Former President Donald Trump criticized the NFL‘s new kickoff rule this season, saying the league should not have messed up what was already working.
Trump: “I hated seeing the NFL return to kickoff.” Posted in Truth Social Sunday morning. “I saw it at the Steelers/Jets game tonight. Don’t ‘fiddle’ with something when it works. You might end up getting nothing!”
erase I stopped because of the game I arrived midway through the first quarter between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets on Sunday in Pennsylvania and watched the game from my stadium suite.
that New NFL Kickoff Rules It includes a number of changes aimed at making kickoffs safer for players and expediting kickoff returns.
The kicker kicks the ball from his own 35-yard line, but his teammates now line up with one foot on the opponent’s 40-yard line.
Additionally, players on the kicking team may not move the ball until it touches another player, the ground in the end zone, a designated “landing zone,” or the end zone.
Nine of the receiving team’s players must line up between their own 30- and 35-yard lines, and seven of them must have their feet on the 35-yard line. Players in this setup zone cannot move until the ball touches the ground or a player in the landing zone or end zone.
Here is the list: Full set of rules.
In general, these rules reduce the amount of high-speed contact between players on the kicking team and players on the receiving team. These plays have historically resulted in a disproportionate number of injuries.
to Football podcast ‘Bussin’ with the Boys’ Trump also addressed his distaste for the rules, calling them “ugly.” He also added that he used to play football casually, but it wasn’t for him.
“I lift weights all day and I didn’t particularly like it when some guy from a bad neighborhood approached me,” he said on the podcast last week. “It wasn’t high-level football, but I didn’t really like it.”
Trump has a long relationship with professional soccer, having once been the owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals.
A Steelers fan stormed the stadium holding a pro-Trump sign during the third quarter of the game and disrupted the game. Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, was also appointed by President Trump as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom during his administration.
