‘Watermelon Ball’ gives Vikings’ Matt Daniels a tool to put boring back into NFL kickoff

The Vikings blocked a field-goal attempt and recovered a muffed punt to set up a 15-yard touchdown drive in Sunday’s overtime win at Chicago. So naturally, special teams coordinator Matt Daniels spent most of his 18 minutes with reporters on Tuesday discussing the two big kicks that turned an 11-point lead into a tied game in the final 1:56 of regulation.

Forgive us our sins and journalistic curiosity, Vikings Nation, as some of us ignored the good and went straight to the ugly in our need to know how the heck the Vikings inadvertently injected so much unnecessary excitement into an otherwise lifeless aspect – kickoffzzz – of today’s NFL.

“Obviously, things probably could have been a lot smoother,” Daniels said.

NFL teams have punted 1,841 times this season. Opponents have returned 574. That’s a 31.2% return, which still seems boring unless you buy the NFL’s new and shamelessly self-swallowing “Dynamic Kickoff” rules and how they’ve boosted, at least so far, last year’s record -low 22.1% rate of return.

The Vikings haven’t bought the notion that more returns are a good thing. That’s why their touchback rate is 85.71%. Only the Rams’ rate (88.89%) is higher.

That brings us to Kicking Gaffe no. 1.

Vikings interim kicker Parker Romo, who should be credited with a walkoff 29-yarder to win the game, also nearly helped lose the game when he fumbled the kickoff, only the eighth returned against the Vikings all season.