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The NFL’s new rules designed to reduce the impacts on kickoffs represent a last-gasp effort to keep the play in the sport.

That’s the word from former head of officiating Mike Pereira, who believes that if this year’s rule changes don’t result in the desired reduction in kickoffs, the NFL will just abolish the play entirely.

“If at the end of this year there are more concussions on kickoffs, forget it. It’s gone,” Pereira said this morning on PFT Live.

The flip side is, the new rules have the potential to save the kickoff and keep it in the sport for good.

“If we have more returns and less concussions then the kickoff is here to stay, maybe forever,” Pereira said.

Pereira believes that if the NFL scraps kickoffs, the most likely replacement would be the “Greg Schiano rule,” in which teams would face a fourth-and-15 from their own 35-yard line and could either punt the ball as the new equivalent of a kickoff, or go for it as the new equivalent of an onside kick.