Last night the NFL season officially kicked off as the first five preseason games were played.

The Chargers looked good despite getting beat by the Seahawks. (But who cares? Who doesn’t look good?)

What caught my attention was two new rule changes that were made sometime before the season started.

The first was moving the kickoff to the 35 yard line and the second change was reviewing every touchdown.

Starting with the modification to the kickoff:

The reason professional football has overtaken the MLB as the most popular sport in the states is because of the excitement and high scoring.

With the change to the kickoff they have taken away one of the more exciting parts of the game. The kick return.

Anybody that isn’t a Browns or Bears fan is lying if they tell you they watch the games for any reason other then Josh Cribbs and Devin Hester.

To be honest I cannot remember when these changes were made or the reasoning behind them—I’m guessing before the lockout and to improve safety on kickoffs.

I am not a fan of this change, it reduces the chance of a great return to almost nothing and there are other ways to make the game safer.

You can see that stats from kickoffs on the 35 yard line. (Image courtesy of ESPN’s twitter page)

(Second half of the article is below the picture.)

The second change was the new process of reviewing every scoring play.

I like this idea in theory, but not how it has panned out.

It’s a great idea because there are a lot of touchdowns that are close enough to be looked at, but not worth it for the coach to us a challenge flag.

The problem is, the amount of time it takes to review the play. They need to figure out a way to streamline the process. Otherwise they are just making the game longer looking at plays that will stand (most of the time).