How New Kickoff Changes Impact Raiders K Daniel Carlson

Las Vegas Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson and the rest of the NFL kickers are all adapting to the new kickoff rules.

Las Vegas Raiders place kicker Daniel Carlson (2) warms up before of a regular season NFL football matchup Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022 at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Jaguars held off the Las Vegas Raiders 27-20. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union] Jki 110622 Raiders Jags Cp 98 / Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA

Las Vegas Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson has been one of the best at his position over the past few seasons.

One major part of Carlson's game -- the kickoff -- is going to take a big turn this upcoming season with the new kickoff rules.

But Carlson is ready for it.

"He [Carlson] loves it," said Raiders special teams coordinator Tom McMahon when he addressed the media on Tuesday. "It's competitive. He's competitive. He wants to beat the returners every single day. 'I'm going to go out there, and I want to be 10-for-10 if we have 10 kickoffs. I don't want them to touch the ball, I want it to go into the end zone, and I want to get a 20-yard line drive start. Or I want them to have to come up and it hits and rolls and we're going as the ball's on the ground, give that kickoff team an advantage.' But he loves the challenge."

With these new rules, the objective is no longer going to be to boot the ball out of the end zone; it's going to be about how quickly the ball lands. Despite this new goal, Carlson and his fellow kickers will be used to having to execute these types of kicks.

"These guys have all this stuff in their repertoire from before," McMahon said. "Yeah, you would hit line drives before in certain situations, you would hit balls to the 1 versus balls that are short, which we used to call mortars. So, it's all there, it's just -- it's a different gig now knowing that they're going to return every single one."

Carlson is already going on his seventh year in the NFL. To have to adjust to new rules late in his career may be difficult, but as a veteran who has seen it all, it may just be easier to adapt than it would be for younger kickers.

As McMahon said, these kicks will be nothing new to Carlson and the rest of the kickers in the room. They have practiced them; it's just going to come down to consistently executing them every game.

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