Mike Tannenbaum told Michael Kay of 1050 ESPN Radio in New York that the team is behind the new kickoff rules as per our friends at Sports Radio Interviews:
Do you like this new kickoff rule?
"We do. We supported it. We did for a few reasons. First, player safety is always paramount to us. As you would think there should be more touchbacks, therefore fewer kickoffs, but with that said it still leaves really exciting play in the game cause there won’t be all touchbacks. Certainly as the year goes on in the northeast I would expect they’ll be fewer touchbacks as the year goes on. But for the course of the season there should be a few less. To look at it one way is obviously you have a good kicker returner, Brad Smith, and certainly that’s a factor, but the other side of it to is Coach [Rex] Ryan is a defensive coach hopefully from a covering standpoint we’ll put more teams at the 20 [yard line]."
The Jets are better equipped than pretty much any other team for any kind of rules governing kickoffs because they have Mike Westhoff.
I am also sure they are less than devastated over the way this negatively impacts the value of kick returners who might be seeking contracts (cough, Brad Smith).