Free Kick after Safety
 

Can K try an onside kick on the free kick after a safety?

yes.....you can try on onside kick on any free kick

They sure can. It is the same as any other free kick, except it is from the 20 yard line and they can punt the ball instead of kick it off a tee if they want.

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

What he said. :)

It's legal but I've never heard of it being tried. An on-side kick is risky and, while it's bad to fail and give R the ball around the 50 on a kickoff, it would be suicidal to fail after a safety and give R the ball inside the 30.

end of game situations where your team is down by less than a touchdown with a short amount of time left on the clock makes a team take desperate actions.

Exactly. Not trying it is like going down looking. You'll never hit the ball without swinging. You'll never drain the putt if you leave it short. And you don't need a perfect layup to score a basket.

A tricky variation
 

I think a great 'trick play' would be to fair catch the ball anywhere inside opp. 40 yrd line and elect to free kick. Everyone will be a bit confused, esp. the receivers. They will be mainly looking to see if the ball goes through the uprights. A great time for an on side kick.

Why would you want to do a free kick after a fair catch and do an onside kick when you could put the ball in play via a snap anyway? :confused: You are already on offense, not like a normal KO, when you are giving the ball back to the other team. Play offense and you have the ball, but if you try on onside kick and don't get it, they now have the ball. The only time a team does a FC FK is when there is not enough time to try to score another way.

Plus, K can't advance when they gain possession of the kick, so you are really taking a gamble just to try to get 10-15 yards through recovery of the onside kick.