Announcers said teams have the option to move the ball back 5 yards? I thought that sounded wrong.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

a little confusing. I know new rule states kickoff from 35 & players line up 5 yards back (not 10). Bears opposed the rule change. Now what is confusing is what the announcers said (teams have a choice) and what the Bears did & are trying to "say" by purposely kicking off from the 30. With the one penalty by Hurd, they ended up kicking off from the 25 (initial kick at 30...5 yard penalty). So did the refs not know what was going on? Is this a way of protesting from the Bears? If it is....the Bears now should simply get an automatic penalty by lining players up beyond the 5 yard limitation...get the 5 yard penalty and kickoff from the 30 anyway. They could do this for the next pre-season game if they really wanted to make a big point out of it. I'm not sure it would prove anything...but if it makes the Bears feel good about themselves...then so be it.

For the record....I don't like the rule change either. I'll be interested to see how many more touchbacks there this season compared to last.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

Bears' Toub defends decision to kick off from 30-yard line

By Brad Biggs

Tribune reporter

1:41 PM CDT, August 15, 2011


BOURBONNAIS -- The Chicago Bears had approval in advance from the NFL office during the offseason to kick off from the 30-yard line in preseason before they discovered Saturday night that the league didn’t want them deviating from the new rule.

In a somewhat controversial move, the competition committee pushed through a new rule for this season that moves kickoffs from the 30- to the 35-yard line in an effort to reduce the number of injuries that occur on those plays.

Robbie Gould used the 30-yard line as his starting point for the first two kickoffs Saturday at Soldier Field in the 10-3 victory over the Buffalo Bills. After that, the NFL office communicated with officials at the stadium and informed the team that such a move was a no-no.

Before the game, the referee and officiating crew told the Bears it was OK, and the team also informed Bills coach Chan Gailey, who had no issue with it.

“We talked to the NFL beforehand during the offseason and they said it was going to be OK. So that’s why we did it,” Toub explained Monday at training camp.

“I guess it came down from New York. They got word that we can’t kick from the 30 and then we just went back to the 35 after that. We thought we could do it. We thought we were clear with it. We told the officials ahead of time that is what we were going to do. They were fine with it. That’s why we kicked from the 30. We were just trying to evaluate our kickoff team. You don’t get any evaluation when you kick touchbacks. That’s what preseason is for -- it’s about evaluation and finding who can cover kicks. That’s all we were trying to do.”

The new rule is vague in that it doesn’t specify the ball has to be kicked off from the 35. A five-yard penalty, of course, would move a club back to the 30.

Other than the unwanted attention over the rule, Toub was pleased with the way his unit performed. Johnny Knox had a 70-yard kickoff return and coverage units were solid. He was also pleased with the effort of Kahlil Bell, who made a mark at running back as well.

“We consider him a four-phase starter,” Toub said. “The third running back has to be that.”

That right there could be why Bell gets a leg up on Chester Taylor for a roster spot.