If you can’t recall the last time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers returned a kickoff for a touchdown, that’s fine. It has been a long time.
NFL rule changes for kickoffs, which are due to begin in 2024, might end the Buccaneers’ 14-year streak without a touchdown kickoff return and offer a new, much-needed adjustment to an area of the game that has grown meaningless throughout the league.
“Over the past five seasons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been able to put together some of the best offenses and defenses in the NFL at various points,” writes Rob Leeds of Fansided’s The Pewter Plank blog. “…However, Tampa hasn’t been a perfect team, and a huge issue that persisted even during those great years was a special teams unit that has been below average for over a decade.”
Tampa Bay has had two kickoff returns in franchise history. Michael Spurlock, a former wide receiver and return specialist, owns both, with the first kickoff for a touchdown in Buccaneers history coming in 2007 and the last in 2010. In 2023, NFL teams returned only four kickoffs for touchdowns, the fewest since 1993.
Tampa Bay’s special teams might be among the best in the NFL in 2024, thanks to third-year wide receiver Deven Thompkins, who ranked 14th in the NFL with 16 returns for 327 yards in 2023.
How Will the NFL’s New Kickoff Return Rules Work?
In 2024, ten kickers and at least nine receivers will line up five yards apart and cannot run until the ball is returned to the returner. Only kickers and returners may move before the ball is returned.
Kickers will kick the ball from their own 35-yard line, with the remaining ten members of the kickoff return unit at the opposition 40-yard line. The receiving team’s nine or ten blockers line up on their own 35-yard line. Kicks must land between the 20-yard line and the goal line; kicks that land short or out of bounds send the ball to the receiving team at the 40-yard line. Kicks that go into the end zone for touchbacks land the ball at the 30-yard line.
Deven Thompkins Carved Out New Role for Bucs in 2023
Thompkins, who is 5-foot-8 and weighs 155 pounds, joined the Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent from Utah State in 2022. In his debut season, he appeared in just five games, returning 12 kickoffs for 263 yards and 382 all-purpose yards.
Thompkins established a new role with Tampa Bay in 2023, appearing in all 17 games and leading the team in kick returns and punt returns (25 for 234 yards). Thompkins ended the season with 700 all-purpose yards and one touchdown. On March 5, the Buccaneers signed Thompkins to a one-year contract extension that will pay him $985,000 in 2024.
“Thompkins has been the guy for the Bucs over the past few years and should start as the KR1 based on what we have seen,” Leeds wrote on The Pewter Plank. “But you can rest assured that this competition is going to be much more fierce as teams realize these guys are going to get the ball at an exponentially higher rate with more opportunities than the past few years.”
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