Free Kick

[Theisey]

Originally posted by chayos
Why are we killing the play? The kicker made no effort to stop. I understand the wind thing. But in those cases the kicker will stop and not kick the ball. In this case the ball falling from the tee and the kick were nearly simultaneous.

In your original post, you said the ball fell off the tee when the kicker was one step away, and here you say nearly simultaneous with the kick. It can't be both.

I doubt the kicker would even notice the ball falling away if it were truly simultaneous. The point being he probably could not stop if it were that close, therefore if you see starting to fall, you kill it for the reaons the others have pointed out.
It's one of those talked about mechanics that I really have not seen in formal print that the official covering the kickoff will do.