Football Question

I'm not an awful big fan of football so maybe this is a dumb questIon, or a question with an easy answer.

Every team has a kicker, whose only responsibility is to kick the ball downfield after a touchdown or 4th down stop or to kick extra points. Mostly these guys can poot a ball through a tire at 100 yards. They're very good at what they do, as befits a single-purpose player with a huge salary.

So why why why does the kicker kick the ball into the end zone, or through it, nine times out of ten? It gives the opposing team an automatic start at the 20 yard line.

It can't be that hard to drop the ball between the 19 and the 1. These guys can kick a ball anywhere they want it -- is the SIXTY FOOT zone between 1 and 20 somehow off limits?

Maybe the kicking team isn't prepared to tackle a runner? No, that makes no sense.

Maybe the returning team isn't prepared to run the ball? Ridiculous.

I just don't get it.

I have no interest in football, but your question was intriguing enough that I looked up some data on kickoffs in the NFL.

Your "nine out of ten" kicks into the in zone is way off base. And it changes when the kickoff position changes. Here's a description of the kickoff position rule change and some data showing the effects of the change.

You can see the percentage of the time that the ball goes into the end zone, resulting a touchback and movement to the twenty-yard line, compared to the times the ball falls onto the field and is returned.

As to why they would want to kick into the end zone: Simply to prevent the receiving team to run the ball back. I would think it is much easier to get the ball beyond the twenty-yard line when you catch it on the ten-yard line. Remember, the defensive players from the kicking team have to run 45 yards to get to the receivers' twenty-yard line. When they were kicking off from the thirty-yard line, they had to run fifty yards to intercept the ball receiver.

Actually the answer may have presented itself a few minutes ago during the Seattle-Dallas game.  Our star receiver, Lockett, was clocked in mid-field by a blocker.  Knocked him out cold.  He lay unmoving on the tarmac for about five minutes, before they carted him off on a stretcher.

The commentators said that mid-field blocks like this are one of the most dangerous moves in the NFL.  Two 250-lb men colliding at full speed can cause permanent injuries to one or both of them.

There was talk, apparently, of eliminating kick offs for that reason. The interim solution is, as you say, to intentionally give the opposing team a standing start on their own 20. In the next year or two we may see teams going straight to their own twenty on possession, without a kickoff in between.

Quote :

After a period where 84.9 percent of all kickoffs were returned, just 51.5 percent have been returned since 2011. In the 2013 season the return rate fell to 48.0 percent -- likely the first time in NFL history fewer than half of all kickoffs were returned. Teams set a record with 1,309 touchbacks. There were 1,321 touchbacks in the 1994-98 seasons combined.

I think it's a lot less than 48% this year -- more like 10%

Update, it was a different Lockette who was hurt (didn't know we had two).  Has a concussion but otherwise okay though he is out for the season and possibly forever.

Scary seeing both benches empty and EMTs on the field.

I will admit that much of the game of futbol is opaque to me.

Teams run the same plays over and over.  It seems to me, as an outsider, that "running up the middle" is such a low-percentage option that I don't know why anybody tries it.

Much less over and over.

And passes caught near a sideline require that the receiver have control of the ball and touch both feet inside the line.  Yet passes caught near the end zone require only that the ball passes the 0 yard line -- the receiver can fall into the end zone with both feet still outside the end zone, and it's considered a touchdown.  Or fall across a corner of the end zone as long as the ball travels through it.

Sunday's Seahawks game had some truly bizarre calls.  At one point the Dallas quarterback was hit just as he was throwing a pass, so his pass was all wobbly and hit the ground.  A defensive linebacker picked it up and ran it into the end zone, where it was initially ruled a touchdown after a fumble.  Upon review, the officials overruled themselves and called it an incomplete pass instead.  But on the slo-mo, it became apparent the quarterback's arm was not touched -- it really was just a fumble in the midst of a pass.

Or the field goal attempt.  Dallas lined up to kick a field goal and the officials noticed Seattle had too many players on the field.  Initial ruling was automatic first down and some yards toward the goal. Upon review they reversed themselves and let Dallas kick the ball.  That whole play was bonkers.

I played one season of football in junior high, at my father's insistence. I was fat, but not particularly strong or fast so I was put in a defensive tackle position. I was generally clueless where the ball was, and could only listen for the whistle to know when a play was over.

Once, in a game, a guy carrying the ball collided with me and we both fell down. I was credited with a tackle. My ears rang and I was dizzy for a couple hours after that, so I guess I probably had a concussion. I sat the rest of the game out, gratefully.

Both my grandsons play football. They love the game but I fucking hate it for kids.

When the oldest started playing high school football, we bought him a good helmet for about $500. Turned out to be a good investment. Here's an article about one of the players on his team, a kid who is also a life-long friend. A kid on another team in their league died from injuries sustained in a game last year. I have serious doubts as to whether full-contact football should be played by anyone other than professional adults who are aware of the potential for serious injury.

Even "professional adults" should be spared the lifetime of Parkinson's and brain damage. Bring back flag football.

I don't believe Parkinson's is caused by trauma.

I had to play rugger at school. At 12-15, it was ok. Boys like running around and jumping on each other in the mud. Once you got to 16, people started to pay attention, and it got much more dangerous if you weren't physically up to it (and let's face it, 95% of people aren't up to it, at any age).

I was struck by another question today while watching my Seahawks embarrass themselves in Charlotte.

When a receiver catches a ball, he has to touch the ground with BOTH FEET, inside the boundaries of the field, while he has control of the football, for the catch to count -- even if he's in the process of falling down at the time (we had a catch like that).

Yet a runner carrying the ball into the end zone for a touchdown can LEAP over a pile of big sweaty men, and his "penetration" of the "end zone" counts as a TD even if his feet/arms/elbows/knees never touch the tarmac.

Seems an odd contradiction.

Further reflection on the toilet this morning raises some more questions.

If a receiver can be falling down at the time of a catch -- and have no forward progress after the catch -- what's to prevent a quarterback from passing to a player who's already laying on the ground?

If a player can score a touchdown by advancing into the end zone even if his body never touches the Tarmac, is the ball still in play? I know out in the middle of the field (I've seen this happen) a runner can get knocked down, but as long as he maintains control of the ball and his body doesn't touch the ground he is not "down." He can get up from the pig pile and keep running. Therefore, if an end zone play ends with a player on top of a pile of bodies, can somebody else strip the ball away and take it OUT of the end zone?

If a catch is defined as touching the ground inbounds while having control of the ball, what's to keep a defensive player from CARRYING the receiver out of bounds, preventing him from touching down after a leaping sideline catch?

Also, another weirdness that came up a couple weeks ago. We have a player, Richard Sherman, who has shoulder-length dreadlocks. In this one game a tackler grabbed hold of his dreads and pulled him down.

Initially this was ruled an illegal tackle, because the official thought he was pulled down by his jersey -- that is illegal. Yet on review it was apparent he was pulled down by his hair, so they let the tackle stand. Pulling someone down by their hair is perfectly legal.

NoCoPilot wrote:

If a receiver can be falling down at the time of a catch -- and have no forward progress after the catch -- what's to prevent a quarterback from passing to a player who's already laying on the ground?

Nothing - it occasionally happens that a receiver falls down before the ball arrives. If he can catch it, that counts.

NoCoPilot wrote:

If a player can score a touchdown by advancing into the end zone even if his body never touches the Tarmac, is the ball still in play?  I know out in the middle of the field (I've seen this happen) a runner can get knocked down, but as long as he maintains control of the ball and his body doesn't touch the ground he is not "down."  He can get up from the pig pile and keep running.  Therefore, if an end zone play ends with a player on top of a pile of bodies, can somebody else strip the ball away and take it OUT of the end zone?

No. If the ball breaks the plane of the goal line while an attacker has possession, that's a touchdown. The player doesn't even have to go into the end zone himself. If he's close enough, he can reach out with the ball in his hand and score. You see players trying to do this sometimes, when they are being stopped just short of the line.

NoCoPilot wrote:

If a catch is defined as touching the ground inbounds while having control of the ball, what's to keep a defensive player from CARRYING the receiver out of bounds, preventing him from touching down after a leaping sideline catch?

It used to be that if the refs judged that the receiver would have landed in bounds, they could call the catch complete even though he was forced out of bounds while in the air. That rule was changed a few years back, and I think now a defender could indeed carry a receiver off the field. Not that I've seen it done.
About the Force Out Rule in the NFL

Fascinating, captain.

There were several plays, in the games leading up to our ignominious defeat, where referee calls were reviewed and often overturned. The quarterback who was tackled in the midst of a pass, initially ruled as a fumble but overruled as an incomplete pass. The receiver who was a yard out of bounds when he caught the ball, but he dragged his feet as he fell down so they ruled it a completed pass. On review he lost the ball as soon as he (and the tackler) hit the ground so they changed it to an incomplete pass. The receiver who caught the ball one-handed at the back of the end zone, but one of his feet was right on the boundary so they overruled the TD.

Seems like a game of interpretation, often at the hands of officials who seem to favor one team over the other (penalty calls, judgment calls).

Plus, a team's performance can vary so much from week to week that I can't help being cynical about oddsmakers throwing the game.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Seems like a game of interpretation, often at the hands of officials who seem to favor one team over the other (penalty calls, judgment calls).  

Plus, a team's performance can vary so much from week to week that I can't help being cynical about oddsmakers throwing the game.

I can't say I've ever felt that a player was trying to throw a game. I've seen numerous games over the years where the refereeing seemed blatantly biased. That would seem to be the clearest way to fix a result, although the increased use of replay review is making it more challenging.