Onside kick -- what was the plan?

maineman209 said:

Another idea for a trick onside kick ...

The kicker places the ball on the tee, turns his back to it to start stepping off his distance, then "slips" and "accidentally" propels the ball 6-7 yards into the neutral zone. The kicker says "Awww, ****!", laughs and hollers at an opposing player, "Hey! A little help?"

The unsuspecting opposing player graciously picks up the ball and tosses it back to the kicker.

Of course, there's stuff that the refs do before the kick that would prevent this from ever happening, but it's still kinda fun to envision. Some idiot Hollywood director will probably try to use it in a movie, though.

Click to expand...

Find out which player on the receiving team has a germ phobia, sneeze on the ball and kick it to him.

tasmlab said:

Rule question: I know the ball has to travel 10 yards before the kicking team can try to get it, does the receiving team also have to wait 10 yards or can they grab it anytime?

FWIW, nearly every play looks bad when it doesn't work.

Click to expand...

Well, the kicking team can recover within 10 yares if it touches an opposing player. Receiving team can get it at any time.

This was most likely a Joe Judge idea

TommyBrady12 said:

This was most likely a Joe Judge idea

Click to expand...

poor judgement.
.

TommyBrady12 said:

This was most likely a Joe Judge idea

Click to expand...

Maybe.

Seems doubtful that he'd implement it without BB's go-ahead.

Tony2046 said:

Sure. Just thought it was interesting.

Click to expand...

Yeah, if the damn ball had a symmetrical shape and didn't look like a miniaturized version of the Goodyear Blimp, it would probably be possible to replicate successful onside kicks on a consistent basis.

When you think about it, it was remarkably innovative of Pop Warner to take advantage of the shape of the ball to enable the development of the Forward Pass at all (according to the early Rules of Football, there was a 15 yard penalty for an incomplete forward pass). He was among those to figure out that the shape and laces enable a skilled player to master directing spirals into narrow windows near moving targets. Throwing the ball at all was considered "sissy" early in the last century.

As much as this was panned at the time, more for bad timing than anything else, I’d like to see this tried again at some point. Pooch it the heads of the front guys and hope it bounces enough to be a problem. Obviously Ebner is out but I bet Ryan Allen or even Ghost could do this as well.

A Defiant Goose said:

Idk why people keep bashing the kick. It was a good idea, just not executed perfectly. The idea is that if you roll the ball rather than bounce it, it's more predictable AND slower so your team can keep up with it so that when it hits the 10 yard mark it's a 50 50 ball. It just didn't go the 10 yards.

Click to expand...

It's hard to predict the discipline of the defender but if the ball is slowly rolling at him he could camp out at the 10 yard mark and let it roll into his arms. Since he would presumably be on his knees to let the ball roll into his arms if he could do it gracefully he would be down the instant a Patriots player touched him so there would be no way to jar the ball out because the play would be dead.

A better onsides kick is to kick it semi deep like over the head of the defenders and race them down from behind with your momentum on the kick when they have to turn their hips are run after it.

They barely onside kick, but I swear I remember him doing the exact same thing before. Just kick the damn ball like the Seattle kicker did against the Packers in the 2014 playoffs.

AndyJohnson said:

Hard to call something that didn’t work once bad when it’s a situation where a 5% success rate would be fantastic.

Click to expand...

Why would Belichick put them in a situation where the success rate was only 5%, when historically, the average recovery rate for expected onside kicks is somewhere between 14-18%

Where are you coming up with the 5% number? What made this situation so much different that it only had a 1/4 to 1/3 chance of being as successful as any other onside kick that took place in an expected situation? Not being sarcastic, just interested in your thoughts as to what variables you saw as being different.

TennisBallHead said:

They barely onside kick, but I swear I remember him doing the exact same thing before. Just kick the damn ball like the Seattle kicker did against the Packers in the 2014 playoffs.

Click to expand...

Actually, Gostkowski led the league in 2015 with 2 recoveries in 2 attempts (not sure about then being expected or surprise, as I cannot remember the situations), and they hadn’t attempted any in 2016.

Point being that he seems to be able to hit the right spot when given the chance, so much like you, Id be curious as to why they decided to try it differently this time around. Perhaps they watched film of someone on Miami’s hands team that tended to overreact at times and they were trying to take advantage? Either way, it sure seemed strange.

TommyBrady12 said:

This was most likely a Joe Judge idea

Click to expand...

And I hope he continues to try out things. It was a low probability situation anyway so why not to try to tip the scales a bit by putting the other team into a position they definitely didnt practice like that.

Defending traditional onsides are among the most practiced things for ST.

For some reason recollect as a kid we used to call an onside kick a "Navy kick", not sure why maybe it was the Navy influence in the town I grew up in(Newport)..

We would take turns practicing that kick...

My guess that this will be reverted to the dustbin of Pats plays that will never be tried again..

jbb9s said:

It's hard to predict the discipline of the defender but if the ball is slowly rolling at him he could camp out at the 10 yard mark and let it roll into his arms. Since he would presumably be on his knees to let the ball roll into his arms if he could do it gracefully he would be down the instant a Patriots player touched him so there would be no way to jar the ball out because the play would be dead.

A better onsides kick is to kick it semi deep like over the head of the defenders and race them down from behind with your momentum on the kick when they have to turn their hips are run after it.

Click to expand...

I've been wondering what would've happened had the ball come to a complete stop before traveling the 10 yds. Would the refs then have whistled the play dead and given Miami the ball anyway? Or would they have ordered a re-kick?

maineman209 said:

Another idea for a trick onside kick ...

The kicker places the ball on the tee, turns his back to it to start stepping off his distance, then "slips" and "accidentally" propels the ball 6-7 yards into the neutral zone. The kicker says "Awww, ****!", laughs and hollers at an opposing player, "Hey! A little help?"

The unsuspecting opposing player graciously picks up the ball and tosses it back to the kicker.

Of course, there's stuff that the refs do before the kick that would prevent this from ever happening, but it's still kinda fun to envision. Some idiot Hollywood director will probably try to use it in a movie, though.

Click to expand...

Opposing player picks up ball and runs it in for a TD.

primetime said:

Opposing player picks up ball and runs it in for a TD.

Click to expand...

Or that.

maineman209 said:

I've been wondering what would've happened had the ball come to a complete stop before traveling the 10 yds. Would the refs then have whistled the play dead and given Miami the ball anyway? Or would they have ordered a re-kick?

Click to expand...

If the ball fails to travel 10 yards, its illegal procedure and a rekick. The second time, the receiving team gets the ball.

maineman209 said:

I've been wondering what would've happened had the ball come to a complete stop before traveling the 10 yds. Would the refs then have whistled the play dead and given Miami the ball anyway? Or would they have ordered a re-kick?

Click to expand...

receiving team gets ball from dead-ball spot plus five yards.

rule:



casebook example:

DarrylS said:

My guess that this will be reverted to the dustbin of Pats plays that will never be tried again..

Click to expand...

Thats what losers do.

If you believe in something you gotta keep refining and working on it. And they believed into whatever the plan was strongly enough to practice it and put it into a gameplan. Again if you expect Judge to pull out something that improves onside kick odds to 80% then you will be disappointed. But even if what they planned to do gives them 10% better odds it would be worth working on it.

PatsFanSince74 said:

Throwing the ball at all was considered "sissy" early in the last century.

Click to expand...

Throwing the ball at all was considered "sissy" in Saturday's Army-Navy game!