Kansas City Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub likely raised some eyebrows Thursday when he mentioned how the team might not use kicker Harrison Butker for kickoff duties thanks to the new rules. During Thursday’s organized team activities session, safety Justin Reid and running back Louis Rees-Zammit — a former rugby player — executed kickoffs in place of Butker.
Toub’s reasoning? Kickers could be more involved in tackling this season. The special teams coach would prefer not to put Butker in harms way given his value kicking field goals. Plus, he’d like to have a better tackler in on the play if possible.
“I’d like to have somebody go back and is able to make a tackle,” Toub said in a news conference. “Butker is able to make a tackle, but I really don’t want him making tackles all year long. If you watched the XFL, we watched every play, I bet kickers were involved in at least 25 to 40 percent of the tackles either trying to make a guy bounce back or making a tackle or just missing a tackle. We don’t want Butker in that situation.”
Toub said he knows Butker can boot the ball out the back of the end zone, but the team would give up more field position now because an opposing team starts at its own 30-yard line on touchbacks.
“Justin can kick … and he can go down there and make tackles,” Toub said. “He’s an extra guy that they’re probably not accounting for. They know that guy (a kicker) can go down and tackle, but a guy like Justin is a guy that they have to worry about. They have to get him blocked, and they have to give up blocking somebody else.”
Entering his 24th season, Toub is one of the NFL’s best and most experienced special teams coordinators. When Butker sustained a high-ankle sprain on his left ankle in the opening game of the 2022 season, Toub turned to Reid, who made an extra point attempt in the Chiefs’ victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
Reid, a seven-year veteran, enjoys having the role of being the team’s emergency kicker or punter. Even during training camp the past two years, Reid has worked on his kicking techniques if needed for a field goal, extra point or kickoff. Reid is also one of the Chiefs’ best defenders and tacklers when against a ball carrier in the open field.
This possibly more than hypothetical scenario comes on the heels of Butker’s controversial statements during a commencement speech at Benedictine College, referred to Pride Month, the events in June demonstrating inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community, as an example of the “deadly sins” as he advocated for a more conservative brand of Catholicism.
Butker also used the speech to criticize President Joe Biden on several issues, including abortion and the coronavirus pandemic, and questioned Biden’s devotion to Catholicism. Butker also addressed gender ideologies and said a woman’s most important title is “homemaker.”
The Chiefs kicker said last week he doesn’t have any regrets about his commencement address saying in his first public comments since the speech that he received “a shocking level of hate” but also support for his views.
“It’s a decision I’ve consciously made and one I do not regret at all,” Butker said at the Regina Caeli Academy Courage Under Fire Gala in Nashville, Tenn.
The NFL distanced itself from the kicker’s comments and the Benedictine Sisters denounced the speech once the comments became widespread news. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he didn’t agree with all of Butker’s speech comments, but the kicker is ‘a good person.’ Tight end Travis Kelce said, “I don’t think that I should judge him by his views.”
