Quote:
Originally Posted by SamG
I saw the play in question. My understanding (I'm not an official, just a fan), there isn't a requirement for the ball to touch the ground before the K team touches it, but by hitting the ground, the ball doesn't go far and pops into the air.
As far as the offsides, watching the replay, I think the officials called the wrong number. There was another player that was 2-3 players down from the called offender that was further off IMO.
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The rules state that the ball has to move 10 yards down field AND touch the ground, in either order.
By kicking the ball into the ground on the typical onsides kick, the kicking team satisfies the touching-the-ground requirement and gets the added bonus of making the ball bounce to a height where it won't be able to be fielded by the receiving team until it crosses ten yards... in theory.
In practice, it takes a lot of practice to execute an onsides kick successfully, and a lot of things can go wrong. Unless you're
a team that only onsides kicks, you'll likely only do it a couple times a season and fail both.
Honestly, I wish the rules could be tweaked a little so that the success rate would be higher. They're exciting plays, if the payoff were better, they would probably be attempted more often.