The NFL’s new dynamic kickoff was anything but on Thursday night in a weather-canceled Hall of Fame game opener between the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans in Canton. I’d imagine some of this was by design, with the game—a glorified joint practice, really—serving more as a forum for coaches to evaluate the spatial blocking skills of their players and for some returners to get reps.
I don’t think the kickoff will look anything like this when the regular season comes, down to the way the receiving team blockers dropped back toward the return man on most of these kicks instead of simply going after their opponents.
