Don't know the real answer. I would love if Fez or someone who perhaps makes their own lines for games might be able to make an estimate of how much adjustment there might be for this factor in what they've seen in pre season or for week 1.
How much should be adjusted is an interesting question? Any answers for that?
I'm going to say perhaps 1.50 points and more for dome stadiums and perhaps the most for Denver. There must also be an extra adjustment for teams that have kick off return men who scored TD at a more frequent rate than other teams.
Please point out any errors but I have heard that kick offs could be as high as 50% touchbacks this year and probably not much lower than 33%. There were only 4 kick off return TD's the year before the kick off moved to the 35.
Denver had the most touchbacks last year so the new rule and the thin air could really make things hard for TD returns and field position after kick offs much closer to the 20 yrd line on average. The average starting position after a kick off I have heard is the 27 yard line so it is expected that will become the 22 yrd line (let's say). I have heard of a "rule of thumb" that position on the 50 yrd line is worth 2 pts and if you were at your goal line it is worth -2 pts (this is only partly related to a safety). So 5 yards of field position might decrease that possession by 0.4 pts for that team.
But when they punt presumably they're giving away on average 5 yards so that the 0.4 pts is made up by the opposition when they have the ball. However, at some point the clock must enter into it that the 2nd possession doesn't have the time to score so that there is some realized decrease in scoring from the field position in that it is longer to score.
And inside 2 minutes when there is a score it seems that 0.4 pts of less likelihood for the team receiving the ball could be precisely realized since that drive will conclude the half or game.
I'm trying to think of a few things that might taper it. Perhaps more returns will be taken out of the end zone than expected so that although there has to be fewer TD's maybe it is not as few as the original change would suggest.
I would think fewer kick offs returned also mean fewer turnovers on kick offs and they seemed to happen quite a bit but I don't know that. That is just visual guessing. But those fumbled kick offs do mean less points from the turnovers that occur when all you do is take the ball at the 20 so that was another decrease but not sure how much that is worth.
I'm guessing Denver is more of an adjustment because of more touchbacks and the fact that if punts are a little longer it will take a little more off the clock on average for the team getting the ball back in better field position to realize a score.
I've also read that Cundiff the Baltimore kicker kicks the ball on average 71 yards a kick off and half his kicks last year were touchbacks.
For an average team my formula is like 0.5 pts for fewer TD's, maybe 0.6 pts for possessions within the 2 minute warning after a score twice a game and just throwing out 0.4 pts for the effect of all other possessions after kick offs backing a team up 5 yards more but if they don't score giving the other team 5 yards back more likely to score but more clock lost.....add in a bigger adjustment for teams that are known to return TD's well or kick off longer or stadiums and places which will back up the average start drive.
Since I don't make up my own totals numbers this is just a theoretical exercise for me and changes nothing that I'm doing.
