We got our first regular season look at the new NFL kickoff rules in the Eagles’ 34-29 win over the Packers in Brazil, and at one point in the first half Green Bay squibbed the ball into the corner to hold the Birds at the 16-yard line. Was that the plan? Special teams coordinator Michael Clay isn’t so sure:

“I don’t think they were planning on doing that squib. I think it was more Brayden (Narveson) being a little bit nervous, first-game jitters, but it worked out in their favor, and I think as time goes on and the seasons change and it gets a little bit colder that teams will do that, but you are kind of gambling a little bit. You saw in the Arizona-Buffalo game that it didn’t get to the 20, and you give a potent offense like that the 40-yard line, you’re a 1st down and a half away from a field goal. It all depends on who we’re playing against, what we’re game planning, things of that nature.

Clay is referencing a sequence in the Cardinals/Bills game in which a kick did not fall in the “landing zone,” which means that it’s automatically placed inside the 40.

Shawn Syed at Sumer Sports pulled the all-22 clip of the Packers’ kick, and you see it bounce twice. Kenny Gainwell has to run over and knock it down, and gets minimal yardage on the return:

The new kickoff has felt a little boring so far, or maybe “anticlimactic” is the right word. When you have a bunch of guys standing still and waiting for the ball to hit, that feels antithetical to a football play. Football is about movement. It’s about guys “flying around out there,” as meathead coaches like to say. It’s not about immobility. Feels weird. But maybe as the season progresses we see these wrinkles, these strategic adjustments within the new rules. Maybe they happen by design, or teams stumble upon them accidentally.