Kicks

This is an excerpt from a New York Times blog written by Toni Monkovic. I was in awe at such obsure rules of such a mainstream game. Anyway, enjoy.

Those who made it this far may remember Doug Flutie’s successful drop kick for an extra point last season – the first one in the N.F.L. in 64 years. Another rare play almost came out of the N.F.L.’s attic Sunday. Arizona was planning to try a 77-yard free kick after a fair catch at its 33 on a St. Louis punt with no time remaining.
A free kick, a variation of a field goal, can be taken on any fair catch, and a half or a game can’t end on a fair-catch punt. Arizona never had its chance because of an offsides penalty on the punt, and St. Louis won, 16-14. The N.F.L. record for a field goal is 63 yards, so how could Arizona have pulled it off?

Arizona was counting on the strong leg of Neil Rackers, a Pro Bowler who led the league in field goals last season with 40 (with only two misses). He would not have faced a rush. The kick would have been from the spot of the fair catch, not the usual 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Rackers would have had a full run-up to the ball, instead of the typical three steps for a field goal. The holder would have held the ball on the ground and the rest of the Cardinals would have lined up for a kickoff.

Arizona Coach Dennis Green lamented that “we didn’t get an attempt at a miracle kick by the best kicker in the game.”

Rackers told The East Valley Tribune in Arizona: “It could have happened. I would have loved a chance, but there would have been about a 5 percent chance the ball could have gone through. You can use your field goal steps, or your kickoff steps, and we would have been using every bit of our kickoff steps to get it there. It would probably have to bounce off the bar to be good.”

The last team to convert a free kick was Chicago against Green Bay in 1968. Last season, Tennessee’s Rob Bironas missed a 58-yard attempt at the end of the first half against Houston.

“We have to work on it with Rob,” Titans Coach Jeff Fisher said at the time. “He took the field goal approach, and we have to get more comfortable taking the kickoff approach so he can drive the ball a little further.”
According to Wikipedia.com, a fair-catch kick has been attempted four times in the last 42 years. Two noteworthy excerpts from Wikipedia on opportunites when free kicks were passed up:

Detroit Lions vs. Baltimore Colts, November 25, 1965. Tied at 24-24, the Lions fair caught a punt on the Baltimore 42 with 24 seconds left. However, they inexplicably decided to attempt a 50-yard FG from scrimmage rather than the 42-yard free kick; Wayne Walker’s attempt was low, nearly blocked, and came up short. The game ended in a 24-24 tie.

Dallas Cowboys vs. Atlanta Falcons, September 20, 1999. Wayne McGarity fair caught a punt on the Atlanta 47 with no time left in the first half. Dallas coach Chan Gailey knew of the rule, and had specifically instructed McGarity to fair catch the punt if it was inside the 50, but Gailey forgot that he would be able to attempt the kick with no time left on the clock. Instead, the Cowboys went to the locker room.

One additional note: Mason Crosby, Colorado’s all-American kicker, routinely kicks the ball through the uprights on kickoffs, drawing cheers from the home crowd. But two things help account for that: The air is thinner in Colorado, and college players kick off from the 35-yard line. In 1974, the N.F.L. moved kickoffs to the 35-yard line (from the 40-yard line) to reduce touchbacks, and in 1994, the kickoff was moved farther back, to the 30-yard line.