouncing on this year’s QB crop to proclaim it as the cream of the crop. Let’s wait until these guys play in a regular season game or two before heralding them as franchise saviors, shall we?

Elsewhere in NFL news, the recent modification to the kickoff rule is certain to cause some high hilarity when implemented come next season. Read along; it’s a doozy.

A “landing zone,” the area between the receiving team’s goal line and its 20-yard line, would prompt action off the kickoff if the ball were to land in that sector.

Kickoffs will remain at the 35-yard line, but the remaining 10 players on the kicking unit will line up at the opposing team’s 40-yard line. The receiving team lines up with at least seven players in the “set-up zone,” a five-yard area between their own 35- and 30-yard lines, with a maximum of two returners can line up in the landing zone.

After the ball is kicked, the kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line and the 10 kicking team players cannot move until the ball hits the ground or a player in the landing zone or goes into the end zone. The receiving team’s players in the set-up zone also cannot move until the kick has hit the ground or a player in the landing zone or the end zone. The returner(s) may move at any time before or during the kickoff.

Kickoff scenarios:

• Kickoffs that hit the landing zone must be returned.
• Kickoffs that hit the landing zone and then go into the end zone must be returned or downed by the receiving team. If downed, the receiving team would get the ball at its own 20-yard line.
• Kickoffs that go into the end zone and stay inbounds that are downed would give the receiving team the ball at their own 30-yard line. Kickoffs that go out of the back of the end zone (in the air or bounces) would also be a touchback at the receiving team’s 30-yard line.
• Kickoffs short of the landing zone would be treated like a kickoff out of bounds, and the receiving team would get the ball at its own 40-yard line.

The legislation also will lead to a tweak in onside kicks, which can only occur in the fourth quarter and onward when a team trails. The kicking team must declare its intent to onside kick.

There will not be a quiz in the morning, thankfully.

Next up: the MLB season thus far.