The League Is Full Of Cowards
Something has been eating away at me for a few years.
Why don’t teams ever try beaning dudes with a hard line drive on onside kicks?
An onside kick is a desperation play by teams who are trying to earn a new possession without having to waste time playing defense. The play is essentially an allowed attempt to exploit the rulebook. If the ball goes ten yards, the kicking team can recover it. The usual play is to kick a weird bouncey kick and hope the chaos caused by an oblong egg-shaped ball causes the other team to fail to recover it. If successful, the kicking team goes right back on offense. The disadvantage is obvious: the receiving team gets the ball in excellent field position, usually just outside field goal range. This is why you only see onside kicks late in games by trailing teams running out of time to score. It’s almost the football equivalent of how losing hockey teams will abandon the net to stick an extra guy on offense. They are already losing, so the risk is deemed worthwhile, because it’s gonna be over for them soon anyway.
It was also a very rare but occasional surprise attack until last season. The Saints notably pulled it off beautifully in the Super Bowl to start the second half, shocking the Colts and earning a free possession. Regretably, this is no longer possible. The new kicking rules that went into effect last year now require teams to announce the intention of an onside kick, and they were only allowed by a trailing team in the 4th quarter. Booo. I read the NFL is looking to open it back up to the entire game, which is better. Announcing it seems like a necessary evil with how players have to line up under the new dynamic kickoff rules, but it should be allowed by either team, at any time.
But enough about that. Onside kicks are low-percentage plays. Extremely low percentage. NFL teams seem to go with the strategy of trying to make the ball go just past the ten-yard barrier for recovery chances, but in pretty much every case it doesn’t matter because the receiving team will have a couple of handsy guys aiming purely to recover it. Kickers try this via little weeny squib kicks or bounce kicks. Sometimes the kicking team gets the luck of the draw and the ball does a weird stupid hop off a receiving guy who wasn’t ready for it. That seems to be the best way to succeed at an onside kick. Have it contact a player, and collect the bounce.
Which finally brings me all the way back to my original question. WHY NOT HOWITZER THAT FUCKER DIRECTLY AT THE FATTEST GUY ON THE OTHER TEAM?
These weeny little baby doinks give the opposing team a lot of time to react and even block for the guy trying to recover. Why give them that chance? BEAN ‘EM. Look for the fattest, biggest, least handsy guy on the opposing unit (or look for a close cluster of guys) and fucking missile that shit right into his torso? It’s hard to recover a line drive. It’s hard to dodge a torpedo. You successfully hit a guy at that range and the chances he catches it are pretty much nil. You are already counting on the chaos of a weird bounce, why not cause the chaos yourself? Be the chaos you wish to see in the world.
I know this can work, because Oregon already did it.
The obvious disadvantage here is kicking it hard and fast gives your guys less time to get to the ball, something the floaty derp kicks allow. The other disadvantage is that it is probably pretty hard to aim a kick well enough to actually hit someone. The good thing I see about this is that if you miss someone with a fastball, the ball goes way farther upfield, is likely still a weird squib kick that someone might fumble or not return well, and the recovering team won’t get as good field position. If you start using the torpedo kick approach, you could actually put receiving teams in a bind. If they cluster their players at the 10 yard marker, that makes them an easier target for beaning. If they decide to spread people out to avoid the beaning risks, that opens the field for a surprise dinky kick to face fewer obstacles. Suddenly to bean or dink is a strategy.
It’s an incredibly low percentage play either way that will only be tried by teams in desperate scenarios. I don’t see why some teams don’t say fuck it and give the missile a try. If you barely have a chance at success, why not make those assholes play dodgeball? If one team can pull it off, it opens the door to a league-wide beaning marathon.
Make it happen. I need this. It would be extremely entertaining. We could rate kickers on their beaning accuracy. Yeah, he’s missed 4 of 10 field goals from beyond 47 yards, but his onside missile strike rate is .42. That’s a weapon.
I have also always had this question. Surely kickers are accurate enough to hit an opponent with the ball from 10-15 yards away. I didn’t know that Oregon had already proved this out.
Make it happen Dan Campbell! He’s just crazy enough to do it.
There’s also the issue that if fatso ducks, you’re screwed. No chance in hell of recovering the onsides if it’s 30+ yards downfield.
Dave Fipp (special teams coordinator) is pretty crazy too, so this could happen.
“Sometimes the kicking team gets the luck of the draw and the ball does a weird stupid hop off a receiving guy who wasn’t ready for it.” Ah yes, the Brandon Bostick.
What makes the Bostick play even better is Jordy Nelson was perfectly set up to catch the ball. Bostick’s job was to block for him but he got stars in his eyes when he saw the ball coming down towards him.
I wonder if you’d be allowed an altered kicking position? Like how you can technically still drop kick a field goal? Maybe a different placement would make it easier? Honestly, this seems like a great idea that would happen once or twice, then everybody would bitch about it and get it canceled at the next owners meeting.
A drop kick would be awesome. Just punt the ball as high as you can and it becomes a 50/50 jump ball.
I would love to see this. Right now it feels like the onside kick is useless. The rule change on overloading one side made it such a low percentage in expected scenarios.
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You try and bean a guy from 15 yards who’s a professional athlete with fast hands, his chances of catching that thing are actually pretty good. I think we as fans underestimate just how freakish these guys are and how quick their hands are.
Remember when Scalabrine did that series where he invited fans on to go 1 on 1 with him on the court, just to demonstrate how far above the average human being a professional athlete really is, and why even the worst players in professional sports are light years ahead of your average fan?
That. I dont think there’s a kicker around who could nail the ball hard enough for them not to have a chance to recover it.
Would they have a good chance to still recover it? Yes. Do I think it would have a slightly higher chance of actually working vs the traditional methods, also yes. Players are amazingly skilled but if they miss it just 5% percent of the time, in line with traditional drop percentages, it still has a higher chance of working out that the hope it rolls 10 yards method.
Sure they’d have a chance at catching it
probably a slightly less chance than they already have at catching the slower doink kicks? I don’t see the critique here. Of course the guy might just catch it. The goal is if you kick it hard enough they might not be able to take the time to position themselves as easily as they would on a slower floaty doink kick
Ignore their odds of catching it, if you’re kicking the ball hard enough for reaction time to matter, and do that often enough, *they’re just going to duck* and let it sail past for a while, with the fielding players being able to turn and chase it down much easier (assuming it doesn’t bounce out of bounds).
Also, even if they try to catch it and fail and just knock it down…….. okay? You didn’t give your team much time to get across the 10 yards, so now they’ve got a couple seconds to fall on it before you’ve got anyone around that can get to it.
The standard onside kick is designed to bounce along long enough so that it hits the required distance at the same time as your teammates get to it. A harder kick would give the receiving team more time to fall on it.
The Lions did a Fuck You kick against the Bills last year and came inches away from recovering it
The NFL has completely screwed up the kicking game.
In addition to the aforementioned HEY WE’RE GOING TO DO AN ONSIDE KICK formation, there’s also the HEY WE’RE GOING FOR THE 2-POINT CONVERSION formation.
No chance for any chicanery. Chicanery = chaos = fun!
Solution for the onside kick: dump the Dynamic Kickoff. No one likes (nor understands) it.
Solution for allowing sneak 2-point conversions: go back to lining up at the 3-yard-line for all PAT attempts.
If the NFL wants the the PAT kicks to not be automatic, RAISE THE CROSSBAR. Putting the crossbar 15-20 feet up would not only make the PATs more difficult, but would also cut down on the 60-plus-yard field goal attempts and make teams actually earn yardage…
Raising the crossbar would reduce the mega-bomb 60-yard FGs, but what would that do for PATs from the 3? When was the last time you ever saw a kick from that range miss (or even come close to missing) due to lack of *height?* Most NFL FG attempts inside the 20 pass closer to the tops of the goalposts than the crossbar, misses at that range are almost always shanks.
I’d be curious to see what crossbar height the next-gen stats guys would come up with. I’m sure someone could come up with a height X that meets the desired extra-point percentage Y. If it is indeed near the top of the goal post, maybe that crossbar is only for PATs.
I just want sneaky stuff to line up in the same formation as “regular” plays.
I played soccer for the first 15 years of my life and kicked a football for 4 of those years. It is a kick that has been deployed before and it has worked if the idea is hit the first line of defense. I would say it’s more of a gimmick onside kick; can my kicker hit a spot (person). Yes a good kicker can do that a good percent of the time. That said you are playing an unforgiving bounce that most likely based on the force of the kick the bounce could leave very good field position. That said I can see it being used more than it is except in the pro where the ball has to fall pat the 20 yard line and before the end zone I think
I think that was the most I’ve laughed at one of these from just the drawing.
But seriously – 4th and some long distance would be way better than any of this. Make it a low percentage *skill* play, not dumb luck.
I absolutely agree
I also think that MLB teams need one guy on their roster to mostly sit on the bench, and his only ability is to read whatever pitch is being thrown and shotgun it straight back at the pitcher’s head, for situations where the other team has just thrown inside at your best hitter, give him a little headhunting of his own
I think its best chance at working is via surprise. If it becomes a common technique, teams will prep for it and it won’t be effective.
For one, you have to hit the guy. I’m not sure what the chances of that are for an NFL kicker. 50%?
Next, the opponent can’t catch it. This is where the surprise comes in. Someone who suspects it coming might catch it 75% of the time, but someone who doesn’t probably will only catch it 20%. This also depends on how hard it’s kicked — a light kick will be easy to catch, but a real boot will be a lot harder.
Then finally, you have to get a favorable bounce off the opponent. This seems like the hardest part. Only a clean hit and bounce will go more than a couple of yards, giving you a real chance at recovery. If the opponent gets a hand on it, the ball will probably just fall and be easy for them to collect.
So it does seem like long odds, but definitely worth trying every now and then!