Kansas City Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub was sitting across from Troy Vincent at the NFL head coaches symposium in Orlando in March, just laughing and joking, when a friendly conversation over breakfast suddenly turned serious.

“Hey man, get ready — they’re going to take the kickoff away,” said Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president for football ops.

It was exactly the news Toub, 55, had been dreading. The architect of the dynamite Devin Hester-led Chicago Bears special teams from several years ago, Toub has long established himself as one of the league’s very best at his craft, so the concept of losing kickoffs and kickoff returns — two of the six special teams phases he’s responsible for — was abjectly terrifying, not only to him, but to the league’s other 31 special teams coordinators, as well.

“You can’t do that, Troy,” Toub said, adamantly. “No freaking way. There’s got to be a step in between that.”

There was, it turns out, even though the concussion-conscious NFL has long been working on ways to reduce the violence of kickoffs. Statistics compiled by the league show that concussions are five times more likely to occur on those plays than others, and although those changes — which included moving the kickoff spot up 5 yards — have reduced the number of returns, they haven’t actually reduced the rate of concussions on the play, which Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy recently called “by far the most dangerous” in the game.

Still, the potential abolishment of the kickoff has been met with lots of resistance among special teams coaches who fear the elimination of the play — which incorporates significant strategy and thus, allows them to shine — would also lead to a league-wide de-emphasis of the special-teamer. This would not only have an impact on how teams construct rosters, as special teams help decide backup spots at the 53-man deadline, but could also lead to a reduction of special teams jobs across the leagues. Most teams currently have a special teams coach and a special teams assistant, but would the assistant really be needed if there was 33 percent less work to do on the surface? The NFL is, more than anything else, a business, so coaches really don’t want to find out.

“I told [Chiefs coach] Andy [Reid], I might have to get ready to be a tight ends coach,” Toub said with a laugh. “You’re not just taking kickoff away — you’re taking two phases, you’re taking all those jobs. That’s a drastic thing. Nobody wants the kickoff to go away.”

So when Vincent told Toub there was something he could indeed do, he couldn’t help but say yes. In early May, Toub and approximately eight other NFL special teams coaches gathered with members of the league’s competition committee for the player safety summit at the league’s offices in New York with the goal of coming up with a proposal that would allow them to keep the play, all while making it safer.

The special teams coaches took the responsibility so seriously, Toub said, that they’d talked enough in the weeks leading up to the meeting to have an idea of what they wanted to do before they even got there. By the end of the two-day summit, lots of ideas had been discussed, but only one proposal was agreed upon because they didn’t want to risk muddying the water. The proposal proceeded to be approved, largely unscathed, by the owners only a few weeks later.

The rule changes that will go into effect this season will effectively eliminate a number of dangerous blocks — including wedge and jump-set blocks — and severely limit the number of double-team blocks faced by players on the kick coverage squad. They will also reduce the five-yard running start coverage players got at the outset of the play, mandate that five coverage players are on both sides of the kicker at the beginning of the play (thus changing the look of onside kicks) and force at least eight players on the return squad to be in a 15-yard “setup zone” prior to the kickoff.

“It won’t be offensive linemen blocking skill players — it’s going to be a speed and skill play now,” Broncos coach Vance Joseph said.

NFL coaches are optimistic the kickoff won’t be entirely eliminated one day, but never say never. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) More

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