Just to clarify a few things, the onside kick rule changes were kickoff rule changes made in the name of safety on normal kickoffs. The impact to onside kicks was simply a consequence of those rule changes, and why they have been toying around with kickoff alternatives over the last two off-seasons. The leading proposal has been from the scoring team to get a 4th and 20 from their own 25, but ideally the down and distance would be adjusted over time to match a ~10% success rate.
Second, the impact to onside kicks has actually been much more severe when you look at just the expected onside kicks. No team won a game in either 2018 or 2019 (0-104) when they were forced to try an expected onside kick. Something does need to change to make comebacks more likely as the game is most exciting when there's a small chance of a surprising finish.
Lastly, in the meantime posters need to be aware of the difficulty of onside kicks and factor that into their opinions about prevent/soft defenses and fourth quarter garbage time offensive stats. If we have to try an onside kick then we weren't really that close in the game in the first place, and if our opponent has to try an onside kick then they didn't "almost win it." Milking the clock in the 4th quarter is more effective right now than it is has ever been in NFL history.
