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The fair catch kick is a rule at the professional and high school levels of American football that allows a team that has just made a fair catch to attempt a free kick [A] from the spot of the catch. The kick must be either a place kick or a drop kick , and if it passes over the crossbar and between the goalposts of the opposing team's goal, a ...
Chargers' Cameron Dicker made a rare fair-catch free-kick field goal from 57 yards out, the longest in NFL history. Only seven free kicks have been successful in the league.
It takes a specific circumstance for an NFL team to try a fair catch free kick. That's why one hadn't been made in almost 50 years. On Thursday night, viewers got a lesson on a little-known rule ...
The NFL only considers kickoffs, safety kicks or onside kicks to be free kicks and specifically states that a fair-catch kick "is not a free kick." There's also this from Rule 10, Section 2 ...
For football obsessives like Harbaugh who relish oddities and unprecedented feats, Dicker's kick was delightful. The seldom-used rule allows a team that has just made a fair catch to try a free kick for three points. The kick is attempted from the line of scrimmage, and the defenders all must stand 10 yards away.
A free-kick (see above) may be taken on the play immediately after any fair catch of a punt. In the NFL, if the receiving team elects to attempt this and time expired during the punt, the half/overtime is extended with an untimed down. The ball must be held on the ground by a member of the kicking team or drop kicked; a tee may not be used.
Only five NFL teams had previously tried the kick in the 21st century, and nobody had successfully executed it since Ray Wersching did it for the San Diego Chargers 48 years ago. Dicker's 57-yarder also was the longest fair-catch kick in NFL history, besting Paul Hornung's 52-yarder for Green Bay in 1964.
NCAA rules on fair catches are similar to NFL and NFHS rules, except it does not have the fair catch kick option, and a fair catch from a kickoff that is caught between the receiving team's goal line and its 25-yard line is a touchback. The NCAA abolished the fair catch in 1950 but reinstated it in 1951 without the fair catch kick option.