Getty Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver/return specialist Devin Thompkins.
If you can’t remember the last time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers returned a kickoff for a touchdown, that’s OK. It’s been a long time.
NFL rule changes set to begin in 2024 for kickoffs could very well end the Buccaneers’ 14-year drought without a kickoff return for a touchdown and bring a new, much-needed change to an aspect of the game that has become meaningless across the league.
“Over the past five seasons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been able to put together some of the best offenses and defenses in the NFL at various points,” wrote Rob Leeds of Fansided’s The Pewter Plank blog. “…However, Tampa hasn’t been a perfect team, and a huge issue that persisted even during those great years was a special teams unit that has been below average for over a decade.”
Tampa Bay has just two kickoff returns in franchise history. Former wide receiver/return specialist Michael Spurlock owns both, with the first kickoff for a touchdown in Buccaneers history in 2007 and the last in 2010. NFL teams returned just four kickoffs for touchdowns in 2023, which was the lowest total since 1993.
In 2024, Tampa Bay could find a place as one of the NFL’s best on special teams with a potentially elite return specialist in third-year wide receiver Deven Thompkins, who ranked 14th in the NFL with 16 returns for 327 yards in 2023.
How Will NFL’s New Kickoff Return Rules Work?
In 2024, 10 players on the kicking team and at least nine players on the receiving team will line up just five yards apart and can’t begin running until the ball gets back to the returner. Only kickers and returners can move before the ball is returned.
Kickers will kick the ball from their own 35-yard line with the 10 other members of the kickoff return unit at the opposing 40-yard line. The receiving team’s nine or 10 blockers line up at their own 35-yard line. Kicks must land between the 20-yard line and goal line and kicks that land short or out of bounds give the receiving team the ball at the 40-yard line. Kicks that go into the end zone for touchbacks result in the ball placed at the 30-yard line.
Deven Thompkins Carved Out New Role with Bucs in 2023
Thompkins, who is just 5-foot-8 and 155 pounds, made the Buccaneers’ roster as an undrafted free agent out of Utah State in 2022. In his rookie season, he played in just five games with 12 kickoff returns for 263 yards and 382 all-purpose yards.
Thompkins carved out a new role with Tampa Bay in 2023, when he played in all 17 games and led the team in both kick returns and punt returns (25 for 234 yards). Thompkins finished the season with 700 all-purpose yards and one touchdown. The Buccaneers signed Thompkins to a one-year contract extension on March 5 and he’s due to make $985,000 in 2024.
“Thompkins has been the guy for the Bucs over the past few years and should start as the KR1 based on what we have seen,” Leeds wrote on The Pewter Plank. “But you can rest assured that this competition is going to be much more fierce as teams realize these guys are going to get the ball at an exponentially higher rate with more opportunities than the past few years.”