So because they cant recover an onside kick(safety excuse is bs) they deserve the ball back automatically????

The whole problem with onside kicks now vs the way they used to be is the fact that the NFL changed the rules for how the kicking team must line up and kick the ball. It's similar to the way they changed the rules for extra point kicks to be kicked from further back, but if you want to go for 2, they set the ball at the 2 yard line, or wherever it is.

Make kickoffs the same way. You have to abide by the new rules if you're going to kickoff normally, but you can declare that you're going to onside kick, in which case you get to play by the old kickoff rules. That would revert the success rate back to what it used to be.

I always wondered why teams don't just kick the ball straight up. Like a ten yard punt with 3 seconds of hangtime.

That was my initial reaction until I remembered that the receiving team could just call a fair catch.

What's the rules on that? I think the rules now say they can only call fair catch inside their own 25.

Years ago the Ravens attempted a drop kick vs KC
https://www.si.com/nfl/chiefs/news/d...%20Toub%20said.

It seems like the chances are zero, but it seems like we fail to recover a lot of them for some reason.

I didn't know that. I assumed you could call a fair catch any time before the ball hit the ground.

That then brings the pop-up kickoff into play as a strategy. It seems like a 50/50 proposition.

I think the rules are fine as they are. If you're down by 2 scores with a minute left you should need a miracle to tie or win the game. I think what a lot of people are failing to grasp here is that by design they have a much higher success rate when the receiving team doesn't know that the onside kick is coming. Teams have the real possibility right now of being rewarded for daring to do one in the first half when the scores are even. It might make good TV if you changed the onside kick rule but it would be damaging to the integrity of the game that more teams get results they absolutely do not deserve.

So easy to fair catch that, though. And man, your window would be tiiiiiiiiny.

As a surprise move? Might be interesting. But in an end-game situation with a hands team out there that can presumably cover a lot of ground, that seems pretty unlikely.

It’s amazing that it’s even a thing. Literally no other professional sport has an arbitrary play at the end of the game that can take a sure loss and give the team a chance to win while offering absolutely no upside to the winning team. Imagine in baseball if, on your last out, you brought out a giant wheel numbered, I don’t know, 1-100 and if the team picks the correct number it lands on then that team gets an extra 3 outs just because. Or if there’s less than 5 seconds left in a basketball game you can just randomly elect that your next possession if you make a shot from beyond half court it’s worth 10 points. Sure, it would bring some excitement I guess, but the point of sports isn’t to maximize chaos for the sake of it, it’s to find out who the better team is. Adding random stuff at the end of the game that does not apply to any other part of it doesn’t do that at all.

What was the success rate before the rules changed? I would assume less than 10%? Maybe less than 5?

Sent from my SM-S906U1 using Tapatalk

You can call a fair catch inside the 25 and you get the ball at the 25 even if you catch it at the 10. You can still fair catch it anywhere outside the 25 and just get the ball where you fair caught it at.

Correct, that's why they bounce it off the tee.

I actually think the way they tried last night is the next way to try, ball on no tee and spinning a ton and seeing what happens will be what kickers try

Sent from my SM-S906U1 using Tapatalk

How about putting a large(but not to large) bucket/Net off the ground but near the goal line out of bounds. If the kicker can kick off and put the ball in the bucket/Net the team gets the ball back!

The downside of trying this? If the kicker misses than of course the kickoff would be considered out of bounds and the returning team gets the ball on the 45 yard line thus making this option only for end game type of thing.

() -------------------- ()

Something like that.