SAVE THE ONSIDE KICK!

It was the year 1921 that changed the fate of football forever. In a game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and University of Georgia Athenians (they were not named the Bulldogs, yet, and personally Athenians sounds cooler than the generic high school football team name of “Bulldogs.”) the Commodores, down by a touchdown, attempted and recovered a 25-yard onside kick for a touchdown to tie the game. That was the first written documentation of an onside kick in football history. It would be hard to believe that the onside kick would die in everything but in name 97 years later.

In recent NFL football history, there have been two monumental, game changing, onside kicks and both would be ruled illegal by today’s NFL rules. The first, which could arguably be the play that changed the game, occurred in Super Bowl XLIV in which the New Orleans Saints, who were down 10-6 at the opening kickoff of the third quarter, surprised the Indianapolis Colts by attempting and recovering an onside kick. The Saints would not only make history in winning their first Super Bowl but would also be the first onside kick to be attempted before the fourth quarter in Super Bowl history. The Saints referred to this play as “Ambush.” The second notable onside kick also occurred in the NFL postseason. During the 2015 NFC Championship Game in which late in the fourth quarter, with the Seattle Seahawks trailing the Green Bay Packers 19-14, the Seahawks opted to attempt an onside kick. Steven Hauschka’s, kicker for Seattle, kick would bounce off the facemask of Packer’s tight end Brand Bostick and into the arms of a Seattle player. The Seahawks would go on to score a touchdown and eventually win the NFC Championship and head to the Super Bowl. If the Seahawks would have failed to recover the onside kick, it is almost certain that Green Bay would have represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.

These were exciting and game changing moments that must be discussed when sports historians go back to recap each respective game. However, both plays can never be replicated again due to NFL kickoff rule changes which took effect in 2018. So, for instance, the onside kick used by the Saints would be illegal because the players on the kickoff team had a running start before the kick. Seattle’s onside kick would also be deemed illegal for both the kickoff team having a running start before the kick and the fact that players were not distributed evenly on either side of the kicker. There were four players to Hauschka’s left, while six to his right.

Over the past decade the amount of onside kick attempts was steadily increasing and reaching its climax in 2015, but then steadily declined and has continued to do so at a rapid pace through the current 2019 season. Surprisingly the amount of onside kick recoveries has steadily hovered around eight until, as expected with the rule changes, in 2018 in which the recoveries dropped to 4 (out of 53 attempts a whopping 8% recovery rate) and, so far, zero recoveries through week 6 of the 2019 NFL season.

The NFL’s reasoning for changing the rules of kickoffs is to limit the amount of serious injuries that result from kickoffs. This, to everyone but Donald J. Trump, makes a lot of sense. Having full grown ogres of men rushing at high speeds into each other can likely cause serious injuries. Ironically, the NFL did not get rid of the kickoff entirely because of, not in spite of, the need to preserve the onside kick. However, and as the graph has shown, the rule changes have caused the chances of recovering an onside kick to disappear. Realistically the only way that a kicking team could conceivably recover an onside kick is to hope that a player on the receiving team fails to catch the ball and in turn, the kicking team recovers. This is essentially what happened in the 2015 NFC Championship game. Also, the rules eliminate an element of surprise that the Saints took advantage of when they ran their “Ambush” play.

Ladies and gentlemen The Cornercube has deemed the onside kick to be officially listed on the “NFL Extinct Play Watch List!” This play is on life support if not already brain dead. The onside kick is not nearly as extinct as the “wedge block” (which is outlawed for safety reasons that everyone can understand but Donald J. Trump) but more extinct than the fullback position. So, just like the World Wildlife Fund wants to save the Iberian Lynx, The Cornercube wants to save the onside kick. The most obvious solution is to maintain the current kickoff rules, but only require the ball to travel 5 yards instead of ten before the kicking team is permitted to touch the ball. This would allow the kicking team to get closer to the ball sooner, and also maintain the safety rules that were instated in 2018. A similar, but slightly different idea was introduced by Deadspin’s writer, Drew Magary, who suggested move the receiving team back five yards. In the end both suggestions maintain what the NFL had substantially before, while not compromising the safety initiatives or the excitement that comes about with the onside kick. Magary best summarizes what these onside kick revisions would accomplish: “I want what I had. I want nervous hands teams. I want kickers going into the laboratory and experimenting with the Rabona, conspiring with special teams coaches to get the maximum amount of both bounce and chaos from drubbing a ball off the turf.”

Both solutions maintain the onside kick play, and in turn preserve a piece of football lore. However, if the kickoff is on the decline and the fear of injuries is causing hesitancy in altering the kickoff rules, should the onside kick be replaced with an all or nothing “fourth down play?” This has been discussed before and has even been thrown out there by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Essentially to maintain possession of the ball, when a kickoff would have occurred, the “kicking team” (in this case the offense) would have to convert a 4^th and 15 play or fourth and 20 from their own 25-yard line. If the offense makes this all or nothing down, they get to maintain their drive, but if they fail the “receiving team” (defense) would assume possession. This idea was tried in the now defunct Alliance of American Football (“AAF”). Mike Florio, from NBC’s Pro Football Talk, summarized what the AFF attempted, “if a team trails by 17 or more points or if the team that just scored trails by any amount with fewer than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, that team can choose to try to convert a fourth-and-12 play from its own 28. If the team gains 12 or more yards in that one play, it keeps possession. If it doesn’t, the other team takes possession.”

There is only one guarantee and that is the NFL must do something to fix the onside kick. It’s not too late to save it! Do it for the Athenians!