Onside kick discussion
 

I brought this up in the MNF thread so I assume it wasn't seen by many.

Teams are going to have to try something different the way onside kicks are done now the odds of recovery is basically zero.

I proposed the idea of the kicker just drilling it as hard as he possibly can right at one of the upmen, no way dude is catching it then you get a live ball deflection.

Any other ideas out there?

Never be behind at the end of a game where an onside kick is necessary.

There's always 13 seconds

Honestly - I'd get one of these female college kickers. Would probably be the best approach

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I don't really think there's much that a team can do at this point. Any changes would have to be with the rules. I'm honestly not entirely convinced it's an issue, though. Sure, they're fun when it works, but arguably if you're in the position where you're resorting to that, you probably don't deserve to win anyway.

They need to eliminate the damn thing entirely. It's not only not safe but it's like the old FG attempt. The play is useless bc it almost never works.

Replace it with one of the following:

1. 55 yard FG to get the ball at own 25 ~ opposing team picks which side of the field the kick occurs.
2. Down and 10 from their own 5 yard line. If you get at least 10 yards you get 1st and 10 with the chance to go 85 yards to score

Most NFL kickers can drain a 55 yarder today without an issue.

I do like the idea of just trying to drill somebody with the ball. Even if it doesn't work it's kind of a nice "**** you" to end the game on.

Option 1 - standard onside kick scrum
Option 2 - bounce it high, or find a way to lift the ball super high on the initial kick, and treat it like a hail mary.
Option 3 - aim for a pocket of space beyond the initial wave of guys and have your fastest player sprint to it.
Option 4 - blast the kick off of a guy and hope for a ricochet.
Option 5 - if they leave a gap in the middle, have your kicker pooch it to himself like Macafee did.

Not sure there are other options.

Regular kickoff goes through the uprights you can keep the ball on your own 10 starting with a 2nd down?

I like setting up for an onside, then popping it up too deep for the hands team to catch, but too short for the deep man to fair catch. Imagine hitting a flop shot in golf, but as a kick, slicing across and underneath the tee.

I've thought about the "drill it at them" strategy before, I think someone tried it once against the Chiefs and the guy in the center of the field basically played dodge ball, it was pretty impressive.

The only other option is some kind of very lofted chip shot, try and get 2 seconds of hang time but with the ball only going a minimal distance and enough time to make it a jump ball for your own team?

Are you allowed a drop kick?

Also, each team is allowed one flashbang to use per kickoff, per year.

They should change the rules where a team can declare an onside kick, which would invalidate fair catches. If the kick then travels more than 20 yards without being touched, it's a 15 yard penalty from where it's recovered.

That would then let a team kick a ball really short and high, essentially turning it into a jump ball.

Oddly, that might increase the recovery too high for the kicking team because it would be 50/50.

One short kick for a woman, one long kick for womankind.

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?

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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

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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.

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Something like that.

Balto - do you even like football?

I feel like NFL Blitz is more your speed...

You should probably stick to trade scenarios for MVS. You're better at those.

That was fun back in the day...

Hmmmm If a team makes it into the net we have to trade them MVS?

Sorry if Q, just saw this and thought it was useful to the discussion

Prior to the rule change, expected onsides kicks were successful about 20% of the time. Now its under 7%

HA been YEARS I've played that game. It's like what the XFL should have been like.

20%? Thats much higher than I would have guessed.

The best fake kick is the Louis Aguilar one where he slapped the ball hard to mimick the kick sound then skied it high like a punt and our receiver just caught it while the other team was waiting to fair catch.

Wouldn’t work on kickoff/onside kick but sure was sweet.

https://youtu.be/gj3ewsLu5bI?si=gtkvWoTVbyjRfC8U

There was a game, I think it was on Sega, where you could inject guys with steroids but if you gave them too many they died. The injuries were brutal; broken necks and fractured sculls. You could Alex Smith dudes.

That game was a trip.

I wish theyd go back to the old rules. It was still a pretty low chance, anywhere from 8-22% but it was a chance. And it was more fun. The NFL claims safety is the issue but I just dont remember guys getting hurt a lot from onside kicks. I could be wrong.

The rule change was about the safety of kickoffs in general, and onside kicks are a specific type of kickoff. You can't really have special rules for onside kicks without forcing a team to somehow declare their intentions, which defeats the purpose of gaining an advantage with the element of surprise.

Was coaching youth football here and tried the kick it at someone on the front line thing a few years ago, it worked but also wasn’t expected and had never seen it done before. I didn’t actually think it would work cause at that age group 12u at the time the accuracy of kickers was pretty bad. That said it did work the first time, tried it again later in the season on an expected play and it failed miserably though.
NFL kickers should be able to locate the ball way better though.

The Chiefs should get to play “Make It, Take It” imo

Teams are forced to declare their intentions on extra points now and that takes away the ability to surprise the other team with a fake. Besides, the onside kick at any time other than end game desperation is extremely rare. Having a team declare is no big deal if what you want to do is give the trailing team some kind of hope at the end.

Was a little surprising to me as well.


Same article said that ‘unexpected’ onsides kicks had a probability of success over 50%, but that might be due to the rarity of tries.

Might as well just eliminate the onsides kick and go with another option.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">No surprises: The new kickoff rule crafted by NFL special teams coordinators would allow teams to attempt an onside kick only when trailing in the fourth quarter — and require them to declare it in advance, per sources.<br><br>Language still being finalized and owners must approve. <a href="https://t.co/HYJKv3EZtP">pic.twitter.com/HYJKv3EZtP</a></p>&mdash; Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/status/1764368269568303291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Ban the tush push....because we won't do it!

If you have to tell the opposition what you are going to do it is just ludicrous and a waste of time.

I guess if a team is going to fake a punt or FG they should have to tell the other team in advance as well.

My proposed new rule is that you declare an onsides kick and kick off with five footballs. One is marked with an X and it's the real one. Whoever recovers it gets the ball at the spot of recovery.

if the Bills proposed it, will it come back and bite them on the ass?

I think it's clear, the NFL just doesn't like kick offs.

So given that, I would just get rid off kick offs. I know its traditional, but rules have been changed before and the NFL has been killing it anyway.

The Chiefs would literally get the ball back every time the scored ROFL 55 yarder ROFL

Andy won't even go for it on say, fourth and five before mid field, so no.

But that rule is problematic because of how some teams would be favored.

So good luck getting the other owners agreeing to it.

train a long time to.try and be able to.do this every single time:

https://youtube.com/shorts/P4kVDGPbf...3Jtj7gR4SFNVF_

So, KC NEVER gives the ball to the other team? Sounds good to me, honestly.

If you really want to get rid of the onside kick, use an icosahedron. Kicking team gets 1 or 2 sides (depending on what the NFL decides) to keep the ball.

The onside kicks that are normally converted happen when the team receiving doesn't suspect the onside will occur. When it's time for the onside in the final 2 minutes to keep the game alive then it's very rarely converted. This new rule will just make the game even more boring because you'll get no successful onside kicks in a whole season and zero chance of a holy shit play like NO did in the Super Bowl. They hate fun.

Can we make it really big, like 20 feet per side, and then each team can push it with 11 players?

They came to some conclusion that the kickoff is the play that results in the most injuries so since then they've done everything they can to limit returns and onside kicks.