Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Are you wondering what a free kick is in the NFL? We got you covered.
At the end of the first half on Thursday night between the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos, NFL history was made off a really strange and obscure rule.
Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker nailed a 57-yard free kick to end the first half, causing many online NFL sickos to rejoice in celebration. But why, you may ask? A free kick is not often utilized in the NFL these days and one hasn’t been made in nearly 50 years, since Ray Wersching did so in 1976.
But what is a free kick? And what’s this about a fair catch kick too?
Well, let’s check out how ForTheWin alumn Nate Scott described the last free kick we saw in the NFL, when the Carolina Panthers missed one in 2019.
A free kick is permitted under an old NFL rule that lets teams have two options once they call for a fair catch. They can either:
- Just take the ball at the line of scrimmage and run a play, which happens the vast, vast majority of the time
- Take a free kick
A free kick is sort of like a field goal, but not really. Players line up a bit more like a kickoff, where everyone on offense must be behind the line of scrimmage when the ball is kicked.
On defense, everyone must be ten yards back. Kickers can either elect to do a kick with a holder, or do a drop kick.
As for why we don’t see free kicks more often in the NFL?
There just aren’t a lot of situations in which they make sense. Most punts are long enough that a field goal would be difficult to execute off a fair catch, and there’s usually enough time on the clock after a punt to make offenses want to get the ball on first down.
You need a confluence of events to happen:
- The punt being fair caught at a reasonable distance for a field goal kicker to make
- Very little time left on the clock
Those two things happened here, so we got a free kick.
And now you know!
