Donald Trump has started tuning into NFL games two minutes late just to avoid watching the kickoff. While he still loves the sport itself, he finds one modern rule change so offensive and unglamorous that he actively tunes out the opening play.
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“Who the hell wants to watch football? It’s boring as hell,” Trump slammed the league in a video shared by famed journalist Aaron Rupar on X. “And I hate that new kickoff rule where you hit the ball, and the people are standing there like a bunch of idiots… The NFL should go back to a thing where you kick the ball, people get the ball, everybody’s running. It is so unglamorous what they’ve done to the kickoff rule. And it doesn’t help people. It doesn’t.
“Hopefully, college will never go. What a shame. I can’t watch. You know what I do? I start the game about two minutes in; I don’t want to watch the kickoff. I think it’s so disparaging. They have no right to ruin football by doing s— like that, I tell you.”
The league introduced the new kickoff rule earlier in 2024. And the POTUS has been against it since the beginning. Trump believes the NFL is ruining football because freezing players in place during a kickoff strips away the high-speed drama and traditional pageantry that define the sport. To him, turning one of football’s most explosive plays into a static, regimented drill makes the game feel boring and unrecognizable to fans.
Previously, the kicking teams started at their 35-yard line, and their kicker intended to send the ball as far away as possible. The aim was to give the defense a really good chance of stopping the offense away from the end zone. At the same time, the receiving team tried to move the ball as far as they could down the field. But there was a higher chance of collision, as the two teams usually came at each other at top speed.
As per the new rule, the players line up just a few yards apart and have to stay frozen through the kickoff process. They cannot move until the ball hits the ground or is touched by a returner. The new rule necessitates that every single kick be returned. And if a kicker sends the ball past the landing zone into the end zone, it is ruled a touchback. Meanwhile, kicks falling short of the 20-yard line hand the receiving team prime field position at the 40.
But the POTUS has stood against the new rule since day one.
“I don’t know what they’re doing with the kickoff return in the NFL,” he said in an interview with Outkick’s Clay Travis back in September 2024. “I don’t want to get involved in controversy, of course, but it looks so bad. And I noticed that they hadn’t’ done that in college, and they shouldn’t do it. And I think the NFL should go back.”
About a year later, Trump wrote a lengthy post on Truth Social. Therein, he claimed that it was a “ridiculous” change since it was as dangerous for the players as it was with the old kickoff rule. According to him, football isn’t about keeping the ball moving while the players stand still. He further compared the new kickoff rule with rollback in golf.
President Donald Trump doesn’t want the new kickoff rule to affect collegiate football
Back in November 2025, Trump called the Pat McAfee Show and slammed the dynamic kickoff rule. He believed that it was “demeaning” and hurt the game of football. He claimed that it took away the game’s allure. The POTUS even told Commissioner Roger Goodell that the new rule didn’t make football any safer. After all, the players were still colliding with each other.
But he didn’t want the new rule to come into collegiate football.
“I hope college football doesn’t change, because the power of the kickoff is, we’re so beautiful, and now it, you know, I don’t want to say what it reminds me of, because I’ll get myself into big trouble,” Trump told McAfee. “It is not football, and I have no idea what you guys – you guys may disagree with me. I don’t think it’s going to help.
“It’s so bad. It’s so unromantic, and it just is demeaning to football. I don’t think they have a right to do that to the game,”. The game is so important. I don’t think the people that approve that. I don’t think anybody has the right to do that to the game. And I hope college doesn’t change, and I hope that someday the NFL will stop it and go back to football.”
Three seasons after the NFL overhauled its kickoff format, Donald Trump still refuses to watch players stand frozen on the opening play. For now, Goodell seems to have no plans to reverse the safety-driven rule, even if that pushes the POTUS to skip the first two minutes of the games.