Actually, on punts if the kicking team touches the ball first it is down at that spot, not on kickoffs.
A kickoff (any kickoff) is a live, and free, ball as soon as it goes 10 yards. If you don't field it, the kicking team can grab it, and take posession.
The receiving team never has to touch the ball for the kicking team to field it.
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benjapage wrote:a thought occurred to me as i watched the end of the game last night:
why would the receiving team bother fielding an onside kickoff?
in a normal kickoff, if the kicking team touches the ball first, the ball is down and the possession goes to the receiving team.
does this rule change during an onside kick? if not, why not get all the receiving players out of the way?
i presume the rules must be different, but how are they negotiated? i've seen fake onside kickoffs, so...
just wondering.
b
The XFL made a big deal about how on kickoffs anyone could take the ball, but this has always been an NFL rule. I learned this when playing Madden '02 I think: A kick went over my player's head and he let it bounce for the touchback. But the ball took a bizarre bounce in the endzone and the other team recovered for the touchdown.
Executing this play consistently might be a good reason to have Gatlin on your team...
I wouldn't use madden for rules though. because of that game you get a bunch of idiot eagles fans (and elsewhere I imagine) wondering why if the eagles win the coin toss, they don't choose to kick...
im really surprised some team hasn't found an awesome way to get the onside kick back enough to have it be a viable strategy.
I'd love to see some renegade team that goes for this a lot, and goes for fourth down all the time once past the 50.
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eaglesrule wrote:im really surprised some team hasn't found an awesome way to get the onside kick back enough to have it be a viable strategy.
There's a few reasons why it's hard to recover:
1. The receiving team puts all of their "hands" players there while the kicking team needs hands players and some "blow-up-the-wedge-type" guys.
2. Without being offsides, it's very hard for the kicking team to touch the ball first. They really need it to ricochet off a receiving team guy.
3. There's a lot of chance. The kicker needs to control the bounce perfectly, the receiving team has to bobble it, and the kicking team needs to be where the ball bounces. A lot of luck is involved.
4. If a team starts doing a few onside kicks in regular formation, it might work once or twice. Later, teams will be prepared. Perpetual onside kicks will not work.
it is just very difficult to kick the ball such that it bounces very high and does not go very far or out of bounds.
In NFL Blitz it is a very sound stategy to kick onside everytime because you get about 50% and that game it is so easy to make big plays, the field length does not matter because no one can control the clock and dink and dunk on you.
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by benjapage » Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:51 am 
