To Develop Kickoff Strategy, Steelers Set Their Sights On Europe

When it comes to the kickoff change, most eyes are on the spring leagues. Chiefly, the USFL in 2022 and 2023 that created the foundation for the NFL to borrow from. In one of football’s biggest rule changes of the past two decades, coaches are looking at all the information possible to figure out how to adjust and take advantage of the new opportunities.

For the Pittsburgh Steelers, that means looking international, too. Speaking during mandatory minicamp earlier this month, special teams coordinator Danny Smith said he’s kept an eye on what the European American Football Leagues are doing, too.

“I watch Europe as well,” Smith told reporters via the team’s YouTube channel when asked if he only watched the XFL.

The European League of Football (ELF) instituted these new kickoff rules a year after the USFL did. Created in 2021, the league now represents 17 countries but has an NFL Europe feel and flair. Many team names from the NFL’s true minor league that housed players like James Harrison carried over 15 years later. The Rhein Fire, Hamburg Sea Devils, and Frankfurt Galaxy were all revived, at least in name.

The league primarily based its game off NFL rules. For the first year, they used traditional kickoff alignment. But presumably after seeing the USFL’s change for 2022, they adopted the rule change for the start of their 2022 season played that same fall. Here’s the opening kickoff of the 2022 Championship Game between the Vienna Vikings and Hamburg Sea Devils held in late September. With space to the left, this produced a good return the NFL is hoping to see come alive in 2024.

Perhaps most interestingly, the league’s kickoff stats sharply reduced with the rule change. While the number of total kick returns nearly doubled, the average return fell and the number of touchdowns dramatically decreased. Here are the 2021 and 2022 data of ELF kick returns.

2021 (235 total kick returns) – 27.5 yards per return, 8 TDs

2022 (400 total returns) – 23.6 yards per return, 3 TDs

Curiously, I could not find 2023 stats except for spending $15 to buy them from their official store. As much as I love special teams, I’m not going to pay for basic stats in 2024. But if you’d like to see the 2022 kick return scores, watch this video at the 23:20, 35:09, and 42:00-minute timestamps.

With the data we have, we saw kick returns became less of an impact play. There could be a variety of reasons for that, chiefly players and coaches adjusting after going through one full season. Teams tend to tighten up in the second season with a better understanding of how to stop returns than the first time through. And obviously, there are giant talent gaps between the NFL and European leagues that make evaluating performance difficult. This data tracks with the USFL that showed no significant increase in average or touchdowns compared to the NFL.

But that’s less of the point. The takeaway is the look of the kick is the same and that’s what matters to Smith. Get eyes on as much tape of this rule change being put in practice to have as much information possible to apply to the Steelers. Hopefully it’ll help him determine who the team’s kick returners are or at the least, understand the most valuable traits and skillsets to place back there.

With the team’s first preseason game roughly six weeks away, those plans go from theory to action and Smith can study NFL tape in this brave new world of kickoffs.