If you watched any of the 2025-26 NFL season, you might have remembered a point in time where kickoffs became must-see TV. Teams began to take full advantage of the new Dynamic Kickoff system and started to purposefully kick balls short and in between players on the receiving side.
The twist was that the kicks would also feature some spin, making the ball bounce in awkward directions, often leading to bad field position or even turnovers.
Well, if you want to replicate that same kickoff strategy in Madden 26, you can, thanks to some newfound mechanics. The kick is being called the “Scum Kickoff,” and it’s begun to make waves in online matches in Madden 26. To learn how to perform the Scum Kickoff, check out the guide below.
What Is The Scum Kickoff In Madden 26?
Let’s start with a general explainer for what the Scum Kickoff is, as you might have already seen it in Madden 26 and raged at your opponent for taking advantage of it.
The Scum Kickoff occurs on any kickoff and involves the kicking team placing the ball right in between the receivers and the landing zone. If you perform the kickoff correctly, then the ball lands just over the green landing zone line, forcing the receivers to try and field the ball or let it bounce out of bounds or into the endzone.
However, with the Scum Kickoff, you can make it so the ball bounces in a way that stops short of the endzone. This would give the opposing offense terrible field position when they pick it up and try to run with it.
Due to the time it takes to actually get to the ball, though, the kicking team does have a chance to get some turnovers by forcing a fumble on the receiving player who picks up the ball short of the endzone. There’s also a world where a safety is possible if the kicking team’s gunner gets to the receiving player quickly enough to tackle them in the endzone.
Regardless, the Scum Kickoff forces the receiving team on a kickoff into a bad position, which, at the very least, leads to bad field position. Done right, the Scum Kickoff is nearly unstoppable, so let’s see how to do it in-game.
How To Perform The Scum Kickoff In Madden 26
Below, you can see the steps to do the Scum Kickoff in Madden 26, but we’ve also included the video that explains it as well:
- To start, kick the ball off to the opposing team at the start of a game/half, or after you’ve just scored
- Choose the “Kickoff Middle” play before you kick the ball off
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Aim the kick direction arrow all the way down, and then stop the moving white arrow when it’s directly to the left of the white line on the left side of the middle green part of the meter
- Click the moving white arrow when it’s in the light blue part on the left-hand side of the kick meter
- Then, when choosing how much power to use in the kickoff, stop the power meter when it reaches the second section from the bottom. There should only be two blue parts of the power meter lit up when you kickoff
- If you’ve done everything right, the kickoff will just barely reach the landing zone, and it’s likely that the receiving team will miss the ball entirely, or they’ll let it roll to the endzone
- Either way, it’s a win for you, as this situation can lead to some bad decisions from the receiving team
— Sportsgamerz (@Sportsgamerz) February 24, 2026
HOW TO DO THE MADDEN 26 SCUM KICK!
A ton of players are using this scum kick online because it results in terrible field position and even turnovers for the receiving team
Do with this what you will pic.twitter.com/WBAlnjgYCI
And that’s everything you need to know about the Scum Kickoff in Madden 26 and how to use it. It’s a scummy tactic, but the fact that it works so well and doesn’t require a lot of mechanical knowledge makes it such a good and annoying strategy. Hopefully, you don’t run into it too often going forward in online matches.
