Kicking the tires on an NFL rouge
What if American teams got a point for putting the ball through uprights on kickoffs?
Maybe it’s time American football had its own rouge, its own one-point play beyond the conversion kick.
Not on every touchback, just whenever a kickoff sails over the crossbar and between the uprights.
It’s an idea that has been discussed quietly for years — by kickers, mostly.
I wrote about it in October after seeing a kickoff in the Oct. 16 San Francisco-at-Buffalo game sail over the crossbar.
Is the idea feasible? Is it fair? How often can even strong-legged kickers reach the crossbar? Are there enough kickers around who could do it regularly? And is the idea just too silly?
When I wrote about it in October, I listed seven quick considerations and promised a deeper dive into the issue. This week, I spoke with the NFL’s only current kickoff specialist (Buffalo’s Jordan Gay) and with arguably the most respected special-teams coach in NFL history (the retired Mike Westhoff ), as well as a couple of other league sources.
Gay and Westhoff aren’t exactly on the same page.
“I don’t like it at all. I just don’t,” said Westhoff, an NFL special-teams coach for 30 years before retiring in 2013.
“It’s gimmicky. But there are some parts of it that have merit.”
But Gay said: “Kickers have talked about it in every level I’ve been at. You know, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool?’ I’ve kicked it between the uprights a couple of times. It’d be nice to be rewarded for it.”
The one-point kickoff has never been formally proposed by any NFL club or endorsed by the competition committee. But in their annual off-season brainstorming sessions, committee members have addressed and analyzed all manner of kicking-game suggestions.
Here, then, are pertinent issues to be considered:
MORE TOUCHBACKS, FEWER HIGH-SPEED COLLISIONS
Nothing is more important, the NFL keeps telling us, than the safety of its players. And the most dangerous play in U.S. football is the kickoff. — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES
The reason the league is experimenting this year with the ball coming out after a touchback to the 25 instead of to the 20 is to incentivize touchbacks. Fewer returns, fewer injuries.
But, as with touchbacks, with onepoint kickoffs the ball still would take so long to arrive that there’d be injuries yet, as coverage teams would still have to cover with maximum effort. So many of the most dangerous full-speed collisions still would take place — just not those that come after the returner catches the ball and leaves the end zone.
A MORE MEANINGFUL PLAY
The kickoff is the most meaningless, missable play in the NFL — made worse because on TV, they’re usually bookended by commercials. Most kickoffs are touchbacks — 63 per cent so far this season.
HELLO, NINE-POINT TOUCHDOWNS
Traditionalists would surely kick up a huge fuss if the NFL’s scoring model got kicked upside down like this. The chance at a nine-point touchdown would be born — six points from crossing the goal-line, two from a scrimmage conversion and a single from the ensuing kickoff.
Thus, if you’re down 17 or 18 points you’d only be down two scores, not three as now.
IS IT FAIR FROM STADIUM TO STADIUM?
Some stadiums are domed, so wind is never a factor. Most aren’t domed, so wind can play a huge role.
Northern teams face cold, wintry conditions late in the season. Florida, Arizona and West Coast teams don’t. Footballs don’t travel as far in the cold.
Denver is at altitude — more than 5,000 feet above sea level — and footballs travel farther through thinner air.
“I kicked in Denver once,” Gay said.“And then I kicked in Mexico when I was in college. The elevation was pretty high there (more than 1,000 feet higher than Denver). It definitely makes a difference.”
Westhoff, therefore, said the Broncos would have “an unbelievable advantage.”
Well, that’s undoubtedly true — on a full-season basis; their kicker could lead the league in one-pointers.
But within each game, there’d be no advantage. Both teams’ kickers face the same conditions in each game, in Denver or anywhere.
ARE THERE 32 KICKERS WITH A STRONG ENOUGH LEG TO REGULARLY DO IT?
“No, there absolutely are not,” Westhoff said, “because you’re looking at a 75-yard kick to get through the uprights.
“There are some who can do it. When you get wind and you get some situations, sure. But under a lot of circumstances, no. Believe me. Most of these guys are running up to the ball and they’re already striking it with everything they have in their pants.”
ISSUE FOR KICKERS WOULD BE TRAJECTORY.
“It would definitely change the way we kick the ball off,” said Gay. “You’d see a lot more low, driven balls. With me, that’s not my forte. I’m kind of a hang-it-high kicker to give our coverage the best opportunity to get down there and make a play.”
And as Westhoff noted, it’s 75 yards from the kicking team’s 35-yard line to the back line of the end zone. The crossbar is directly over that line, 10 feet off the ground. So to clear the crossbar the ball must be at minimum 11 feet off the ground when it’s 75 yards from where it was kicked.
HOW OFTEN COULD A STRONG-LEGGED PLACEKICKER OR KICKOFF SPECIALIST DO IT?
“For me, maybe three out of 10,” Gay said. “It would depend. There would be a lot of factors that would go into it.”
“My guess, right off the top of my head,” Westhoff said, “would be two out of 10 for the strongest kickers.”
IS IT TOO GIMMICKY?
That’s completely subjective — and relative. For instance, the punishment 115 years ago for some routine penalties in American football, such as a forward lateral? Turnover. A generation or two ago in the college ranks, goalposts were ridiculously wider. And until as late as 1973, goalposts in the NFL were situated on the goal-line. No one would stand for any of that goofy stuff today. The, um, point being, things change in football, sometimes in stark ways.