Why some NFL coaches are struggling with late-game decisions — SkimNews
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- Indianapolis Colts beat the Texans in Week 3 on a 53-yard field goal by Spencer Shrader with 21 seconds left, but coach Shane Steichen's clock management — running the ball and letting time drain before the final drive — drew scrutiny from analysts.
- NFL kickoff rule changes moving touchback placement from the 25 to the 30 in 2024 and then to the 35 in 2025 have driven a 50%+ increase in drives starting in the final minute of halves that end in a scoring attempt, per the Elias Sports Bureau.
- Field goal attempts of 50-plus yards jumped from 168 in 2020 to 266 in 2025 — a 60% increase — and the league set a record with 12 conversions of 60 yards or longer last season, including Cam Little's 68-yarder, the longest in NFL history.
- A 2025 rule change allowing teams to freely manipulate K-balls during the week — reversing a prior standardization — has coincided with kickers converting 50-plus yard attempts at a 67.7% rate, up from 64.9% across the prior five seasons, and three of the seven longest field goals in NFL history have come since the change.
- Dallas Cowboys lost 34-31 to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 3 after Brandon Aubrey's touchback following the tying field goal gave Baltimore the ball at the 35, setting up Tyler Loop's 56-yard game-winner as time expired.
- There were 49 game-winning drives in the final two minutes of regulation in 2025 — the most since 2000 — and 11 through four weeks of the 2026 season, putting this year on pace to match or exceed that total.
Why it matters: Coaches built decades of late-game philosophy around the assumption that a touchback handed the defense the advantage; with the ball now starting at the 35 and kickers reliably hitting from 55-plus, those conventions are obsolete, and every decision in the final two minutes now carries exponentially more risk — a misjudged clock call or a conservative kickoff can directly cost a team a win, as the Cowboys just learned.
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