Recognizing the chronic health effects associated with playing football, the National Football League (NFL) has enacted policies and rules aimed at improving player health and safety. Prior to the 2011 season, amendments to the Free Kick rule were implemented, whereby the restraining line was moved from the 30- to the 35-yard line and all kicking team players other than the kicker were required to line up no more than 5 yards behind their restraining line. The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the effects of these rule changes on injury rates.

Data for injuries occurring on special teams plays during the 2010 and 2011 NFL seasons were obtained from [publicly] available NFL gamebooks and injury reports. Injury rates for kickoff plays across seasons were statistically compared using incidence rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals. To evaluate whether injury rate changes could be attributable to the rule amendments, comparisons were made with punt injury rates (presumably unaffected by the Free Kick rule changes) and distributions of potential confounders were assessed across seasons.

Incidence of injuries occurring on kickoff plays fell from 2010 to 2011 (RR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.28–0.73), although on kickoff plays where the ball was returned, this decrease became non-significant (RR: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.41–1.08). While the incidence of head injuries decreased by approximately 3-fold during kickoff plays, this change was not statistically significant (RR: 0.33, 95% CI: 0.09–1.21). No difference was observed in injury incidence during punts between the two seasons, and the distribution of confounding factors was largely uniform across seasons.

The observed decrease in injuries occurring during kickoffs was likely directly attributable to the Free Kick rule amendments, principally from the increased frequency of touchbacks. The absence of a significant change in head injuries during kickoffs was unexpected, but may be attributable to small sample size. Despite the injury rate reductions, the rule changes likely had little effect on player safety during active gameplay.