Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The fair catch kick rule states that, after a player has made a fair catch or has been awarded a fair catch as the result of a penalty such as kick catch interference, their team can attempt a kick from the spot of the catch; [1] [2] the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) rulebook also allows a kick to be made if the down following the fair catch or awarded fair catch ...
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 ...
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.
The team that was trapped in its own end zone, therefore conceding two points to the other team, kicks the ball from its own 20-yard line. This can be a place kick, drop-kick, or punt. In the NFL and high school, a free kick may be taken on the play immediately after a fair catch; see "fair catch kick" below.
Los Angeles Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker made the NFL's first fair-catch free kick field goal in nearly 50 years during his team's win over the Denver Broncos.
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.
It was the first fair-catch kick attempt in the NFL since 2019. “It's my favorite rule in football, and just been trying to get one of those, like every game,” Harbaugh said with a smile postgame.
The Chargers seized the opportunity created when Denver's Tremon Smith committed fair-catch interference on what would have been the final play of the first half when Los Angeles' Derius Davis attempted to field a punt at the Chargers 38. Smith said he was “well aware” of the fair-catch kick rule when the Chargers subsequently lined up for it.