Chargers News: Los Angeles "Fired Up" For This NFL Rule Change

New Los Angeles Chargers special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken spoke with gathered reports earlier this week to unpack his expectations for his portion of the Bolts this fall, per Daniel Popper of The Athletic. Specifically, Ficken revealed that he's optimistic the NFL's kickoff rule could yield up to 70 more kickoff returns a year. Popper notes that returner/wide receiver Derius Davis notched 17 returns last year.

According to CNN's Sam Joseph, the football will still be kicked from the kicking team’s 35-yard line. This time, however, every player on the kicking team who isn't the kicker will have at least a foot on the returning club's 40-yard line. As far as the returning team goes, a minimum of nine players will step into a “setup zone” on its own 35-yard line. As many as two returners will have a foot in the “landing zone," the area between the goal line and the 20-yard line.

“[LA's coverage players are] fired up,” Ficken said. “They want to cover kicks as much as they can.”

Now that there will be just five yards between the kickoff coverage players, different kinds of players could provide value for franchises, beyond the typical speed demons previously most coveted as returners.

“Some of these guys [whose] best trait is running and attacking leverage and attacking angles or attacking the edges of these blockers, that’s eliminated,” Ficken said. “That 25 yards of running, which [is] their best trait, is taken out of the game now. So now you’ve got to be a little bit more creative in how you can get guys free and how you can (use) certain techniques, how we can go ahead and attack. And that’s going to be a lot of a simulations stuff that we’re going to be working on here in OTAs.”