2 Questions about KO's inspired by NE/Balt game
 

If this is the correct rule regarding kickoffs: 5. When a kickoff goes out of bounds between the goal lines without being touched by the receiving team, the ball belongs to the receivers 30 yards from the spot of the kick or at the out-of-bounds spot unless the ball went out-of-bounds the first time an onside kick was attempted. In this case, the kicking team is penalized five yards and the ball must be kicked again. ...

1) on the KO from the Baltimore's 35yd line had NE kicked OOB would the penalty choices still have been 30 yards from the spot of the kick or at the out-of-bounds spot?

2) How is an onside kick defined per the rulebook?

The only thing I could think is they could enforce it half the distance to the goal. Even that would be slightly better than the 20. It would have been a good strategy by NE to try to kick it out of bounds around the 5.

Can't help you on this one but it is a good question. Maybe it involves judgement by the officials on the intent of the kick.

REPLY: Just be careful...awarding the receivers the ball 30 yards in advance of the kick is not an award of penalty yardage. It's simply the designation of a succeeding spot. So the "half-the-distance" rule doesn't apply. Think of it this way--awarding penalty yardage always moves the ball closer to the offending team's goal line. This enforcement moves the ball closer to the offended tream's goal line. That's an indication that we're not awarding penalty yardage here.

Thanks. My comment was more of a question than a statement and your point is valid. Try to kick it out at the 5 and you are in great shape either way.

If they kick it OB inside the 10, I'd have them re-kick 5 yards back. The chances they could do that twice are slim and none.

It's not. Judgement call based on colloquial understanding.

In the other cases, team R has the same options as in Fed & NCAA of accepting the result of the play or penalizing 5 yards from previous spot and repeating the down.

In Rugby Union in the case of a kick-off or drop-out directly to touch (out of bounds on a fly), the other team's choices are:

• do-over
• put the ball into scrum at center of line where play was awarded
• accept result -- throw-in, which may even be taken quickly before ref presents choices

Robert

According to the rule above, that is not one of their choices. It's either 30 yards from the free kick line or the spot it went out of bounds (unless it's determined to be an onside kick). The 5-yard re-kick is a high school option though.

Trying to recall what I remember from the NFL rulebook.
If the kick travels 20 yards or less it is called a "short free kick" and some different rules kick in for short free kicks.

NFL Rules: A short free kick is one which is recovered by the kicking team before the ball travels ten yards and is untouched by the receiving team. For the first short free kick: loss of five yards from the previous spot and rekick must be made. Exception: there will not be a rekick inside the last five minutes of the second half. For the second (or more) consecutive short free kick illegally touched: the receiving team takes possession of the ball at the spot of illegal touch or recovery.
Free Kick Out Of Bounds: If the receiving team is last to touch the ball before it goes out of bounds they next put the ball in play at the inbounds spot. If the receiving team is not the last to touch the kick before it goes out of bounds the receivers get the ball 30 yards from the spot of the kick or on the yard line of the out of bounds spot if this spot is less than 30 yards.
Exception: If the ball without going 20 yards, goes out of bounds the first time an onside kick is attempted, the kicking team is penalized five yards and rekick must be made (no declinations), except inside the last five minutes of the second half there will be no rekick. For the second (or more) consecutive onside kick out of bounds or for any onside kick out of bounds inside the last five minutes of the second half: receiving team takes possession of the ball at the out of bounds spot.
As you can see the receiving team does not have options regarding penalties in any of the above situations. This of course is true providing there are no other fouls before or during the kick.

The citation above is a good reason why I like FED rules. Do the NFL guys have an attorney to interpret some of their rules?

A lot of the NFL game officials ARE attorneys!

Think Hochuli. He prepared an excellent paper on penalty enforcement which is a guide used by all NFL officials. It breaks down penalty enforcement in terms which non attorneys can understand.

Cool! Is this document available for geeks like you and me?

The citation is either from their Digest or a FAQ answer. I'm pretty sure that in the official NFL rules team R still has the option of making K repeat the kick with a 5 yard penalty. Otherwise you'd see a lot more deliberate kicking off out of bounds very close to the end of either half.

NCAA is the only major North American football rules code that doesn't make it a positive requirement for the free kick to reach R's line. K can just dub the ball forward (even backward) a short distance and if it comes to rest untouched with nobody attempting to play it, it's as for any other kick, no penalty for short free kick.

Robert

My post was neither from some digest nor a FAQ, it was directly from the NFL rules. What would K have to gain by deliberately kicking the ball out of bounds? If the kick is from the K 30 yard line and the ball goes more than 30 yards before going out of bounds, R gets the ball on the R 40 yard line. If the ball goes less than 30 yards before going out of bounds R gets the ball at the out of bounds spot. This assures R good field position and is why teams do not deliberately kick the ball out of bounds. As I stated before, the rules do not provide an option for kicks out of bounds. Of course this does not preclude R's options if K committed some other foul prior to or during the kick.

Sorry, then. They must be writing them even less rigorously than they used to.

With seconds left, they have only to defend against a scrimmage play instead of an open field kick return play. There are a lot more runbacks that distance for touchdowns than there are scrimmage plays that distance for touchdowns, even though the forward pass isn't legal during a runback. There is no effective "prevent defense" on a kickoff. The next best thing is to kick anywhere but deep, but it amazes me how often they do that too!

There was a long period in Fed rules, as well as a shorter one in NCAA, where the option of making K repeat the down with a distance penalty wasn't there, and in high school there were a number of teams, especially JV, who would simply belt the ball out of bounds on a fly, because they didn't consider it worth their practice time to cover kickoffs.

The situation was even more striking even earlier. Kicking off (at that time from midfield, the 55 yard line) directly out of bounds was penalized as a do-over. Doing it a second time was penalized by forfeiting the kickoff to the other team. If they too kicked off out of bounds twice consecutively (assuming the result of the play was not taken), the first team would scrimmage at midfield. According to Spalding's at the time, this charade was played out repeatedly until the rules were changed.

Robert

The coach who wishes to employ the strategy you suggest in your post gets screwed by the rules. Oh well, life's just not fair.